Nick Cardy & Russ Heath

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to have these two legends autograph some of their work when I met them both a few years back at Dragon Con here in Atlanta. Both artists have done plenty of work in a variety of genres.

As I've always focused on humor I was familiar with Nick Cardy's covers for CRAZY magazine, so it was natural for me to pick one of my favorites for him to sign.

Russ Heath worked on some of the early MAD comics back in the fifties. While perusing my CRACKED back issues I came across this excellent back cover of Smokey The Bear.

CRACKED Cover Reference #3

Here's the final installment of these CRACKED magazine cover reference posts. In the last official "Kulpa/Mega Media" issue and the last "Real" CRACKED magazine as a visual satirical humor magazine. This was without a doubt a huge honor for CRACKED as this cover was painted by non other than the legendary Sci Fi artist Kelly Freas, who had been MAD magazine's cover artist for many years during Norman Mingo's hiatus. Kelly also drew the covers to the 1st half dozen CRAZY magazines by Marvel which came out in the early '70's. With Marie Severin serving as Art Director and a brief appearance by Mort Drucker in issue #3, CRAZY had a certain MAD feel early on, changing quite dramatically with a new cover mascot "Obnoxio" towards the end of its run. My connection to this magazine comes in the great Kent Gamble who did all the CRAZY parodies from issue #20 throughout the end of the run with issue #94, with his cover contributions to The Journal of MADness, THWAK, and CRACKED, as well as some interiors his art continues to inspire me. Check out the THWAK Bonfire of Insanity Collection trade paperback. (Incidentally only a handful of this cover are left - a brand new painting will adorn the cover when the book hits Amazon later).

One can see some elements from both the EXTRA and TIME magazine covers. I thought that Kelly really captured the "goofiness" of both men. Overall a nice cover, and most probably the lat piece of published art that Kelly produced before his death early the following year on Jan 2nd 2005. For a full interview with Kelly Freas and how he came to work at MAD - check out the aforementioned THWAK trade paperback book available on this site.

CRACKED magazine concept art

Check out these two illustrations I did back in 2004. The one to the right with the dunce hat was a kind of a character study as I was trying to decide what the main illustration would be. The other piece was the final concept, taking place in a museum in the form of a parody of the famous statue of "The Thinker" called the "Unthinker". The script was submitted by veteran humor writer Andy Lamberti (CRAZY, CRACKED, WACKO and most recently THWAK) and was a list of what typically stands for DUMB.

As of yet it has never been published but you never know, one of these days?

Initial pencil by Kent Gamble for Trade Paperback

Here's a look behind the scenes at the first pencil draft of the cover. Some minor changes were made, most notably our mascot Stupid Cupid in the front right ended up in more of a horizontal position as he devilishly grilled his hot dog over the roaring flame. The plume of smoke that serves as a backdrop to the THWAK logo was added during the layout process.

Kent Gamble's mastery at capturing likenesses has been serving him well ever since his work with CRAZY magazine starting with issue #20 through to it's final issue #94 in 1983. Kent also did work for WACKO, PARODY, CRACKED, Australian MAD and has been the cover artist for both The Journal of MADness as well as the now defunct MADpanic fanzine.

The crowd scene is made up of just a few of the many THWAK contributors and include (from left to right) Dave Newton, myself, Noel "Scotch" Anderson, Ben Boling, Mike Arnold, Scott Gosar, Buddy Finethy, Kit Lively, Kent Gamble and Marty Hirchak.