The Ink Stained Wretch #237 5/20/26

We Pity this Sketch, "T" time, and Sports Art!

Here we go with another of the nonsensical, nagging, narcissistic bunch of negativity that are these newsletters! This week’s sketch ain’t got no time for the jibba-jabba, we tell the Mr. T story, revisit some newspaper sports art, and MADness #16... on with the ‘Wretch!

Sketch o’the Week: Mr. T!

Click here if you are interested in this original sketch

“I pity the fool who did this sketch!”

Last week in honor of my 60th birthday I listed sixty things that were important moments in my career/art journey, including this one:

12. Attending San Diego Comic Con as a professional for the first time... and tabling with Mr. T!

That prompted the following question from UK cartoonist Marc Jackson:

“I just read through your 60 list - tell me about tabling with MR.T!!!!”

This didn’t surprise me as Marc did a funny comic starring Mr. T a few years ago called “Mister T & The Fools Of The Future” in his zany and inimitable style (visit here to see his stuff). So, here is the Mr. T story:

I pity the fool who had to hand number 10,000 of these. It wasn’t Mr. T, I can guarantee you that.

You Can Call Me T

Back in the early 90’s I was pencilling the “Married…with Children” comic book for a company called NOW Comics. NOW did a number of licensed property based comics like “The Green Hornet”, “The Real Ghostbusters”, “Speed Racer”, “Terminator” and some others. Mr. T was licensing his name and likeness out for a comic book series called “Mr. T and the T Force”. NOW was printing that book but it was being produced by Neal Adams and his Continuity Studios. Neal wrote and drew the first two issues (I think that’s all he did) and other teams worked on it after that. It only went 10 issues or so.

In 1993 NOW had a booth at San Diego Comic Con, and I was invited to be part of the crew there. It was my first time attending SDCC, so this was pretty exciting. Most of the NOW staff were there including art director Barry Peterson, editor Joan Weis, production artist Patrick Williams, and (I think) publisher Tony Caputo. We were there to promote and sign NOW’s line of comics.

What I didn’t know was that Mr. T was also going to be appearing at the booth to promote his “Mr. T and the T Force” comic until he came walking up and into the booth. Then he proceeded to put on a show…. and I mean a SHOW.

The man had no off switch and certainly no volume control. He was set to “11” the entire time. It was exhausting just being at the booth with him. He stopped people in their tracks and had a huge crowd in front of the booth at all times while he went through his schtick.

He was funny, though. He had about 25 lbs of gold chains around his neck and on the end of one of them was a full sized gold fork, butter knife, and spoon. One of this signature jokes was to hold them up and tell people “YOU CAN CALL ME MR. T, OR YOU CAN CALL ME “T”, OR YOU CAN CALL ME CLUBBER, OR YOU CAN CALL ME B.A. … JUST DON’T CALL ME LATE FOR DINNER!”

He probably told that joke 20 times throughout the day.

Another line he used a lot was was “MY NAME IS MR. T... First name: Mister; middle name: period; last name: T!”

The rest of us just sort of stood back and let this force of nature do his thing. By the end of the day we all looked shell shocked and needed a stiff drink. It was really something to see. I remember him being a nice guy. He made us all feel welcome and part of the show, and not have it be just about him. He hung out with us later and was a lot more subdued…

Photo courtesy of Barry Peterson, circa 1993

This Week’s Random Bit o’Art

There was a time when I did work for the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s sports section now and again. There were really big illustrations that took up most of a full page. This one was for the opening of the 2008 baseball season:

These next ones were full pages that were both the front and back of the sports section in September of 2009 when Brett Favre came to play for the Minnesota Vikings. You would flip the section over for the other “cover”. The idea was no one knew which Brett they would get... the hero, or the bust?

Turns out they got both. Hero in 2009 (but still no Lombardi trophy) and bust in 2010.

MADness #16- More Sports!

Speaking of sports art, here’s another episode of my MAD flashbacks! This one was written by Scott Lieberman and appeared in MAD #421, Sept 2002. If you are interested in reading the full feature and some backstory, visit here.