www.nrm.org/madmagazine
Recorded: June 21, 2024
Norman Rockwell Museum
Stockbridge, MA
A conversation about MAD Magazine’s impact on artists and writers working today. Join cartoonist, illustrator, and performer Emily Flake and cartoonist and comedian Jason Chatfield for a lively program exploring the impact MAD magazine has had on a younger generation of artists and writers. Together Flake and Chatfield will share stories about their experiences reading MAD as kids and later what it was like to be contributors to this influential and beloved magazine. The presenters will delve into some of their favorite MAD signature features including Spy vs. Spy, MAD Fold-ins, Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions, the Marginals, and The Strip Club. The conversation will also trace the importance of MAD as a space for cultural critique and irreverent satire that continues to inspire their work today.
Emily Flake is a cartoonist and writer whose work is currently featured in What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of Mad Magazine. Flake is a regular contributor to The New Yorker. She is the author of Joke in a Box: How to Write and Draw Jokes, a creativity deck. Her previous books include: That Was Awkward: the Art and Etiquette of the Awkward Hug and Mama Tried: Dispatches from the Seamy Underbelly of Modern Parenting. She is the founder and proprietor of St. Nell’s Humor Writing Residency, located in Williamsport, PA.
Jason Chatfield is an Australian cartoonist, author, and comedian based in New York. He is a past President of the National Cartoonists Society and Australian Cartoonists Association. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Weekly Humorist, American Bystander, Wired, Esquire, Air Mail, Variety, and, of course, MAD. For 16 years he was Australia’s most widely syndicated cartoonist, producing the iconic syndicated 102-year-old comic strip Ginger Meggs. He is the portrait illustrator for Waking Up, the award-winning meditation app created by Sam Harris. His art has been exhibited in France, the UK, Australia, and all over the United States. His illustration work has been published through Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, Penguin Random House, Humorist Books, Scribe Media, and Libra Press.