THWAK magazine #1

This is the premiere magazine size issue that came out around July of 2001 with a Winter 2001 interior date. The cover illustration was done a couple of months earlier while I was vacationing in sunny Florida. The original black and white line art was donated to be auctioned off for charity while at one of the larger Comic Conventions in Atlanta. The painting was actually done over a copy of the original and is still part of my archives. My friend Buddy added some airbrush to give a little more perspective.

Initially Anna Nicole Smith was not in the news at the time but when I came up with the cover gag she seemed the natural choice. Here Stupid Cupid has shot an arrow into the "significantly older" gentleman giving him an excuse to "fall in love at 1st sight" while Ms. Smith needed no outside stimulation. This issue continues to sell whenever it pops up on e.bay.

Upon its completion a copy was actually sent to MAD just to say "Hi" and was most probably thrown out immediately! hahah - Although over the years I know that a number of the UGOI have been given copies . As you can see there were 2 slightly different covers. The 1st cover (rare) lacked the black background in the logo (right) the second printing fixed that to help the logo pop as well as a number of interior page changes. The logo font is wide Latin - which should be recognizable to most Don Martin fans as this was the font used in all the titles to his pages in MAD. As mentioned earlier this 1st issue did mimic MAD's use of Departments on each page, with entries such as "Vegetarians Only" to a piece on Cannibals, "MeNoHava Condongo" to a piece on Uncommon Birth Control Methods and "Definitely NOT the Chicken of the Sea" to apiece on Sharks. Although an exercise in fun we discontinued that direction with the 2nd issue.

The beauty of self publishing is that you can keep learning from each and every experience. I certainly feel that way about THWAK as a magazine. We even experimented with the table of contents and the overall layout of the 1st page.