Sketch o’the Week

This week’s sketch is a 10 minute warm-up study of my coincidental obsession, Christina Applegate. She’s been in the news recently because of her sudden fight with breast cancer, which it looks like she has beaten. God bless her.

I say “coincidental obsession” because for some bizarre reason the Universe has chosen me to be Christina’s official publication caricature artist. I’ve related this story before after I did her latest sitcom as a parody in MAD. Back in the early 90’s I did the pencil work on a comic book series called “Married… with Children” for NOW Comics, and naturally drew Christina all the time in the books. NOW figured out early on that putting her on the cover sold more copies, so more than a few stories centered around her “Kelly” character.

Fast forward about 15 years and I find myself assigned the art chores on the MAD parody of the TV show “Samantha Who?” starring…? Yep. Christina Applegate. I guess that is not that weird when you think about it, but I can’t help imagining someone on the set bringing a copy of the MAD issue with that parody in to show the cast and crew, and then Christina reacting with a “not this guy again!” groan. Of course, that’s all in my head as I am quire sure she never knew the name of the artist who drew all those comic books issues, nor would she bother to look at the credits of the MAD parody for that matter. I just think it’s funny that of all the cartoonists on the planet, I end up drawing her in both the NOW comic book and in MAD.

It’s worth noting that I am not the only artist to caricature Christina in print. I am sure there have been a number of spot illustrations of her in entertainment magazines or the like, and MAD did a parody of the original “Married… with Children” TV show back in MAD # 292 (circa 1990) with art by current MAD art director Sam Viviano.

Speaking of Sam, he may well be reading this post and thinking “What the hell is Richmond doing writing blog posts about Christina Applegate when he’s behind on his MAD job?!?”. Oops! Gotta go!