Caricature Capers Part 1

When I graduated from "Cartooning School", I really didn't  have a plan as to where I would find employment in my chosen field. I naively assumed there were a boat-load of opportunities out there for the extremely talented cartoonist I thought I was at the time. A few visits to various art directors disabused me of this idea. My work just wasn't "good enough", and I didn't have any "experience" or a "reputation". No one would hire me to ply my trade. 

Most creative types would use this kind of situation to re-double their efforts to try to crack into the field. Not me. I curled up and began to envision a career in the fast food industry.

Then one day, I was strolling thru a local tourist trap. when I saw a caricature booth. Here was a group of "artists" doing humorous drawings of eager tourists for what appeared to be pretty good money. After watching the "caricaturists" for a few minutes, I thought, "hey, maybe I can do this, FOR MONEY!" The address for the owners of the booth was posted on the cart, so I contacted them and made an appointment to show off my "portfolio".

Not unsurprisingly, they wanted to  see some examples of my caricatures. This threw me for a bit of a loop, as I had never really done any caricatures before, outside of offensive cartoons of my teachers in high school (Miss Chang, if you're reading this, I DO apologize for that drawing!).

To prepare for my interview, I looked at as many examples of excellent caricaturists as I could find in those pre-internet days. Mainly, I looked at MAD magazine's Mort Drucker and Al Hirschfeld. I quickly realized those guys were waaaaaay too good for me to try to emulate. I ended up just drawing a few caricatures of celebrities from a copy of PEOPLE magazine. 

As it turned out, when I went for my interview, qualities such as "talent", "drawing ability", and, "getting a likeness", were not necessary. All they needed was a monkey who could hold a pen, and do somewhat acceptable drawings. After a quick "in house" test, that involved drawing the owner of the business (who had a big mustache and giant glasses, making him a no-brainer to draw), I was hired.

I was now a professional (meaning I got paid for drawing) CARTOONIST!

Next time: My First Day on the Job.

I Went MAD!

 Any day now, everyone's favorite humor magazine, MAD, will publish their 500th issue!

Back when I was growing up, Mad magazine's cartoonists were a major influence on me. This, of course, is something just about every cartoonist can say. The cartoons of Mort Drucker, Jack Davis, Paul Coker Jr., Al Jaffe, Don Martin, et all, were a big inspiration to a legion of young, wanna-be cartoonists. (Especially Jack Rickard! A big influence on my drawing. Anytime you see me draw a figure with their pinky finger extended, I am channeling Jack!)  Not only were the cartoons drawn so freakin' well, they were really funny too! Every young cartoonist dreamed of someday working for MAD, of one day joining the ranks of the "Usual Gang of Idiots".

Except me. The artists at MAD were just too damn good. Why would they ever need to replace one of them? Not that I didn't have lofty hopes and dreams, but even as a young lad, I could never conceive of the idea that the editors of MAD would ever think enough of my work to say to one of their artists, "Hey, Bob Clarke, thanks for all your good work, but we think this Bill kid is much better than you, goodbye". 

So I never, ever, considered submitting material to MAD, even at the start of my incredibly naive freelance career, when I thought all you did was send in some samples, and art editors would give you all the work you wanted and/or needed. (Note to young cartoonists: It's a little harder than that.)

I did write a lot of fan mail to MAD however, usually questions to the cartoonists, asking about the materials they used in their work, etc. Once in a while, I would illustrate the envelope, perhaps hoping someone would write back  and  tell me how good I was. Sometimes they wrote back and answered my questions, sometimes they didn't. When they wrote back, they were always very gracious and very kind, and even when they didn't, I didn't take it personally. After all, they worked for MAD! They were busy!

One Summer, in 1985, I sent one last letter to MAD. I have no idea what the topic of the letter was, but I do remember that as an afterthought, I doodled a cartoon of publisher William Gaines as a caveman with a dinosaur on the front of the envelope. My letter was never answered, and I went on about my life.

Imagine my surprise, when, 4 years later, I opened an issue of MAD (#291, 12/89) and saw  that my envelope was on their letters page as the envelope of the month! Many thoughts raced through my mind as I looked at my cartoon, among them: "I'm in MAD!", "What took them so long?!", and, "If I had known they  were going to publish this, I would have done a much better drawing!" (The drawing really makes me cringe now. A lot.)

I would love to know the story behind how it took 4 years for my drawing to get published. Knowing the magazine industry as I do now, I'm sure it had to do with some space to fill and my drawing lying around  somewhere.

I don't really care. I was  published in MAD!