Biographie
Mort Todd is an American who has spent his career in comics, animation and entertainment. Mort Todd was born on a date so horrible, the Germans have a word for it: Schicksalstag (Day of Fate). He was raised in America's Honorary Horror State, Maine, where he cultivated a keen interest in all media. As a youth, he started drawing and writing comics and a stint as editor of his camp newspaper foreshadowed his later career. In high school he drew ads and record covers for local clubs and bands and created the Stiv Bators logo still being used for the late Dead Boys solo career.
As a teen, he moved to New York City and began creating the classic Back from the Grave garage punk album covers from Crypt Records. This series is so revered, many record labels created knock-offs and Mort recreated the first cover for a new album from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
Along with Dan Clowes and Rick Altergott he contributed stories and art to the seminal Psycho Comics. He sold his first screenplay for a TV pilot called The Ultimates to a German production company while still a teenager. The pilot was produced, but never distributed and stars a young Dan Clowes as a teen rock 'n' roll superhero. Mort also wrote and penciled some stories for Dan's Lloyd Llewellyn series from Fantagraphics. Around then he started freelancing for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Kitchen Sink the infamous Myron Fass and many other smaller publishers.
He became Editor-in-Chief of Cracked magazine at 23 and worked with legendary artists like John Severin, Bill Ward and Steve Ditko as well as helping start the mainstream careers of Altergott, Clowes and Peter Bagge. A collection of Mort and Dan's Uggly Family strips from Cracked is forthcoming along with an animated series. Todd made headlines by getting renowned artist Don Martin to defect from Mad Magazine after a 32-year career there to join Cracked. Mort helped transform Cracked from a fifth-rate Mad clone into a third-rate one and tripled sales as Mad's steadily shrunk.
He created Monsters Attack!, an EC Comics/Warren Publishing hybrid comic magazine featuring many of the above artists along with Alex Toth, Gene Colan and Gray Morrow. Horror comics were supplemented with articles about movies and included one of the first interviews with director Sam Raimi. At Cracked and Monsters Attack!, Mort wrote and drew stories and did the layouts for every cover.
Mort started his own imprint, AAA, which published the first authorized collection of Bill Ward's pin-ups in W.O.W. (World of Ward) and planned a new Mr. A series by Spider-Man creator Steve Ditko which was never published due to weak pre-sales. AAA also published a bi-lingual humor comic called Pepito with stories by Sabrina the Teen Age Witch creator George Gladir.
Mort later launched a line of music comics called Marvel Music at Marvel Comics, working personally 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. While there he also edited a series of pre-Comics Code horror and giant monster reprints (Curse of the Weird and Monster Menace) from Marvel's storied past and developed the oversized Comic Book by Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi. He also got the Ayn Rand estate to agree to do an Atlas Shrugged graphic novel but unfortunately could not get Ditko to sign on.
As a writer, artist or editor, he has worked at just about every comic book company contributing to a variety of characters from Superman and Spider-Man to licensed characters Barbie and Looney Tunes. Newspaper comic strips Mort has written and drawn include Speed Racer, Rat Fink and Molly the Model. His illustrations have graced many CD covers, magazines, newspapers and ads.
Mort has also had a long career in film, video and animation. He storyboarded many award-winning commercials and he has produced animation for Walt Disney, Sesame Street, CBS, MTV and Comcast including an animated TV pilot featuring Christopher Walken. Recently, Mort was Assistant Director on the live action film Distraction and directed his first live action short, a gangster comedy called A Change of Heart. Mort also has other film projects in the works and is producer of The Diabolikal Super-Kriminal Documentary which had its world premiere in Italy at the Ravenna Nightmare Film Festival in November, 2007 and its US premiere at the San Diego Comic-Con in July, 2009.
Mort'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, Mort 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.
Even more recently Mort has written and illustrated for the new Tales from the Crypt comic series, completed new comic books featuring Lucy Hell, Devilgirl and Mr. Krime. With his long-time collaborator Cliff Mott, Mort has created and directed three new animated cartoons for Playboy.
