Mad's Mort Drucker on cartooning

Ever since I could read, I have admired Mort Drucker's work in Mad. He's the guy who drew the wonderful movie and TV show parodies in the magazine. Until today, I had no idea what he looked like, or what his voice sounded like. Thanks to the magic of the YouTubes, now I know!

It's always interesting to see how an artist sets up his studio, and in this video, we get a good look at Drucker's workplace.

Mort Drucker, world famous caricaturist and humorous illustrator best known for his work in MAD magazine has made an exclusive, never before seen tutorial film about his process and life experiences. Presented and interviewed by Stephen Silver. To watch the 2 hour and 15 minute film go to www.schoolism.com and click on "The Masters Series" banner located on the bottom. The film will debut starting January 20th 2010.

In the Studio with Mort Drucker

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Anonymous

Mort is one of the two great American caricaturists of the 20th century… I forgot the other guy’s name ’cause he’s dead now.
MooseDesign

Awesome.
benher

Argh! It cuts out at the most delicious part!! The brilliant talent that has been pooled together to form the MAD team over the years is far too underrated.
Anonymous

Please remember that MAD is always in caps.
Anonymous

Drucker was always the best. I love how his characters are always in motion — take a look, they’re always shrugging, moving, flinging arms and hands, mouths open and spit flying. He captures people as if they’re in a movie, not a still photo.
Tony Moore

I owe a large part of my interest in cartooning and the techniques i learned in my formative years to the Usual Gang Of Idiots, and Drucker himself was no small part of that.

@#4, the other one you’re possibly thinking of is Jack Davis, widely considered to be THE cartoonist of the later 20th century, though he’s very much NOT dead, and still producing stellar work.
Rick.

Mr. Drucker is a class act all the way.
Stefan Jones

Drucker lived in Syosset on Long Island. He occasionally made visits to the local high school, where my father taught English. I don’t recall which type of class (art? satire? swimming?) he gave his talks to.

In any case, I never got a chance to go to one of these visits!
taj1f

Michael J. Fox said he knew he’d made it when he was caricatured by Mr. Drucker in MAD. I have a lot of fond memories of poring over MAD eating up those TV and Movie parodies. Rock on Mort!
jfrancis

socal artist Marshall Vandruff gave a great internet talk recently via conceptart.org that discussed Mort Drucker’s draftsmanship in some detail.

http://www.marshallart.com/