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It’s here! Issue #3 of the Hero’s Journey is complete and ready to corrupt your valuable electronic device! Thirty-two pages of wicked good comedy, the complete Kiss & Makeup storyline plus bonus content, is yours to own now now NOW!
Like the feel of paper between your fingers? Buy the print version!
Next Week: The jumbo-sized conclusion to Kiss & Makeup!
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My subscribers get good grub!
My subscribers get goodies that turn their brown eyes blue!
You think I have forgotten all my mothballed projects, but you are wrong! I dust those mothballs every day so they stay nice and fresh and can do their job of preserving the projects they have been sprinkled upon.
One such project is obviously Kobayashi Maru, which I halted three-quarters of the way through its first storyline when I realized that I was tackling too many projects at once. But it is hardly gone for good! I will be debuting the conclusion of the story soon after Deep Fried’s ”Kiss & Makeup’ storyline wraps, and (knock duranium) Kobayashi Maru will return in glory in 2020.
Here’s some fresh sketchbookery from the project. This is “Herbert”, a character who will be introduced in the next storyline. The first person who correctly identifies the Star Trek reference I am employing here (no fair running to Memory Alpha!) will win my coveted “brownie points” award.
After 67 years, MAD magazine is packing it in.
As a client, MAD was the crown jewel of my very thin resume, and cartooning for them has definitely been the high-water mark of my career. I am proud of the features I created for them, and especially proud of the ones that seemed to really hit the public’s funny bone, such as Scooby Don’t and Detective Slow-On-The-Draw.
I’ve also had the rare distinction of helping pull the plug of both of MAD’s ventilators: appearing in the last New York-era issue published out of their Mad-ison Avenue offices, as well as in the eighth and nearly-final issue of the Burbank, CA relaunch that began last year when parent company Warner Bros. moved the operation across the country (a move which did not include almost any of the editorial talent that had steered the ship for decades.)
But even as MAD kicks the bucket, I still managed to scratch one goal off my own bucket list: dropping cameos of my favorite Internet personalities– Mike, Jay and Rich of Red Letter Media— into the background of “The Preposterous Palpatine Plothole” comic that I crafted with my friend and fellow NY MAD alum Jon Bresman. Talk about good timing!
Now, some might say that the common factor in MAD‘s repeated morbidity was my appearing in it, but we all know who really staked the magazine through the heart: Pete Buttigieg.
Just recently, Mayor Pete, in an effort to zing Donald Trump for comparing him to Alfred E. Neuman, told the press that he didn’t get the reference. “I’ll be honest. I had to Google that,” he said, in what was probably number three of the five daily salats he performs to prove his hipster bona fides to the kids. (The guy is nearly 40– he knows who fucking Alfred E. Neuman is.)
Did Buttigieg hand-wave MAD out of existence? If so, the joke is on him. The only thing worse than being in MAD was not being in it. And for a guy who is so earnest about appealing to the youngins, you’d think he’d have been more interested in showing up in MAD. It might have given his run for the White House some much needed traction.
MAD, you cracked Cracked, whacked Wacko, sicked-up on Sick, and, in a rare moment of generosity, helped Crazy get on the meds that have turned their life around. You were the Alpha and Omega of childhood bad taste. We shall not see your like again.
But by the grace of the Neuman, the Kaputnik and the Holy Klutz, I can say honestly and with pride (plus a little dyspepsia): ME NOT WORRIED!!
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Here we go, folks! My next comic book, arriving this Fall, is Peek the Second, the follow-up to my truly, truly bestselling anthology Peek the First! (You know this to be true because you bought a copy, as did so many, many people!)
I have always wanted to continue this series, and its genuine bestsellingness has encouraged me to craft a second volume! This time, not only will you enjoy my work, but also the talents of several of my favorite cartoonists who are illustrating the stories, all of which make fun of the last remaining scraps of the 1980s that have not yet been mocked (which was harder than you think! Robot Chicken has been pretty thorough!)
I will do my utmost to update this strip twice a week, Mondays and Fridays, until it is complete, and then you will buy the dead tree edition! YOU WILL BUY IT UNPROMPTED!!!!
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Recently, I was allowed to barge my way into Mad Magazine’s “Farewell to NYC” Christmas party. The Mad offices are relocating to Burbank, California to be closer to the Warner Brothers HQ, which will allow WB to make terrible movies out of Mad properties just as fast as they make them out of DC comic books! The Mad editorial staff generally prefers lox over sushi, and so have largely decided not to make the move to Cali’. This party was held to close the book on one era of Mad. Now: all hail the new era, where Mad will be delivered in pill form!
Anyway, here are some snaps!
I made sure to keep the exit in sight at all times, just in case Mort Drucker showed up looking for the kilo I promised him in 1983.
Angelo Torres and John Kovaleski, both trying to find the nicest way to tell me that they’d rather lick a plunger than contribute work to my next issue of “PEEK!”
Yours truly with editor and cartoonist Jacob Lambert, who knows how to take any worthless nonsense and make something better of it.
See what I mean?
Here’s Nick Meglin, who confused the “farewell” art book that he was supposed to hand to editor John Ficarra for a menu. (Things got awkward when he asked if the Sergio Aragonés was caught fresh that morning.)
That look you get when Sam Viviano realizes who he has been sending checks to all these years.
Left to right: artists James Warhola, Al Jaffee and Peter Kuper. Al lives his life the way he draws it, a fact I realized when I developed my film negatives. It turns out my photo of him is also a fold-in!
I am creating one of those famous “Ask Me Anything” threads on Reddit, and the Overlords need proof that I am who I sez I am! This blog entry should suffice… until the Republicans start demanding photo ID.
Once this thing goes live I will post the link. Of course, you people could always have Asked Me Anything. I’m… a little depressed that you haven’t, actually.
(Oh! It’s up now! That was fast!) Whoops! I didn’t realize I actually had to hang around to answer the questions! My bad! I will schedule this for later this week and let you all know about it.
UPDATE: Okay! This exciting ego-fest will now be held in Reddit’s IAmA thread on Sunday 11/10 at 5PM EST. I’ll post the direct link again when it is live!
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