Madly Mine, and now Yours.

When I first got into the funnybook business, well over sixty years ago…back in what we used to call “The Golden Age”, I had one dream and one dream only:  to someday work for Mad Magazine.  Of course, sixty years ago, Mad would have been two years in the future, but I was nothing if not precocious, and forward thinking.

So, just to show off, I’m running some of my Mad artwork on da homeblog, from time to time, and perhaps one or two of my strips from the late, lamented National Lampoon.  Today we see some more of the GREATEST COMICS OF THE DECADE covers, created for Mad’s San Diego Comic Convention promo of last year.   (I wish I could run the entire article, which was written by Evan Dorkin, but copyright issues prevent me!).   Here’s the rough work, and the final art on two more of these…

The rough was meant to look like an old Superman annual cover,  with captions suggesting how dull all of it was to see again and again.  The editor eventually opted for one image, and I wrote some cover copy to go with it.  Below is the final.

And here’s the rough work, and then final art for the X-Men cover for the same article.  I thought the casual body language of the characters sitting around the kitchen came off fairly well for so small a drawing (The originals for all of these are about eight inches tall, and the sketch itself is probably only three inches high!)  That’s probably size-as for the upload to the right.  I often find that drawing the rough sketch so tiny is the best way to make sure everything “reads” when it’s printed down at the small size in the final article.    Down below is the final, coloured version of the faux cover.  See you later with a few more of these…

Ty the Guy

Wow, I was clearly the reference for the busty babe in the Superman cover–right, honey?  Right?

Keiren