Here we go with another Wednesday edition of the excruciatingly embarrassing epistle of eccch that are these newsletters! This week our sketch not only has the blues, but the jazz, gospel, country, rock and pop as well! We wish two true MAD men happy birthday, and reveal a hot cover up ...on with the 'Wretch!
Sketch o'the Week: Ray Charles!
Click here is you are interested in this original sketch
We continue our new "famous blind black musicians" series this week with the late, great Ray Charles! Actually we really could do a series of famous blind black musicians if we wanted to. Ronnie Milsap, Reverend Gary Davis, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Willie Johnson, Blind John Davis, Art Tatum, The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Blind Boys of Mississippi... that would keep me busy for a couple of months! I think we'll cap it off with Brother Ray, though.
This sketch is based on a caricature of him in one of the panels from "The Blues Brothers" parody in CLAPTRAP, and was one of my favorites from the book. Ray Charles was a genuine musical genius who combined elements of jazz, rhythm & blues, gospel, rock, country, and pop music to create multiple unique sounds and write many classic hit songs over a long career.
MAD Birthdays!
March 13th happens to be the birthday of not one but TWO of the most prominent members of MAD Magazine's "Usual Gang of Idiots", Al Jaffee and Sam Viviano!
Al would have been 103 today, if he wouldn't have been so inconsiderate as to have only lived to age 102. Seriously though, when Al passed MAD lost arguably its most creative and unique voice. I wrote about Al on my blog at that time, so read that here if you missed it. Al was a true one of a kind cartooning giant. Happy birthday, Mr. Jaffee!
But March 13th didn't just bring us Al! Also celebrating a birthday today, and being a lot more accommodating as to not be dead, is longtime MAD artist and eventual art director Sam Viviano, who is 71 today!
Last week I told the story about how I "broke into MAD", but I didn't emphasize how important Sam was not just in my getting a chance at MAD, but in mentoring and teaching me along the way in my time with the magazine.
Sam is a rare bird when it comes to visual artists. You might think that anyone who can draw and compose a piece of art as well as he could as an illustrator would automatically make a great art director. You'd be wrong. It's actually a rare thing that an artist can step into the world of visual design and direct the work of others with success. Most artists do what they do instinctively and find it hard to explain to others why they make certain decisions, let alone direct others in ways that elevate the work being done without shoehorning them into the narrow focus of they way the artist now acting as art director would do it. Good art directors recognizes what an artist does well and plays to those strengths, but can also steer them towards a better result without stepping on their toes. That's not easy, and Sam was great at it. He absolutely made me a better illustrator not just in his direction on individual pieces, but by teaching me to be a better problem solver and artist on my own through that direction. Part of that, at least for me, was because he had walked the walk doing art for MAD for decades before he took the art director job. He spoke from experience at the drawing board and not just as an art director.
When I first started with MAD I felt on of the big weaknesses in my work was my inking. I hadn't really done much inking in my career thus far and I had never had any real instruction in it. Books only teach you so much, and this was early 2001 when endless YouTube tutorial video's were still a thing of the future. I called Sam and offered to pay him a fee to conduct a one-on-one inking workshop with me. I would fly out to New York, and he and I would spend a day together where he would teach me about inking. Sam agreed.
I remember I had just finished doing the art for MAD's parody of "Tomb Raider", so I brought along a piece of board with a couple of the panels from that job redrawn in pencil and ready to ink. Sam and I spend a long day in his studio where he showed me his approach to inking, both inking a little on those sample "Tomb Raider" pencils and watching me ink on them. He also did a sample piece of Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow from "Shakespeare in Love". He also showed me how he colored his inks using Dr. Martin dyes. I still have that piece of art from our workshop:
Sam has been a tremendous mentor for me over the years, and a good friend. Happy Birthday, Sam!
A MAD Sneak Peek!
I did the art of the next cover of MAD, which is #37 and themed around stand up comedy. Here's a sneak peek of the cover. Don't share this around because it hasn't been officially released yet. The issue will drop in the next few weeks.
This is done in my “colored line” style, which has become my go to look for MAD covers. It’s a unique look that isn’t really a full painting and not really a full linear comic style cartoon look, and not something other artists do, so it’s kind of my own thing…which is cool.
Final 2024 Workshop Lineup!
I just announced my last 2024 workshop date, Boston! I also had to change the dates for the Seattle workshop. Here's the final lineup of this year:
So, if you want to take one of my workshops in 2024, these are your options! I'm literally spanning the entire USA from corner to corner and top to bottom, so there is one relatively near you. Grab a spot while they are still available!
Always enjoy reading your thoughts and updates on your work. After all who better for it to come from then you!