Mort Todd

From Hey Kids Comics

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Mort Todd

Real Name
Mort Todd
Gender

Date of Birth
November 9, 1961

Place of Birth
Maine, United States of America

First publication

Unknown





Personal History

Personal History of Mort Todd is unknown.


Professional History

Mort Todd (born November 9, 1961,[1] in Maine), is an American who has spent his career in comics, animation and entertainment, notably as the editor-in-chief of Cracked magazine, and later, Marvel Music. He is the owner of Comicfix, a media company that has developed licensed properties for publishing, film, TV, and animation. As of 2013, he is the creative head of Station A, a video, web and publishing production company.

As a writer, artist or editor, Todd has worked at several comic book companies, contributing to a variety of characters, including Superman and Spider-Man to licensed properties such as Barbie and Looney Tunes. Newspaper comic strips Todd has written and drawn include Speed Racer, Rat Fink, and Molly the Model.[2] His illustrations appear on many CD covers, magazines, newspapers and ads.

Todd has storyboarded commercials and produced animation for Walt Disney, Sesame Street, CBS, MTV, and Comcast, including an animated TV pilot featuring Christopher Walken.[3]

Biography

With Daniel Clowes, Pete Friedrich and Rick Altergott, Mort Todd contributed stories and art to Psycho Comics. He sold his first screenplay for a TV pilot called The Ultimates to a German production company while still a teenager.[citation needed] The pilot was produced, but never distributed, and stars a young Clowes as a teen rock 'n' roll superhero.[citation needed] Mort also wrote and penciled some stories for Clowes' Lloyd Llewellyn series from Fantagraphics. Around then he started freelancing for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Kitchen Sink, Myron Fass, and many other smaller publishers.

In 1985, Todd became editor-in-chief of Cracked magazine. There he signed artist Don Martin after a 32-year career at Mad Magazine.[4] Todd also published some of the earliest mainstream work of Altergott, Clowes, and Peter Bagge.

Todd created the comics magazine Monsters Attack!, which featured horror comics and articles about movies, and included one of the first interviews with director Sam Raimi.[5] Todd wrote and drew stories for Cracked and Monsters Attack!, and did the layouts for every cover.

Todd started his own imprint, AAA, which published the first authorized collection of Bill Ward's pin-ups in W.O.W. (World of Ward). AAA also published a bilingual humor comic called Pepito with stories by writer George Gladir.

Marvel Comics

In 1994, Todd launched a line of music comics called Marvel Music at Marvel Comics, working with such artists as Kiss, Rob Zombie, The Rolling Stones, KRS-One, and the estates of Elvis Presley and Bob Marley. Some of the talent working on these books included Neil Gaiman, Kyle Baker, Dan Barry, Severin, Colan, and Morrow.[6]

While at Marvel, Todd also edited a series of pre-Comics Code horror and giant monster reprints (Curse of the Weird and Monster Menace) from Marvel's past, and developed the oversized Comic Book by Ren & Stimpy-creator John Kricfalusi.

In 2005, Todd rejoined Cracked magazine, this time as a contributing editor, but left after several months.[7]

Todd has written and illustrated for the new Tales from the Crypt comic series, and completed new comic books featuring Lucy Hell, Devilgirl, The Secret Society and Mr. Krime. With his longtime collaborator Cliff Mott, Todd has created and directed three new animated cartoons for Playboy.[8]

Film and TV

Todd was assistant director on the live-action film Distraction,[citation needed] and directed his a live-action short, a gangster comedy called A Change of Heart.[citation needed] He is producer of The Diabolikal Super-Kriminal documentary, which had its world premiere in Italy at the Ravenna Nightmare Film Festival in November 2007,[9] and its U.S. premiere at the San Diego Comic-Con in July, 2009. The film was awarded a Special Mention at the convention and in November, 2011, won the "Golden Lobster" Director's Award at the Portland Maine Film Festival.[10] He has directed Music videos for cartoonist Peter Bagge's Seattle band Can You Imagine?,[11] the psychobilly band Psycho Charger,[12] the Spanish Help Me Devil[13][14] as well as an animated tease for his animated Sadistik: Strip & Kill web series.[15] He also provided some animation for the documentary Arias with a Twist, directed by Bobby Sheehan.[citation needed]

Comicfix and Station A

Todd’s media company, Comicfix, has developed licensed properties for publishing, film, TV, and animation. Besides translating the Sadistik photo novels, developing a live action Sadistik film series and animated web series, Todd is also adapting the Fredric Brown noir novel The Screaming Mimi into a graphic novel and screenplay. Other upcoming comic book projects include Bat Lady and collected editions of Molly the Model, Bob Marley: Tale of the Tuff Gong, All-Protoplasman Color Cavalcade and "The Uggly Family." Recent work includes a comic booklet in the Wilmer Valderrama DVD, The Dead One (aka El Muerto), a CD cover for Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and their European tour poster and videos for his band with Matt Verta-Ray, Heavy Trash.[16] Comicfix also published the three issue run of Holy Terror by Jason Caskey & Phil Hester that was started at Image Comics but was never completed there.

In late 2011, Mort started Station A, a media company in Portland, Maine, that creates print advertising and comics,[17] as well as a live action TV commercial he directed for Nosh Kitchen Bar that stirred a local controversy for its depiction of vegans.[18] as did an animated commercial for Taco Escobarr [17][19]

In July 2012, Mort launched a new weekly humor magazine called VEX.[20]

Bibliography

  • (as Michael Delle-Femine) Monster Party (Cracked digest, volume 2) (Globe Communications, 1987)
  • The Joker's Joke Book (Tom Doherty Associates, 1988) ISBN 0-8125-7125-8
  • Woodstock, 1969-1994 (Marvel Music, 1994) ISBN 0-7851-0075-X — written with Charles Schneider, illustrated by Pat Redding
  • Over 100 Traits of Truly Horrible People: How to Be a Better Person, (Radius Press, 2000) ISBN 0-942154-44-4

References

  1. Miller, John Jackson (June 10, 2005). "Comics Industry Birthdays". Comics Buyer's Guide. Archived from the original on October 29, 2010. Retrieved December 12, 2010. 
  2. "New York Pulse: Golly It's Molly & You Can Meet Her," New York Post (January 29, 2001).
  3. [1] Christopher Walken Lost Cartoon - Sings & Dances youtube.com
  4. "MAD cartoonist Don Martin dies. The humor artist known for wacky words and sick jokes succumbs to cancer at age 68," Salon.com (January 7, 2000).[dead link]
  5. [2] Monsters Attack #4 Contents - Grand Comics Database comics.org
  6. Considine, J.D. "Comics That Rock -- It's Not The New Music Video - Yet - But The Comic Book Has Become A Hot Marketing Tool For Top Names In Rock," The Baltimore Sun (July 10, 1994).
  7. Arnold, Mark. If You're Cracked, You're Happy. 
  8. [3] Bunni Power - Sexy Superhero aniboom.com
  9. "Ravenna Nightmare Film Fest" press release, Stradanove.net (October 25, 2007).
  10. [4] Portland Maine Film Festival announces festival winners mainetoday.com
  11. [5] DRIVE by Can You Imagine? with Peter Bagge, Directed by Mort Todd youtube.com
  12. [6] They Call Him SADISTIK! - Psycho Charger youtube.com
  13. [7] Girls Today Don't Like to Sleep Alone - Help Me Devil youtube.com
  14. [8] Free of Your Spell - Help Me Devil directed by Mort Todd youtube.com
  15. [9] SADISTIK! Strip & Kill Animation Teaser 2011 youtube.com
  16. [10] Heavy Trash "Way Out" Redux youtube.com
  17. 17.0 17.1 [11] station-a.com
  18. [12] Sneaky burger: Nosh tricks vegetarians into eating meat...in a new commercial pressherald.com
  19. [13] Tex-Mex flavors come alive, and kick you right in the pants, at Taco Escobarr themainemag.com
  20. [14] getvex.com

External links

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Mort Todd.
The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Hey Kids Comics, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.



Notes

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Trivia

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See Also

Work History


Official Website

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