MAD ARTIST PROFILE

RAY ALMA

“UGOI OF THE MONTH” AUGUST 2005
Part 2 - Adam Cooke Interview with Artist Ray Alma

THE STORY SO FAR: We've learned about Ray's early years, and how his childhood and adolescence were spent drawing figures such as astronauts, dinosaurs and characters from Planet Of The Apes that would come back into his life during his MAD years. We've tripped through Ray's days at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan - with instructors such as Sam Viviano, Joe Orlando, Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman - and seen the ups and downs in the first two decades of Ray's career as an illustrator. Now, let's see what happened when a self-described "snot-nosed little kid from Queens" grew up to become one of the most popular artists to ever contribute to MAD - even though it was far from a charmed start...

ADAM: Tell us about your first MAD job, the Lollapalooza Music Festival spoof "MAD Visits This Year's Blahblahpaloser" (#347, July '96). I understand that your former SVA instructor, Joe Orlando, made the call that led to this scenario.

RAY: That's right - I had kept in touch with Joe on a friendly basis in the intervening years, and by 1995 he had become a liason between DC Comics and MAD, even though his office was on the MAD side of the building. After years of using the same artists over and over again, they decided to actively search for new talent, and they sent out a test page for people to do - it was Ricki Lake interviewing the old guy who advised Clinton during his campaigns, James Carville..

ADAM: Who you wound up drawing in "The Jesse Venturification of U.S. Politics," which appeared in MAD #383 (July '99) three years later.

RAY: Right on. I finished pencilling the page, and I brought it to Joe to show him. He had a ton of things to critique and fix, and he was kind of holding my hand and giving me some perspective before we finally brought it to Nick Meglin and John Ficarra, and they really liked my pencil page. I was SO knocked out by that..."Wow - they liked my work!" And they said, "Go home and ink this - you're on the right track here, and we think this is gonna be good." I brought it home, and I had time to ink it - there was no real rush. But a couple of days later I got a call from Joe, asking if I'd finished inking that test page yet, and I told him - honestly - that I hadn't. He's like, "Don't bother finishing it," and I thought, "Uh-oh, they decided they don't even want me to finish it," and I'm panicking. But Joe said, "We have an actual job for you to do." This is the call I've been waiting YEARS for - I have an assignment for MAD Magazine! So I was just stunned. But then Joe says, "I've got some bad news for you." The bad news was that it was a five-page piece, and while the MAD artists usually had roughly about a week per page, so you'd have about a month and a half to do a five-page piece like this, they were only giving me two weeks.

ADAM: Two weeks? Ouch.

RAY: To top it off, I didn't even have any concept of what this was going to entail. So I get the job, they give me the reference material and the script, and I get the boards laid out by (then-assistant art director) Lenny Brenner. Usually, back then, the artists were drawing the word balloons by hand - they were even cutting and pasting the script and putting the type in, or at least you had to have the balloons set up so that the production department could put the type in. They said, "Look, you're pressed for time - just do your drawings and leave enough room for us to put the word balloons in later." So I did the pencils, the pencils got approved with nobody really looking to see if there WAS enough room for the word balloons, and I was happily toiling away. I even squeezed a little extra time out of them, too, so I was able to finish the whole thing in two-and-a-half, three weeks. And I'm feeling good about it because I delivered it pretty much on time, and I thought it was good enough at the time. But it wasn't until years later that I found out the opposite was the case.

ADAM: What was happening with that "Blahblahpaloser" piece in the meantime?

RAY: Well, the strange thing was that nobody really said anything after I delivered it. Joe was like, "OK, you delivered it, thank you." And a couple of months went by without anybody saying anything. I don't know if I found out from Joe, or if I ended up calling (then-art director) Jonathon Schneider asking, "Um, you guys got anything else for me?" And finally one of them said, "I don't know if you're going to be hearing from us anytime soon." I'm like, "Why, what happened?" And they said, "Well, we had a lot of trouble with the piece you turned in, because you didn't leave enough room for the word balloons." And I thought I did - I thought I was following Lenny's layouts that he had sent me. To this day I still don't even know exactly what went wrong, because when I look at the printed piece, it looks like they had enough room. But I guess they had to finagle some of the proportions to fit the balloons in, or they had to cut some type from the word balloons. All I know for sure is that I drove the production department crazy with this piece, and it was so hard for them to work out, and they were all really mad at me at the time.

ADAM: How did you react to all this?

RAY: I was crestfallen - I thought I had blown my big chance. But in the end, I thought, "It happens - I'm not going to dwell on it." As much as I would have loved to be a regular part of MAD Magazine, it wasn't the end of the world, and my editorial illustration work was going well at the time, so I figured I'd just see what happened from there. But one nice thing that happened with the "Blahblahpaloser" piece was that one of the people I drew - Ron Delsner, the record promoter - was a huge fan of MAD Magazine, and he gave me a call after the article appeared, because he wanted to buy the artwork. He only wanted the page he was on, but I still got a few extra bucks out of it, and started thinking, "You know, maybe there's a market for this, too!"

ADAM: I remember seeing that article when it originally appeared in 1996 and thinking about how you were drawing a lot of people who were appearing in MAD art for the first time - Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, Courtney Love - and the art fit very well with the sharp writing that Desmond Devlin had prepared for the piece. Years later, knowing about all the headaches involved, I still enjoy this snapshot of '90s popular music.

RAY: I remember being impressed with the writing, and I was happy that the piece was so funny. And I do remember that a consideration for them using me at that time was my age - I had heard that part of the reason they launched this talent search was because they wanted some younger people who were more in touch with the pulse of popular culture, so even though I was 31 at the time, I was just a little past Generation X and familiar with a lot of the people who were in the piece. And with Desmond being one of the younger writers, they felt this was a good marriage and something that they wanted to pursue.

ADAM: They must have felt that way when they brought you back in 1999, because three of your first four jobs that year were Devlin projects.

RAY: You know what sucks? When I get MAD pieces, I don't know who the writer is - and I assume it's the same way for the other artists. I'll have to do some detective work, because I'm so curious about it - maybe I can even put the writer in the art for the piece if I know who wrote it, because I'm sure they'd like to be "seen" as well as "heard". But we don't usually know whose work we're illustrating.

ADAM: And looking at a lot of your MAD work, it looks like you enjoy animating the staff and writers into your art and having them make cameos.

RAY: Well, I'm fortunate that I live close to Manhattan, so I can go right to the MAD office to pick up these assignments. I'll read the script right there, and I'll bring my Polaroid camera to get some reference shots. I'll grab one of the people in the production department, and say, "Okay, I want you to make this goofy face." And they LOVE it! I'm actually shocked that after all these years of these people appearing in MAD, when Mort Drucker and Angelo Torres draw them in, that they still get a kick out of being in the piece! They get so excited, and I don't know if they're kidding or not, but they actually get angry when they're NOT in a piece. I go to the office, and it's like, "Hey Alma, how come everyone else was in that last piece except me?" They take it seriously, and actually, a piece I just finished for the Fundalini Pages' "Cover They Didn't Use" feature is a scene that features several of the MAD staffers.

ADAM: We'll look forward to seeing that one in the near future, for sure. Let's trip back to the past for a second, though...We know there was a three-year gap between your troubled first MAD piece and your return to the magazine. What turned things around in your relationship with MAD?

RAY: Right around Hallowe'en 1998, I was walking through the village in Manhattan with my wife Karen, and who do I see coming out of the subway but Sam Viviano. Sam and I had remained friends, and he felt very happy that I was able to make it professionally as an illustrator. So we developed a relationship as colleagues. Anyway, we got to talking about MAD, and I mentioned that MAD hadn't used me since 1996, and by this time I had learned that I had screwed up the production thing. He said he was still doing a lot of work for them, and he liked it, and I swear to you, I said to him jokingly, "You know, you should be the art director over there!" And he laughed it off. But fast-forward a couple of months, and I hear back from Sam: "Guess who's the new art director of MAD Magazine!" And I said "Good for you!" and I wished him luck. So, as it turned out, Sam - being the former teacher and mentor - went to them and said, "You know, I don't think Ray Alma had a fair chance the first time. I think you should give him another chance." So I think he was instrumental in them deciding to gamble on me again. And he REALLY held my hand during the first piece, "The Jesse Venturification Of U.S. Politics" - he wasn't taking any chances, because he had recommended me, and he didn't want to look foolish. He totally guided me through that - God bless him, because he helped me so much, and there were no troubles with that piece whatsoever. And I cracked them up at MAD, because when I delivered the piece, I dropped it off and said, "Well, I guess I'll see you guys in three years," and they got a big charge out of that. And then it became pretty steady after that.

ADAM: Your very next MAD piece was a big one - your first movie satire, spoofing the KISS vanity flick Detroit Rock City in MAD #385 (Sept. '99). Were you jazzed about that assignment?

RAY: Absolutely! I was so excited about doing a movie piece - I thought, "This is GREAT!" And the guy who created the movie is a big MAD fan, so before the movie comes out, he sends MAD so much reference - he was so into being in MAD, and so was the producer, Gene Simmons. So I had everything possible to work from as far as reference, and I even had a copy of the movie, which a lot of the MAD artists can't even get. I've been lucky that I've seen the movie every time I ever did a MAD piece, but I know for a fact that Angelo, Mort and Tom Richmond have done pieces where they have not seen the movie at all, and God bless them for doing as good a job as they can do without seeing the movie. But I got to see the movie. Have you ever seen the movie?

ADAM: I actually haven't seen Detroit Rock City yet. If God is fair and just, I won't ever have the pleasure.

RAY: It is the worst piece of shit! This movie was so awful - I don't know if that gave me extra enthusiasm to stick it to them, but it was lousy. And it's a shame, because I knew the movie wasn't going to be a big hit - if you're doing the parody, you're hoping the movie's going to be a big hit, because the parody winds up getting reprinted years and years from now. But they're never going to reprint "Detroit Rock Sissies" - there's just no interest in it; it was a horrible movie. But it was a fun piece to do, because it was a movie parody, so I tacked as much on there as I could.

ADAM : Desmond Devlin, who wrote the spoof, once told me that he was disappointed that such a great satire emerged from such a forgettable movie. Did the parody register with anyone outside the MAD offices?

RAY: Well, before MAD even ran the parody, Gene Simmons contacted MAD - he wanted to buy the artwork, and the piece hadn't even been published yet! Sight unseen, Gene Simmons wants to buy the art, so MAD calls me about it. I'm not a KISS fan, but I'm impressed by celebrity, so I'm excited about the possibility of talking to Gene Simmons. He calls me, leaves a message on my answering machine, and he's being all funny: "Ray, this is Gene Simmons, I'm interested in the artwork, maybe we can work something' out, I'll trade you my sister or my donkey..." So I called him back, and I gave him a price - it was a standard price range for MAD artwork. I know I'm not Mort Drucker, and I shouldn't be getting more money for original art, but I figure I'll start high and he'll work me down. Turns out Gene Simmons is the CHEAPEST guy you'll ever imagine! He was such a schmuck about the whole thing - it was so insulting, what he was offering. And he's basically giving one reason why I should accept his offer: "Because I'm Gene Simmons!" Also, Marvel had done some KISS comics, and he had bought the art from the Marvel artists for like twenty dollars a page, and I'm like, "This is a whole different situation." So I never sold it to him, and it just strikes me as such a bizarre encounter. I still have the art, and I keep meaning to put it up on EBay just to stick it to Gene Simmons. I don't think a MAD fan would be interested, but I'm sure there's a KISS fan out there who would pay, like, a hundred dollars a page, and then I could call Gene Simmons and go... (Ray gives "Raspberries" over the phone)

ADAM: So you went from that bomb to spoofs on two of the biggest hits of the summer of '99 - Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and American Pie. And the "I'm Enterin' Pie" mini-spoof (MAD #387, Nov. '99) was the first of several art jobs you did concerning teen-oriented fare, culminating in the Dawson's Creek spoof (MAD #392, April '00) which is still a favorite among many MAD Mumblers. What was it like to focus on such youth-driven MAD material?

RAY : I really enjoyed doing a lot of that stuff, because with a MAD job you have the script to follow, but then you have so much creative freedom to pack in the panels with as much visual stuff as you want, so it's really a great creative outlet. I've talked about this with Tom Richmond, because Tom does a great job with those background visual gags as well. At the last MAD Christmas party, we talked about how that's a highlight of doing the piece - cramming the background with as much stuff as possible. So, being familiar with that pop-culture genre allows me more fodder for shoving that stuff in there and making those kind of jokes as much as possible, and hopefully entertaining the fans who were looking at it.

ADAM: That "chicken-fat" approach harkens back to the MAD comic-book days, of course...

RAY: Oh yeah - Will Elder's stuff is so packed with gags. But what comes to mind for me is Angelo's "Incredible Bulk" TV show parody from the '70s, where he had all these superheroes in the background holding up signs - that was such an influence for me, for when I did my stuff. That material was just fantastic.

ADAM: Now, part of the reason I wanted to bring up the teen pop-culture material was because I was talking to MAD writer Arie Kaplan just a couple of days ago, and he brought up four words that will likely perk up your eyebrows: "BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER."

RAY: (Laughs) Well, you know what happened with that piece I did about the WB Network (MAD #390, Feb. '00)? That was the first time I had ever watched the show - I had to watch the show because I was doing the piece - and that's what got me into it! I thought, "This is FANTASTIC!" So from that point on, I was hooked on Buffy. Then again, I also had to watch that other show, 7th Heaven, and I hated that; it was horrible. Felicity, too. But I was so happy that MAD had forced me to watch Buffy - and then I had to do another Buffy-related piece a few years later, for that "Shamazon.com" parody...

ADAM: Ah yes, "When Other Teen Stars Jump On The Young-Adult Novel Bandwagon" by Arie Kaplan (MAD #414, Feb. '02) - with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Melissa Joan Hart in "I Know Who You Did Last Summer!" I remember the angry look on Melissa's face in that bit. Since you brought up Felicity, I also remember your depiction of Keri Russell chopping her hair off in the title art for the WB Network piece.

RAY: I'll take some bows - that was all me. The art direction was "Just draw the characters up in the corner," and there was no specification for what they were doing or what they were going to look like, so it was up to me to try to add something visual. And it turned out that one of her Felicity co-stars used to be the pink Power Ranger in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, so that's why I put her in that outfit. It's amazing what you can discover when you're researching these people for reference.

ADAM: I can't imagine you had a moment as bizarre as Gene Simmons' wheeling-and-dealing, but did any of these hyper-sensitive teen stars ever contact you or comment about your depictions of them in MAD?

RAY: No, but one of the pieces I've been happiest with from that period - the MTV TRL spoof (#399, Nov. '00) - was actually featured in MTV's self-congratulatory TRL retrospective shortly after that issue came out. So for about two seconds, they flash that MAD piece up on MTV, and I'm like, "Hey, my work's on TV!" I taped it, and I freeze-frame it, so I can point it out to people: "Look, there it is!" It was so exciting.

ADAM: That was another great pairing with Des Devlin...and I'll never forget Carson Daly's shifting five-o-clock shadow!

RAY: (Laughs) I was really happy with the inking on that piece, because that's always been an issue with my work in MAD - I've never been the best inker. My black-and-white line work was never as good as a lot of other people's, and it's always something MAD has tried to work with me on. Part of the reason for this trouble is that most of the other work I do is with paint - it's tonal, so it's been a real struggle for me to get a good black-and-white line going.

ADAM: That said, it must have been a bittersweet moment when your art for "MAD's Special Interview With Eminem" (#406, June '01) got the digital coloring treatment from Wildstorm.

RAY: That was another situation where, all of a sudden, I only had two weeks to do it. They were like, "We need this, can you do it?" So I busted it out, and it's not my best work - I really don't like how the whole thing came out, because it was so rushed. Meanwhile, I knew it was going to be a color piece, and they told me to just do it in black and white and don't add too many grey tones, and they were going to send it out to have it colored. I hated how it ended up looking, especially since my inking looked like it was rushed, and also because I was having these inking issues in my previous work at MAD.

COMING UP NEXT.. . Ray Alma gets his DREAM JOB - spoofing the updated "Planet Of The Apes" for MAD! You'll also find out about Ray's more recent work, and hear him talk about his relationships with various MAD colleagues!

STAY TUNED...”CAN YOU STAND THE SUSPENSE”?!?!

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