Sergio Aragonés Interview

Running Press has produced a substantive, massive hardcover MAD'S GREATEST ARTISTS SERGIO ARAGONES -- well worth space on your personal cartoon library shelf.

The Onion's A.V. Club scribe Sam Adams presents a well-informed and fun interview with master cartoonist Sergio Aragonés who, according to the writer, did the interview, "without putting down his pen."

On the first time he saw MAD Magazine:

"I was in high school when I saw it. I couldn’t believe it. It was sort of, 'Oh my God, what is this?' That was in Mexico. When I saw it, it just blew my mind. I was already in high school, and in my first tries with cartooning. So when I saw Mad, I was like, 'If this is the quality of the work, I really get better fast! There is no way I’m going to make it if I continue to do the things that I’m doing.' So those type of cartoons to me were really eye-opening, not only as a reader, but as a future cartoonist."

It's all here.

Al Jaffee Interview in Mother Jones

MAD Magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee is interviewed by Michael Mechanic for Mother Jones magazine. The occasion: the publication of AL JAFFEE'S MAD LIFE, a memoir written by Mary-Lou Weisman ("She's an author and a more high-brow literary type."), with drawings by the Reuben Award winning Mr. Jaffee, natch! The book is due out from HarperCollins, in hardcover and eBook formats, on Tuesday, September 28th.

A MAD regular since 1955, Al recounts the life of a freelancer, then and now:

"No one knew that Mad was going to go on for 50 or 60 years. I figured, 'All right, I'll do the best I can with Mad for as long as it lasts.' When you live from freelance check to freelance check, your mind is always on 'What's the next piece I'm going to write, or draw, that'll pay this month's rent?' And so going out to play ball with my kids was a low priority."

His observations of adults fed his later writing:

"It doesn't take a brilliant mind to notice that adults are telling you what to do and then they do the opposite—I mean, I can't recall every stupid thing that adults were doing when I was six or seven. Some of it was the religious restrictions, where there were certain things that you were allowed to do and certain things that you weren't allowed to do, and I couldn't make sense of those things."

The rest is here.

Jack Davis Album Covers

There is so much to love in a Jack Davis drawing: the energy, those crazy caricatures, how alive those pen lines are. These are works of art to linger over in awe. The Hairy Green Eyeball blog shares some of his grand album cover art from back in the days of LPs. Go look.

Why Is MoCCA's Forthcoming Al Jaffee Exhibit Funded via Kickstarter?

Tom Spurgeon asks why the upcoming Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art's Al Jaffee exhibit is being funded by Kickstarter. He not only asks the question, he contacted MoCCA Chairman Ellen Abramowitz.

"This show was presented to us on relatively short notice and Kickstarter is an ideal vehicle for raising funds for small, popular projects in a brief time frame."

Funding for museums is always an uphill battle, and this is the first time I've seen Kickstarter used for a gallery show for a name institution (although I am willing to bet there may have been others).

Al sure is very worthy of a retrospective, regardless!

Related: A NY Times 2008 profile of Mr. Jaffee (and scroll down for the multimedia MAD fold-ins!).

Video: Sundance's "Strokes of Genius" series: Al Jaffee and Sergio Aragones

"This is an homage to two of my favorite artists. The great geniuses of MAD Magazine: Sergio Aragones and Al Jaffee. These two guys were thinkers, "imaginers," and writers and wonderful artists in the history of humor." - from Steve Brodner's introduction.

Here are 4 short videos about two of the seminal "Usual Gang of Idiots" from MAD Magazine: Al Jaffee and Sergio Aragones.

Steve Brodner hosts these segments, produced by Sundance, with direction by Gail Levin. These are worth watching, not only for the cartoonists themselves, but also to watch Brodner draw caricatures of some of these great MAD men.

Al Jaffee



Al Jaffee's SNAPPY ANSWERS TO STUPID QUESTIONS



Sergio Aragones



Sergio Aragones on Pantomime



Big hat tip to Jelena Kovacevic! Thanks, Jelena!

New Sergio Aragones MAD Cartoon Collection

Ooh! Tom Richmond has all the information here.

While this isn't ALL of his great cartoons for MAD, it's a good beginning in a 272 page hardcover format. Tom says that if they were to reprint all of Mr. Aragones' drawings, there would be over 15,000 for Running Press to contend with. How many slipcased volumes would that be?

Don Martin

Like a lot of people, I learned to draw from copying other cartoonists. One of the cartoonists I loved was Don Martin. He was part of the Mount Olympus of cartoonists (and still is). When I was a kid, I copied his work at home and I learned how to draw the Don Martin guys with their big ears and tongues wagging outta their mouths in my school notebooks when I should have been taking notes. It helped cement my burgeoning rep as "the guy who can draw" in school.

It seemed like every class had one or more people who could draw a passable "Joe Fonebone" or a "Captain Klutz." Martin was a seminal influence.

Hairy Green Eyeball II gives us some scans from Mr. Martin's post-MAD work: the short lived DON MARTIN MAGAZINE. He also reminds us that the big, 2 volume set THE COMPLETELY MAD DON MARTIN, originally priced at $150 is now remaindered at something cuckoo like $25.00.

DON MARTIN MAGAZINE © 1993 Don Martin

Oh, and don't forget about the one and only Don Martin Dictionary with entries like these:

• Ack gak gark! Man having a heart attack.
• Blorf breedeet: Gagged man trying to talk.
• Clink cloink bzzt: Putting money in Vend-O-Hair machine.
• Grunch grunch gashlikt! Sculptor pressing thumbs into man’s head
• Snap ploobadoof: Wonder Woman releasing her Amazon brassiere.
• Spa-zunch: Superman swatting a fly on Lois’ back.
• Spaloosh: Mafia informant dumped in river wearing cement shoes.
• Stroinggoink: Olive Oyl falling down a sidewalk grating and being saved by her nose.
• Thwak: Tooth being knocked out of mouth with a hockey puck.
• Tip-tippity tap: Tadpole tap dancing.
• Unklik: Man being released from dungeon wall.

More at the Don Martin Dictionary!

Video: An Afternoon with Jack Davis

Big hat tip to Potrzebie -- where there is a plethora of Davis art to ogle. Go look!

From 1977: 25 Years of MAD Magazine

Above: a 1963 photo of Bill Gaines entering the MAD offices. Poking their heads out of the door are (from top to bottom): Nick Meglin, John Putnam, Al Feldstein, Leonard Brenner, Nelson Tirado, and Jerry De Fuccio.

I'm out of the office or away from the blog, so here's a rerun:

A heartfelt 1977 New York Times Magazine article about MAD's influence on R. Crumb, The Muppets, and the world at large.


From the July 31, 1977 New York Times: "THE 'MAD' GENERATION - After 25 years of perpetuating humor in the jugular vein, the magazine that wised up millions of kids is still a crazy hit" by Tony Hiss (son of Alger) and Jeff Lewis.

Below is page one, which should blow up nice and big for easy reading of the ol' pixels.



Like millions of other boys, I grew up with MAD. In the early 1970s, I distinctly recall making the decision to subscribe (when I realized I could get the mag for less than the cover price of 40 cents if I could save up the dollars), and walking down the shag-carpeted hallway to good ol' Dad, sitting in his chair in the living room, to ask him to make out a check to the good folks at E.C. Publications.


Above: a special painting by Norman Mingo done especially for the Times, so says the article. Let me know if that's not true.

I was pleased to see credit given to Harvey Kurtzman, and there is a hat tip to the circumstances of his leaving the mag after its first 22 issues.

I love the above photo, taken in 1963, of Bill Gaines, in what looks like full samba mode, and some of the MAD staff (from top to bottom in the doorway) Nick Meglin, John Putnam, Al Feldstein, Leonard Brenner, Nelson Tirado and Jerry De Fuccio.


The scan on this is not the greatest. The Times magazine, as of 31 years ago, was rather large and required multiple scans in my poky scanner.

By the way, last week, the Times cut the width of their paper by 1.5 inches. Shrinky, shrinky, shrinky! This makes the Times about the same width as the Wall Street Journal. And this is after raising its price from $1.00 to $1.25 per daily issue. My wallet is going shrinky too.

"Alfred E. Neuman was everything that parents prayed deep-down their kids wouldn't turn into -- and feared they would." Holy cow!


This article made me want to go and read a lot of old MADs.

UPDATE: Mark Evanier responds to this article here.

The Month Before Christmas by Frank Jacobs with Drawings by Don Martin

The Golden Age Comic Book Stories blog hits one out of the part with "The Month Before Christmas" by Frank Jacobs with art by the late, great Don Martin, MAD's "Maddest" Artist! This is from MAD Magazine #132, January 1970. I haven't seen these drawings since I was a kid and I remember them all. Like so much of Mr. Martin's output, these cartoons bored a hole into my young soul.

A large tip o' the hat to Tom Spurgeon.

MAD Magazine Parody by NATIONAL LAMPOON

The Easily Mused Blog scans in a 1971 NATIONAL LAMPOON parody of MAD Magazine.


Hat tip to my friend Sean Kelly! Thanks, Sean!

Video: Will Elder Documentary

Here's a 20 minute documentary with the same title as the 2003 Fantagraphics book: WILL ELDER: THE MAD PLAYBOY OF ART. There is a small site (one page) devoted to the film here. Lots of terrific 1983 footage of Kurtzman, Gaines, Jaffee and others. Not to be missed.

Harvey Kurtzman's Early Gag Cartoons

Found this via a Web search for something else. Which is, of course, the most fun way to find something, isn't it?

Russ Maheras shows us some early gag cartoons by Harvey Kurtzman. All are from 1945 issues of Yank Magazine, when Harvey was twenty years old and in the infantry.

"A mere seven years later, Kurtzman would forever change the way the world viewed itself when he created the iconic satire magazine for E.C. Publications, Mad," notes Russ.

This was new to me, but may have hit the Web when it was first published on Open Salon in August.

Video: Ray Alma

My friend Ray Alma, a humorous illustrator whose work has appeared in Mad Magazine fame, talks to My Latino Voice about his cartooning career.

Video: Jack Davis and Nick Meglin UPDATED

From this past weekend's National Cartoonists Society Southeast Chapter weekend festival (and there promises to be more video to come) - EDIT: here are all the Jack Davis/Nick Meglin videos so far:







Hat tip to Brian Vasilik for all of this. Thanks, Brian.