Friends of THWAK - Santiago "Corne" Cornejo

Argentinian artist Corne has been contributing his great cartoons to a variety of online publications and magazines such as German MAD, CRACKED and THWAK. The majority of his work is in pantomime style very reminiscent of the master cartoonist Sergio Aragones. The above pieces are from CRACKED, THWAK and other sources. Check him out at

http://www.corne.com.ar/final/

Friends of THWAK - Kit Lively

THWAK magazine was truly a venue of self expression for many of the artists that were featured. Although I'm generally a slapstick kind of guy myself, I certainly appreciate some sick and twisted material that may sometimes push the boundaries. Enter artist/writer Kit Lively who truly embodies whacked out insane humor. Take a gander at some of the above material, from MAD magazine, a greeting card, his own book and one of many National Lampoon collections that his work continues to appear in.

Kit started contributing to THWAK starting with issue #2 and has been a regular contributor to everything else I've been happy to have worked on ever since including The THWAK Bonfire of Insanity Collection 128 page trade paperback that can be ordered from you comic store . After taking over as CRACKED co-editor Kits talents once again graced CRACKED's pages after a few year hiatus. As a matter of fact I illustrated one of Kit's premise titled "The Mother of all Shut Up jokes" in issue #364, see earlier post from Sunday March 1st 2009.

To learn more about Kit and order his book visit http://www.kitlively.com/html/

The FROG PRINCE Ivo Astalos

Anyone familiar with German MAD will recognize this artist's work. Ivica Astalos has been contributing to German MAD since the early 70's in a style somewhere between Don Martin and Sergio Aragones. I was first introduced to his work in the mid '70's when my cousin gave me a German MAD while I was visiting my Oma and Opa in Hamburg. I recall that his work was easy to understand since he had a pantomime type style.

In the bottom color piece (sorry the color didn't come out right) the influence of the Don Martin style Frog Prince is immediately evident. I am not sure if this ever saw print. It is one of about 3 that Ivo had e.mailed me some time back. We had been sending each other magazines our work has appeared in and I had the opportunity to enjoy the new millennium German MAD.

As you can see from Ivo's original sketches German MAD has also been on the decline in terms of numbers for quite a while now. I for one hope it does not suffer the same fate that MAD has here and go quarterly.

For a great interview with Ivo Astalos pick up a copy of The Journal of MADness #14. You can also check out Ivo's site to see what he's been up to lately http://www.veggiswelt.de/frittenbudenzauber/