Potrzebie
Thursday, March 17, 2011
When Russ Jones and I did Flashback magazine in 1972, we ran this art by Mort Drucker on the subscription ad page. It was later reprinted in Mort Drucker's Mad Show-Stoppers (1985). In retrospect, it should have been colored and used for a Flashback cover illustration.
Labels: drucker, flashback, mad
¶ 11:29 AM 0 comments
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Topps #2: Krazy TV
When I was at the Wally Wood Studio in 1967, there was a continual flow of cartoons created for products packaged by Topps Chewing Gum. Soon I was offered a job in the Product Development Department of Topps, which was then located in the old Bush Terminal building in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Taking the subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn each morning was a curious experience, as I soon discovered almost no one lived in Manhattan and worked in Brooklyn. I would ride trains empty except for a few stray social workers. Yet we would pass Manhattan-bound trains packed with hundreds of human sardines squeezed into giant rolling sardine cans.
The first assignment I was given was to create gags for a satirical card series with the working title, Funny TV. In a windowless metal cubicle, I sat at a desk with a flickering florescent lamp and began work using a layout pad, a Rapidograph and colored markers. The second day I started getting headaches, yet the headache would vanish if I stepped into the hallway. Soon I figured out that the headaches happened because the lamp was generating a strobe effect. The headaches went away when I got rid of the lamp.
Each gag had to spoof a specific television series of the late 1960s. Once my color roughs were approved, they were mailed to Mort Drucker or John Severin for finished line art following my layouts. When their inked drawings arrived, they were turned over to the Topps production department along with the color roughs (which were then used as color guides). The cards were eventually issued as a test series with the Funny TV working title changed to Krazy TV.
The use of Drucker and Severin was a calculated move to make the series resemble Mad artwork, and more than a few Topps products were inspired by or imitated certain Mad features. Coincidentally, the March 1967 issue of Mad had a Dick DeBartolo/Jack Davis parody of the TV show Daktari, but I hadn't seen it. The gag I roughed for Daktari was drawn by Drucker.
Notice in the Lazzie card by Severin that the lettering is different on the word "mumps". This is because the line I wrote was, "O.K., Mom! We'll come eat supper as soon as Lazzie finds a cure for cancer!" After the card was inked and lettered, some executive noticed the gagline and decided cancer should not be mentioned on a bubble gum card, so it was altered.
When I was at the Wally Wood Studio in 1967, there was a continual flow of cartoons created for products packaged by Topps Chewing Gum. Soon I was offered a job in the Product Development Department of Topps, which was then located in the old Bush Terminal building in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Taking the subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn each morning was a curious experience, as I soon discovered almost no one lived in Manhattan and worked in Brooklyn. I would ride trains empty except for a few stray social workers. Yet we would pass Manhattan-bound trains packed with hundreds of human sardines squeezed into giant rolling sardine cans.
The first assignment I was given was to create gags for a satirical card series with the working title, Funny TV. In a windowless metal cubicle, I sat at a desk with a flickering florescent lamp and began work using a layout pad, a Rapidograph and colored markers. The second day I started getting headaches, yet the headache would vanish if I stepped into the hallway. Soon I figured out that the headaches happened because the lamp was generating a strobe effect. The headaches went away when I got rid of the lamp.
Each gag had to spoof a specific television series of the late 1960s. Once my color roughs were approved, they were mailed to Mort Drucker or John Severin for finished line art following my layouts. When their inked drawings arrived, they were turned over to the Topps production department along with the color roughs (which were then used as color guides). The cards were eventually issued as a test series with the Funny TV working title changed to Krazy TV.The use of Drucker and Severin was a calculated move to make the series resemble Mad artwork, and more than a few Topps products were inspired by or imitated certain Mad features. Coincidentally, the March 1967 issue of Mad had a Dick DeBartolo/Jack Davis parody of the TV show Daktari, but I hadn't seen it. The gag I roughed for Daktari was drawn by Drucker.
Notice in the Lazzie card by Severin that the lettering is different on the word "mumps". This is because the line I wrote was, "O.K., Mom! We'll come eat supper as soon as Lazzie finds a cure for cancer!" After the card was inked and lettered, some executive noticed the gagline and decided cancer should not be mentioned on a bubble gum card, so it was altered.
Labels: daktari, doctari, drucker, krazy tv, lassie, lazzie, topps
¶ 3:47 AM 4 comments
Sunday, December 23, 2007
What, Me Merry?
Click on title above for Diana Krall's Christmas Songs (2005). (Use right click or Control key to open Diana Krall music in a new window for continuous play while you read below.)
People are always asking me to write more memoir posts, so here's a look back at the 1990s, when I worked at DC Comics in a department headed by the artist Joe Orlando (1927-1998) and shared an office with the writer-editor Daryl Edelman. (See his story in Sex and Guts.)
After Orion Pictures went bankrupt in 1991, they eventually vacated offices at 1325 Avenue of the Americas, so an odd series of synchronous events resulted in Daryl and I working in a huge CEO-type office once occupied by some top Orion exec. It overlooked both the Sheraton and the Hilton, and the wide ledge with railing just outside the windows provided a covert perch for the Secret Service when Bill Clinton stayed in those hotels.
Each year, Joe's department had to devise the DC Comics Christmas card. One year, the idea was to have Charles Vess draw Swamp Thing as a Christmas tree, and during a meeting in Joe's office, James McCann wrote the clever pun, "Season's Greenings," for the card interior. After Mad publisher Bill Gaines died in 1992, Time-Warner eventually decided that Mad should be under the wing of DC Comics, and Joe was given the position of Associate Publisher of Mad.
For the 1994 DC Comics Christmas card, Joe wanted the long-time Mad cartoonist Mort Drucker to draw Alfred E. Neuman as Superman. I came up with the line, "What, Me Merry?" (see reduction of card interior below). Daryl got on the phone to contact Mort Drucker. Then came some problems. When it was all over and the card was printed, I stared at it in disbelief and said, "Daryl, this is really odd. There's nothing here about Christmas. No tree, no wreath, no Santa cap, nothing. We blew it."
Looking at the card recently for the first time in years, I decided to email Daryl and ask him what he recalled about the creation of that card. Here's his memory of the event:
"Drucker would take no direction, and because he was Drucker, we let him do what he wanted. That's why there's nothing about the holidays in the card. I talked to him for a good half-hour on the phone. You were offering suggestions, and I kept shaking my head that he didn't want to do anything we asked. He said he would draw Alfred in a Superman suit, and that was all. I asked if he would at least draw him in a Santa hat. He wouldn't draw the Daily Planet, and that broken window with the backwards lettering was his compromise. We explained the whole episode to Joe, and when the drawing came in, Joe laughed and laughed. He liked it anyway."
Click on title above for Diana Krall's Christmas Songs (2005). (Use right click or Control key to open Diana Krall music in a new window for continuous play while you read below.)
People are always asking me to write more memoir posts, so here's a look back at the 1990s, when I worked at DC Comics in a department headed by the artist Joe Orlando (1927-1998) and shared an office with the writer-editor Daryl Edelman. (See his story in Sex and Guts.)
After Orion Pictures went bankrupt in 1991, they eventually vacated offices at 1325 Avenue of the Americas, so an odd series of synchronous events resulted in Daryl and I working in a huge CEO-type office once occupied by some top Orion exec. It overlooked both the Sheraton and the Hilton, and the wide ledge with railing just outside the windows provided a covert perch for the Secret Service when Bill Clinton stayed in those hotels.
Each year, Joe's department had to devise the DC Comics Christmas card. One year, the idea was to have Charles Vess draw Swamp Thing as a Christmas tree, and during a meeting in Joe's office, James McCann wrote the clever pun, "Season's Greenings," for the card interior. After Mad publisher Bill Gaines died in 1992, Time-Warner eventually decided that Mad should be under the wing of DC Comics, and Joe was given the position of Associate Publisher of Mad.
For the 1994 DC Comics Christmas card, Joe wanted the long-time Mad cartoonist Mort Drucker to draw Alfred E. Neuman as Superman. I came up with the line, "What, Me Merry?" (see reduction of card interior below). Daryl got on the phone to contact Mort Drucker. Then came some problems. When it was all over and the card was printed, I stared at it in disbelief and said, "Daryl, this is really odd. There's nothing here about Christmas. No tree, no wreath, no Santa cap, nothing. We blew it."
Looking at the card recently for the first time in years, I decided to email Daryl and ask him what he recalled about the creation of that card. Here's his memory of the event:
"Drucker would take no direction, and because he was Drucker, we let him do what he wanted. That's why there's nothing about the holidays in the card. I talked to him for a good half-hour on the phone. You were offering suggestions, and I kept shaking my head that he didn't want to do anything we asked. He said he would draw Alfred in a Superman suit, and that was all. I asked if he would at least draw him in a Santa hat. He wouldn't draw the Daily Planet, and that broken window with the backwards lettering was his compromise. We explained the whole episode to Joe, and when the drawing came in, Joe laughed and laughed. He liked it anyway."
Labels: alfred e. neuman, daryl edelman, dc comics, drucker, joe orlando, krall, mad, orion, superman
¶ 12:11 PM 0 comments
