Sunday Mailbag: Signature Look?

Q: After 55 years of experience reading MAD movie & TV spoofs, I have an ability to pinpoint pieces as a Mort Drucker, Joe Orlando, Angelo Torres, Sam Viviano, or Tom Richmond – but only by analyzing a given piece “as a whole”. Whereas, to a casual reader, that ability might be limited to picking out Don Martin by a drawn head, or an Antonio Prohias nose, or an Al Jaffee leap in the air. Is there anything specific about your illustration style that YOU might consider as reasonably-recognizable clues that a given piece has been drawn by Tom Richmond?

A: That’s a good question. It touches on what constitutes a “style” of drawing or art.

All artists have a visual identity to their work. Some of it is superficial in the kind of techniques they use to draw or render images, some of it is just the way they see and represent forms and shapes. In some cases specific elements of an artist’s style become identifying markers. This is especially true of cartoonists, who necessarily simplify their visual representations of real world elements through linework. A foot drawn by Jack Davis was instantly identifiable as his work. With Mort Drucker, the way he drew hands was unique and a dead giveaway that a drawing was his. However I could probably identify a Mort or Jack drawing from a cropped portion of a single image even if it contained no feet or hands. Their linework alone was enough to identify if a piece of art was theirs. Like you I could also instantly identify the work of Angelo Torres, Sam Viviano, or any of the classic MAD artists from any single panel of theirs. I would not be looking for a certain type of hand or anything specific. Each of those artists has a certain look that is unmistakable.

All that said… No, I can’t think of anything in particular that would identify my art in that same way. I don’t think I have any “trademark” visual clues in the same way Jack had feet or Mort had hands. I think I am too close to it to be objective. I just draw and the end result is the end result. I’m sure it was the same with Mort or Jack. I doubt when Jack was drawing a shoe he was thinking “I’ve got to do one of my trademark shoes here.” He was just drawing. I think anyone who has read MAD regularly in the last two decades would be able to identify my work via a single panel, but I can’t think of anything specific that they would point to. My work has a “look”, just like any cartoonist’s work does.

Sorry I don’t have any answer for you. That’s a question for others. I’d certainly be curious if there was some kind of specific element in my work that one would consider a “trademark”.

Thanks to Alan Rosanski for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!