Mort Todd[1] (born Michael Delle-Femine, November 9, 1961)[2] is an American writer and media entrepreneur, best known as an editor-in-chief of Cracked magazine, and later, Marvel Music. He is owner of Comicfix, a media company that has developed licensed properties.
As a writer, artist or editor, Todd has worked at several comic book companies, contributing to characters including Superman and Spider-Man, and to licensed properties such as Barbie and Looney Tunes. His illustrations appear on CD covers, magazines, newspapers, and print advertisements.
Since 1983, he illustrated all eight volumes of Back from the Grave (Crypt Records), a compilation series of obscure proto-punk rock from the 1960s. The original art to the cover of Volume One is on permanent display at the Cornell University Punk Archive Collection.[3]
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.[citation needed]
For Globe Communications, Todd created the comics magazine Monsters Attack!,[5] which featured horror comics and articles about movies. It ran five issues (Sept. 1989 - Dec. 1990), with Todd involved with the first four.[6]
Todd launched the 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.[citation needed]
In 2005, Todd rejoined Cracked magazine, this time as a contributing editor, but left after several months.[8]
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 the French/English language "Mr. Krime", the last written by Martyrs of Pop's Jean-Emmanuel Dubois. With his longtime collaborator Cliff Mott, Todd has created and directed three animated cartoons for Playboy.[9]
Todd was assistant director on the live-action film Distraction,[11] and directed his first 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,[12] and its U.S. premiere at 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.[13] He has directed music videos for cartoonist Peter Bagge's Seattle band Can You Imagine?,[14] the psychobilly band Psycho Charger,[15] the Spanish Help Me Devil[16][17] as well as an animated tease for his animated Sadistik: Strip & Kill web series.[18] He also provided some animation for the documentary Arias with a Twist, directed by Bobby Sheehan.[citation needed]
On April 1, 2013, Todd perpetrated a hoax with the supposed discovery of a trove of 1950s horror comics from the fictitious Zeus Comics.[25][26] The following day he announced it as a hoax to promote a publishing project.[27]
Beginning in 2014, Comicfix began publishing The Charlton Arrow.[28] As more and more creators got involved, including some original Charlton Comics veterans, the publication became a color comic and moved to the Charlton Neo imprint where Mort became publisher and editor-in-chief.[29]
ACE Comics
In 2013, Mort Todd relaunched ACE Comics with publisher Ron Frantz, who had published the line in the 1980s.[30] Todd had contributed to ACE in 1987, collaborating on the comic Return of the Skyman with legendary illustrator Steve Ditko.[31]
The first new ACE Comics release was The Return of the Original Skyman Pencil Portfolio, advertised as a 25th Anniversary Collectors’ Edition. It is unique in that the original pencil pages of artist Steve Ditko are printed next to the finished ink pages embellished by Rick Altergott.[32]
The second title was Kill the Face!, reprinting the revival of the Golden Age of Comic Books character The Face, which Frantz released in the 1980s, with story by Joe Gill and art by Ditko with a cover by Alex Toth. As well as editing the book, Todd colored the collected issues, having been originally published in black and white.[33]
(as Michael Delle-Femine) Monster Party (Cracked digest, volume 2) (Globe Communications, 1987)
The Joker's Joke Book (Tom Doherty Associates, 1988) ISBN0-8125-7125-8
Woodstock, 1969-1994 (Marvel Music, 1994) ISBN0-7851-0075-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) ISBN0-942154-44-4
References
^ abBails, Jerry; Ware, Hames, eds. "Delle-Femine, Michael". Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928–1999. Archived from the original on January 3, 2015. {{cite web}}: |first2= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
