Mort Drucker Book Also Now Available!
As long as I am shilling MAD books today, I also just got my copy of MAD’s Greatest Artists: Mort Drucker last week, and it is fantastic.
Mort is a visual genius who influenced generations of cartoonists over fifty years (and counting) of work in MAD. Of course Mort was also one of the most successful freelance humorous illustrators of the 20th century, and his work was just as incredible outside the pages of MAD, but this book concentrates (obviously) on just his MAD work. From his early “Bob and Ray Dept.” art through his defining the movie and TV parodies in the magazine, his covers, and his color work, the only bad thing about this book is the necessity to have left so much out . . . the man did approximately 1,900 pages of art in MAD (that’s just a guess, averaging 4.5 pages in each of the 403 issues he’s appeared in…it might be even more). Throw in an intro by Michael J. Fox, an interview of the artist by longtime MAD editor Nick Meglin, quotes gushing about Mort and his work from the likes of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams and more, and a great pull out vintage poster, and the magic just won’t stop. Even the dust jacket is fantastic, with spot gloss embossing. A fitting tribute to one of the greatest cartoonists ever.
Damn…my bookshelves are starting to creak from the weight of all the great MAD books that have come out in the last two years . . . maybe it’s good the lightness of my wallet is counterbalancing it. Go lighten your wallet and challenge your bookshelves, this one is worth it.
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Tom- I’m a big fan of Mort Drucker also, and went straight to the Amazon page you linked to and ordered the book. Question- did you read the reviews posted there? There is a long one by a guy named P Wagner, and I could swear he’s talking about you when he trashes other MAD parody artists, especially since he also insults books on drawing caricatures. Then I see he’s from Minneapolis, MN… Aren’t you from there. Do you know this guy?
I’m not sure I want to get into it, but yes, I know Pete. Let’s just say the man has an unreasoning and seemingly unending envy and dislike of me. He seems to take every opportunity he can find to denigrate my work, any awards or accolades I receive, and blame me for ruining the live caricature market in Minnesota… but of course he doesn’t have the guts to use my name. Very sad, actually.
On the plus side, I have him to thank for the “Me Gallery”.
I find it interesting in this P Wagner’s review that he says artists since Drucker in Mad have tried to ape Drucker’s style and have done such a horrible job. Then goes on to say that instead of using “how to draw caricature” books such as yours, get this book and look at his style… thus essentially the person would end up aping Drucker’s style.
That just speaks to his total lack of credibility. To say that MAD hires “Drucker clones” is ludicrous. They have always gone out of their way NOT to hire artists who ape the styles of their regulars. You only get work from MAD if you have a style that is original, outside of the inevitable influences from other artists. Only a totally visually illiterate layman would mistake the work of Angelo Torres, Sam Viviano or myself for that of Mort or Jack Davis. They see caricature likenesses drawn in line and set in sequential story form and can’t see a difference.
After googling this guy, his caricature work is really awful! Has he even been published since the 1990’s? How can get off criticizing your work??
Ok, I am going to close down the comments on this one. I really appreciate the support, but honestly this guy’s opinion means nothing to me. I’ll give a little more credit to the opinions of people like Al Jaffee, Sergio Aragones, Jack Davis, and Mort Drucker himself (not to mention the editors of MAD) over that of someone with an obvious personal agenda. It takes all kinds.
This post was about Mort’s great book, not about me or some other party’s personal weirdness towards me. It’s a disservice to Mort to let the comments lead deeper into this. Thanks again for the support.