The Ink Stained Wretch #185 5/14/25

The Ministry of Silly Sketches, Ghostly Commissions, Cartooning Honors, and a MAD sneak peek!

Here we go with another of the goofy, garish, grotesque globs of garbage that are these newsletters! This week our sketch smells of elderberries, we discuss a commission from the Great Beyond, acknowledge an honor from the National Cartoonists Society, and reveal a peek or two from a new piece for MAD...on with the 'Wretch!

Sketch o'the Week: John Cleese!

Click here if you are interested in this original sketch.

And now for something completely different… a new sketch series: the members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus! We start out with the great John Cleese from his immortal skit “The Ministry of Silly Walks”.

I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to think of drawing the guys from Monty Python. They’ve been making me laugh since I was about ten years old. When I was a kid I'd often "camp out" in our basement on weekend nights, sometimes just me and sometimes with neighborhood pals. We'd make a tent out of furniture and blankets, and stay up as late as we could watching TV on an old 13 inch black and white with a “rabbit ears” antennae and a picture that rolled about every minute or so. Late night broadcast TV on weekends was always old movie serials (Flash Gordon, Captain America, etc.) and British comedy shows like Benny Hill (boobs!) and Monty Python. Maybe it was just the accents and delivery, but I laughed until the tears rolled down my face at Monty Python skits ten year old me probably has no business laughing at. As I got older I better understood the jokes and premises, saw and loved the films, and never stopped laughing. Monty Python was one thing I never grew out of.

My premise with these sketches is to pick skits or characters for each Python that are either signature ones for them, or ones that immediately come to mind as my favorites. That's going to be tough, because there are so many. Suggestions welcome!

Spirited Sketching

Back in January I was contacted by talented actor Richie Moriarty, who is currently one of the stars of the CBS sitcom "Ghosts". He wanted to commission me to do a caricature illustration of the cast of the show for him to make prints of as an end of the season cast gift. Season four's filming was wrapping up in only about two weeks, so this would have to be a relatively quick turnaround job... so what else is new??

Richie was a delight to work with. Initially he was looking for a "Hirschfeld-esque" look to the art, but also said he was "very open to my own interpretation". I gently steered him way from having me ape Hirschfeld, showed him some of the "Sketch o'the Week" drawings of other sitcoms casts like "Taxi"

and "WKRP"

as well as a couple of color pieces, and told him I could do something similar in my own style which would (obviously) have a MAD flavor to it. He agreed.

Unfortunately I had never seen the show, so I was unfamiliar with it. Richie provided me with a mountain of reference pics and very detailed descriptions of the characters, their personalities, and specifics on moments each had in the latest season I was to incorporate into the art. I also watched several episodes of season four, so I could wrap my head around how to depict each character. Here's the pencil I sent Richie:

He loved it but did have some art direction for me. Most of it revolved around my caricature of Rose McIver (the lady dancing in the sailor outfit in front). He felt her expression was too "crazed" and instead that she was much more gentle and friendly looking, especially her eyes. Personally I see her as having really intense looking eyes, but that does belie her personality on the show. I was thinking more of her from "iZombie" , a show I did watch back when it was on TV. I tweaked her eyes and smile a bit, and made a few other adjustments to the rest of the image, and sent him a second sketch:

This one was a winner. The original is inked with dip pens and brush on bristol. It's pretty big at 18 x 24. Richie asked me not to share it online until the season finale had aired, since the illustration contained several season four spoilers. I of course capitulated.

The only disappointing part this with this project was he wanted it in only black and white. I think this would have really popped in color. Richie and most of the cast plan on being at San Diego Comic Con to do a show panel, and he wants me to come up and meet them. Maybe I'll paint this up and give him a color print of it there.

An NCS Honor

Last week I was told I have been nominated for a divisional Reuben (aka "Silver" Reuben" award for "Magazine and Newspaper Illustration" from the National Cartoonists Society. The other nominees are my fellow member of the "Usual Gang of Idiots" Johnny Sampson and the phenomenally talented Nick Galifinakis. Oh well. As we losers perpetually say... it's nice to be nominated!

Seriously being nominated for one of these divisional awards really is a great honor. The NCS is a great organization full of incredible talents, and for them to recognize my work is very gratifying. You can se the full list of nominees in all the various divisions here. The Reuben Awards will be held in Boston this year on August 15th. I'll be sure to be there so I can congratulate either Johnny or Nick for winning the award!

A MAD Sneak Peek

Speaking of the Usual Gang, I will have a new piece in the next issue of MAD (#44 dropping in early June). Here are a couple of closely cropped bits from the feature, which I can't tell you anything about!

As you can see, this job is calling for me to duplicate the look of some different genres of comics… this one I could not gently steer away from me aping other artist’s style… that was the whole idea! This was written by my CLAPTRAP cohort Desmond Devlin, and as usual with his work, it’s damn funny.

This is now the second issue in a row I have done something new in. It is looking increasingly like MAD is going to have 12-16 pages of new stuff every issue, which is better than nothing. Start digging into your couch cushions for spare change to buy a copy of MAD #44 at your local comic book store next month!

Talking Nude!

I was a guest on the “Talking Nude” podcast this week. You can listen to the episode here. It turns out that the title “Talking Nude” actually means they do frank, honest “naked” discussions on the show, and do not actually do it naked. No one told me this. Fortunately for Planet Earth this was audio only.

Regular subscriber? That's it for another lame issue of the 'Wretch! Thank you for being a subscriber! As always, if you liked what you saw please share it with others. Remember I'm always looking for feedback, questions for the mailbag, and suggestions for future Sketch o'the Week subjects. Just reply to this email with any of the above, or leave a comment on Substack! And always remember... it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide!