Finding Inspiration: How MAD Influences My Art Today

Picture this: Me, age 8, sprawled on a bunk bed my dad built at our camp (Southern Ontarians call it a "cottage," otherwise, we call it a camp). In my hands? A stack of MAD Magazines taller than my attention span should've allowed.

I devoured every issue I could find—and trust me, there were tons. Mort Drucker's caricatures had me mesmerized. I remember seeing Fleetwood Mac cartoons and thinking, "Wow, they must be really important to make it into MAD." Don Martin's slapstick taught me timing and absurdity. Al Jaffee's fold-in back page? Pure wizardry. I'd stare at it thinking, "HOW did he create this?!" And then there was Sergio Aragonés—the mime of MAD—hiding tiny, wordless cartoons in the margins. I'd flip through pages like a treasure hunt just to find his next gag.

MAD wasn't my only influence, but it was profound. The humour felt effortless, and it lit a fire under me. I started scribbling my own ideas: a long-forgotten strip called "Spike," a rhyme-based comic called "That's Life" (I was just the illustrator), and my one of my favs—Oversized Helmet Man (OHM), a superhero who fought crime with an extra-large helmet. The first version? Poorly drawn. But a local corner store used it as a billboard for years. (Currently working on OHM 2.0 as we speak.) See below for a sneak peak!

Before being released there still is some minor retooling to be done!

Fast-forward to post-university: I'm scribbling Mirror Image on scraps of paper, still figuring out jokes, line work, and how the heck to edit in Photoshop. (Shoutout to The Far Side—that's a whole other blog post.) The original run was short-lived, but I revived it in 2014, assembled it into a book, and decided to retool the whole thing.

Then I pitched it to Chris Vernon, editor of the Brampton Guardian. I was new to the paper and still getting to know him. His exact words? "I get a lot of crappy cartoon strips across my desk. If it's a piece of shit, I'm going to tell you."

I laughed out loud. (Vernon's a character—always has a story.) My response? "I think you're really gonna like it."

24 hours later, he walks into my workspace: "Lay, sign this. You're on the editorial page. You don't get a lot of space, but we're gonna pay you."

My first professional gig in community papers! It ran for more than 14 months! After that, I landed spots in the East York Chronicle, a small Muskoka coffee news paper, the Orangeville Banner, and a few others. I'm thankful for the big break - Thanks Chris!

Otherwise, I'm repurposing Mirror Image into greeting cards, and possibly t-shirts. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I'll always love writing comedy - even if it does come with a big side of cheese.

Cheers - stay in wonder

SLay