Don Martin Advertising

I am personally not that familiar with a lot of company's that Don Martin did any advertising illustration for. Unlike fellow MADmen Jack Davis and Mort Drucker Don's output in this area seems rather sparse. Other than a bubble gum ad (in an earlier post) and a pamphlet for Wild Irish Whisky the above examples are the only others I've seen. I would assume because of his massive popularity in Finland, Germany, Sweden and Norway that there may be many more examples that have not yet surfaced. If anyone has any other examples please share.

Don Martin's "The Bug"

There's no hiding it, Don Martin was and always will be my absolute favorite cartoonist. I, like many others imitated his style as a child and his wacky characters are really what inspired me to draw and create some of my own weirdness.

Over the years I have collected as much Don Martin imagery as I can get my hands on and still continue to find things I never knew existed. There are a couple of great fan sites out there as well as the Don Martin website that announces up upcoming "Completely CRACKED Don Martin". Hopefully this will become a reality for all us fans.

I have decided to start a series on this little blog, dedicated to Don Martin's art. The decision as to what piece to kick it all off with was easy. Just look at the title of my studio and the sound effect in this unpublished piece, most probably from the late '60's or early '70's - my favorite era of Don's style. Enjoy!

Bob Clarke original

A few years ago while perusing around on ebay I unexpectedly came across this great pen and ink illustration done by none other than one of MAD magazine's original UGOI, the multi talented Bob Clarke. It now hangs proudly on my studio wall along with other interesting items. I especially like his "Alfred E. Neuman" shorts!

Mort Drucker Record album artwork

Another extremely prolific MAD magazine artist/illustrator is Mort Drucker (probably one of the caricaturists ever!). Just like Jack Davis, Mort Drucker also did plenty of advertising work. Although he did record album artwork, his output is fairly low compared to that of the afore- mentioned Jack Davis. Enjoy!

Jack Davis LP art

Jack Davis is undoubtedly the most prolific of all the super talented artists whose spectacular work graced the pages of MAD magazine. Jack Davis's action packed panels with characters jumping, running or even standing still signified that they were alive and motion bound. Because of this great exaggerated motion and the ability to capture hilarious likenesses Jack Davis was much sought after to illustrate for many industries and genres. His record LP album artwork is particularly impressive with a continuous stream of covers done from his first in 1957 with The Jazztone Mystery Band, then exploding with movie posters and their subsequent LP covers after "It's a MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD World" in 1963, which virtually established the direction for comedy movie posters from then on. Jack Davis has continued his output, although he has slowed down considerably over the last few years.

The above records were all part of my collection and are just a small sampling of the over at least 75 that he did. For a great reference on the album artwork of Jack Davis check out the magazine FANFARE #5 from 1983 which shows 57 record covers.

Jack Davis in 2003

A couple of pictures from a great exhibit of master cartoonist Jack Davis art at the Atlanta History Center back in '03. Check out earlier posts from last year for full details and more images.

Friends of THWAK - Mike Arnold

I guess Mike Arnold is much more than just a "Friend of THWAK" as although we have known each other less time than many of the other THWAKsters he has been an integral part of not only the brand new THWAK Bonfire of Insanity Collection book which he contributed art to but also laid out, he was also my co-publisher and lay out man for JOKESTER magazine.

This former Sesame Street animator has been freelancing for many years with many top notch clients such as Nickelodeon, Danimals, A&E, General Mills and Entertainment Weekly, just to name a few. Mike and I met during my tenure at CRACKED magazine. http://arnomation.com/

Check out Mike's appearance in MAD #481 Sept 2007 illustrated by non other than caricature superstar Tom Richmond.

Friends of THWAK - Huw Evans

Another terrific and totally offbeat artist & writer that I have had the pleasure of working with is Huw Evans from the great white north (ie Canada!). Huw has been doing commercial graphic art for many years and his work has graced the pages of many different publications.

Shown here are the following: MAD magazine Fundalini pages issue #460 from '05, unpublished Micheal Jackson piece, THWAK and some promotional postcards. Check him out at
http://www.eyecat.com/
and in the brand new THWAK Bonfire of Insanity Collection trade paperback.

You never forget your first time

This cover from Jan 1976 is near and dear to me as it is the 1st time that I had ever seen a MAD magazine, and boy would it profoundly change my world. I was living in Kuwait at the time and had just seen the movie Jaws, hence the immediate recognition when I saw this cover in the window of the bookstore as I was making my way into the Sheraton hotel to have diner with my family.

After reading it I became obsessed with buying each issue as soon as it came out. I was immediately drawn to Don Martin's artwork and that led me to start drawing, initially imitating his characters. I must say that I got pretty good at doing the Don Martin thing (check out the artwork to the Don Martin dictionary posted a few months back on this blog) but then branched out developing my own style over the years.

MAD certainly gave me an education about various political figures, historical occurrences and social issues that I just hadn't learned about in school. Back in the '90's after having moved onto other things through the '80's I started collecting MAD again after seeing MAD About the Sixties at a BDalton's in the mall and resumed drawing. One thing led to another and I started submitting to MAD fanzines and then self publishing my own humor magazine THWAK which led to co-editing MAD's #1 rival CRACKED before working on another couple of projects.

I must say that had I not read MAD I never would have been so driven to be a part of the wonderful heritage of the humor magazine genre that I had enjoyed so much as a child. It has brought me countless hours of fun and I hope that others have enjoyed some of these publications as much as I have.

Sergio Aragones - The fastest Cartoonist on Earth...

Every year for the past few years Jack Davis hosts the "Jack Davis Lecture Series" at his Alma Marta the University of Georgia in Athens, where he honors an artist/cartoonist. Last years recipient of the "Bronze Shoe" award was Atlanta Journal Constitution's cartoonist Mike Luckovich. The award itself looks just like one of Jack Davis's exaggerated boots and according to this year's recipient is pretty heavy. Sergio Aragones has won every major award there is, although he was genuinely touched to receive this from his esteemed colleague at MAD magazine.

I was extremely fortunate to have been able to attend this function and the activities that took place leading up to the event. The day started off with myself and my friend, caricaturist Wade Collins driving about an hr and a half to Athens. After arriving at what we thought was the correct building we promptly realised that we were in fact in the wrong section of the campus. 15 minutes later we arrived at the "Draw done" where members of the Southeast Chapter of the National Cartoonist Society (who meet regularly at our favorite Mellow Mushroom Pizza place and who were involved in the Southern Fried Comics project - see earlier post) and other cartoonists, including Sergio were facing off drawing UGA students. It was a wonderful sight to see students drawing Sergio and he them, in as realistic a style as he could. Wade immediately jumped right in and took his place drawing feverishly. I took the opportunity to mingle and finally met Stay Tooned editor John Reed, who had the foresight to bring a good camera to take the pics you see above (more in a future post on his great publication). During a slow period I also got to hang out with Sergio for a good 15 mins during which time we discussed everything from the current state of MAD magazine, to publishing in general to his own ideas about future projects. I have heard many a person talk about Sergio's approachability and how down to earth he is and every word of it is 100% true. He was unassuming and genuinely interested in differing opinions and other people's work.

After the session ended we all went to lunch together in the Student Union building and then Wade and I drove around town while the rest of the crowd went back to their hotel rooms to rest before the festivities that night. The lecture started at 7pm with Jack Davis presenting Sergio with the Bronze Shoe award and then Sergio talked about his career, how he started drawing cartoons for his classmates in high school and how that led to him selling cartoons locally in Mexico and how he ended up at MAD magazine. Over the last 30 years he has been very active in the comics industry with projects such as PLOP!/GROO/Louder Than Words etc... As a matter of fact one of the GROO trade paperbacks was just about to be released and he was excited about that.

The highlight of the evening was without a doubt watching him draw with the aid of a projector we could all see the amazing speed for which he is so known for. And he was truly incredible. He'd ask the audience for a gag premise and then BOOM! he was off drawing a million miles an hr! WOW - we were all cheering and laughing. It was amazing. When the event was over Jack and Sergio signed whatever people had brought for them to autograph. A bunch more cartoonist and artists that I knew were all there and it was a great kind of reunion. About 30 people were invited to eat at Jack's restaurant in Athens, although unfortunately Wade and I had to bid everyone farewell as we both had prior commitments. We drove back home relishing the great time we had that day and the wonderful memories of meeting another legendary cartoonist.

The Amazing Jack Davis

Back in 2003 we heard that there was to be an exhibit

of Jack Davis's work at the Atlanta History Center and

that on the opening night he would be there himself!

A showing of his work had just concluded in NY so it

was a very special treat
that this exhibit was now back in his home state.

The evening started out with my friend Buddy Finethy and I going for a bite to eat (a bucket of hot wings - if I'm not mistaken) and then on to the center. When we arrived we realised that the majority of the over 200 guests were UGA alumni, many of whom were classmates of his. We also realised that the $50 entrance fee also allowed us to partake in a wonderful buffet. Now we've both never been known to turn down food but for some reason we were too distracted by the variety of amazing paintings and illustrations that were displayed throughout the center.

We caught up with some collector friends who put out the very limited CFAAPA (a quarterly publication for a select group of original art aficionados). We all had the opportunity to meet Jack and he was gracious to sign whatever we had with us. This ranged from books, magazines and record albums to original art. One friend, artist Dave Newton (CRACKED/THWAK/JOKESTER) had a 1950's EC page, upon seeing that Jack remarked that he hadn't seen any of that material in many years. Even when presented with THWAK #3 our monster issue that parodied CREEPY #1 he didn't seem to recollect that piece either.

After some mingling there was a speech and lecture that went over Jack's various accomplishments culminating in a standing ovation for a vast body of work. I mean Jack Davis really has done it all. Not only being a premiere comic book artist, but his work for MAD and about a dozen of its imitators in the '60's while he was away from MAD, work for Coke (which afforded him the opportunity to go to NY in the 1st place!), to his movie poster work, bubble gum cards and ultimately his advertising work. Known as being able to render projects in record time, his every line screams ACTION! Even his signature connotates movement!

Again another humble, down to earth gentleman who has been instrumental in spreading the MADness among the masses even beyond MAD magazine.

Kelly Freas - Sci Fi artist extraordinaire

I had the pleasure of meeting Kelly Freas at Dragon Con in 2001 while promoting THWAK #1. I had seen his name on the guest list and knew that I had to meet him. He was set up a floor above me in a spacious booth with a large array of his fantasy art adorning every square foot of his wall space. The body of his work was huge, as could be seen from the numerous books, calendars, posters and postcards that were available for sale.

Luckily I was able to have about a half an hr to talk with him during which we discussed his coming to MAD after Norman Mingo, his appearance on the backcover of a Journal of MADness issue (check out the JOM pin I'm sporting in the picture!) and one of his favorite paintings of his wife that he had recently done. Incidentally his wife and daughter were both helping at the booth , or should I say running it as she was his manager.

I had specifically brought the above MAD for him to sign and it turned out that this cover had some memories of when he lived in Mexico and how he almost got arrested because the cover depicted gambling. The Comics Journal is issue #225 and depicts 2 iconic characters that kelly painted (for a full interview with Kelly check out the THWAK Bonfire of Insanity Collection book available from this site). Kelly was drawing either himself as Alfred or just a regular Alfred and to this day I am still upset at myself for not having an Alfred E. Neuman face drawn that day but it was out of my price range.

The last time I was involved with this amazing artist was in 2004 with CRACKED when he painted the cover to our final issue #365 (check out earlier post) which he signed and his framed on my wall in my studio along with all the other covers.

What a great humble gentleman and super talented artist and painter he was. He will be missed!

Al Feldstein "THE MAN"

I have had the pleasure of meeting Al Feldstein aka "THE MAN" firstly about 4 years ago at Dragon Con (huge Sci Fi and Comics show) here in Atlanta where he was one of the guests of honor and then about 2 years ago at the Alfred We Hardly Knew Thee exhibit put on by my buddy John Hett (The Journal of MADness" in Michigan (For an in depth account of this exhibit and show check out an earlier post on this blog from March).

While at Dragon Con I was able to talk with Al for about half an hr and discuss my passion for MAD magazine and what an impact it had made on me growing up in Kuwait, leading me to enjoy drawing, and then publishing and editing. He was warm and happy to connect with someone who truly understood what an impact he personally had made on not only those wonderful EC comics of the early 50's but on pop culture as a whole through his editorial leadership at MAD for almost 3 decades. I myself, although I admire Harvey Kurtzman's contribution to satire (it is huge from his "Hey Look" strips to MAD to TRUMP to HUMBUG to HELP to LITTLE ANNIE FANNY) can't help but feel that MAD would most probably have dwindled into obscurity like these other, albeit great works, too specific a commentary to be publications for the masses. It was through editor Feldstein's formulaic approach that America and the world embraced this now iconic magazine through familiarity and education. I know I learned plenty about the world around me just by reading MAD and always knew that every issue would bring no less than the very best in art and writing.

It was while having these great dialogs with him that he signed the above 2 issues of MAD, #29 which marked his debut as Editor (and coincidentally Don Martin's 1st appearance) and #30 which was Alfred's 1st fully rendered image by non other than Norman Mingo, who would become MAD's all time best cover artist and setting the standards to all the amazing talent that would follow him including Kelly Freas, Jack Rickard, Richard Williams and recently the excellent Mark Fredrickson.

The above picture is myself, Al Feldstein, John Hett and Doug Gilford (MAD cover site) - check out cool links on this site.