Michael DelleFemine, the artist and editor (and many other things) who went by the name Mort Todd (among many other names), died in his home in Portland, Maine, on Aug. 24. He was 63. At the time of this writing, Portland police said they were still investigating the exact cause of death but say they have ruled out anything suspicious. A complete medical report is expected to be released shortly.
DelleFemine was a colorful character who played a key role in the early professional careers of a number of artists, including Daniel Clowes and Peter Bagge. He also provided several veteran cartoonists opportunities to work, later in their careers, through the many comics-related projects he concocted. Among their ranks was the notoriously private Steve Ditko, whom DelleFemine befriended and frequently collaborated with.
He leaves behind a body of work that touched virtually every area of the comics world, from early self-published ventures (Psycho Comics), to working for both Marvel and DC, to relaunching a comics franchise (Charlton), to the improbable editorship of a national humor magazine (Cracked). DelleFemine was a born hustler who worked tirelessly to promote whatever project he happened to be working on and had a deep knowledge of the history of comics. He opened the doors for many artists but had his share of detractors too. Several former associates contacted for this article politely declined the invitation to provide memories about him. But, as you can see below, there were many others who happily agreed. One thing is clear: he had a significant impact on the comics community.
While his career in comics was far-reaching, DelleFemine is perhaps best known for his time as the extremely young (23-years-old at the time) editor-in-chief of Cracked magazine (1985-90). At the time, Cracked was viewed by many as the most "successful" of a string of second-rate, pale imitations of MAD magazine, which dominated the adolescent humor market for decades.
"No one was ever a fan of Cracked," Daniel Clowes said in Mark Arnold's two volume If You're CRACKED, You're Happy (2011). "Growing up, my friends — okay, 'friend' — and I used to think of Cracked as a stopgap. We would buy MAD every month, but about two weeks later we would get anxious for new material. We would tell ourselves, 'Okay, we are not going to buy Cracked. Never again!' And we'd hold out for a while, but then as the month dragged on it just became, okay, fuck it. I guess I'll buy Cracked. Then you'd bring it home, and immediately you'd remember, 'Oh yeah, I hate Cracked.'"
During DelleFemine's time at Cracked, sales increased but never to the point of reaching what MAD sold on a monthly basis. He did, however, shake things up. He introduced the world to some of the earliest published work by Clowes, Peter Bagge, Rick Altergott, Bob Fingerman, William Wray and many others. He also brought in veteran artists like Ditko (and many more), convinced John Severin to return to the magazine, and even pulled off the coup of luring legendary artist Don Martin away from MAD to work for Cracked. That last one certainly made news.
"Obtaining Martin is a small coup for Cracked, which began 30 years ago as an imitation of MAD," the Comics Journal reported in December 1987.
At the time, Martin was unhappy with several aspects of his long-time association with MAD, including the fact that MAD had a policy of holding onto all original art. Another factor was that MAD apparently would not let their artists retain control over how their art was used or reused.
"I remember Cracked throwing this big, fancy dinner for Don and Mrs. Martin in an attempt to woo them over to the other side," Clowes said in If You're CRACKED, You're Happy. "Don's wife was really a character. She acted as his agent and was furious about the way MAD had treated him. She thought they paid too little, and she was angry that they wouldn't allow Don to own the rights to his own work. Companies would call Don and ask, 'Can we make a calendar or t-shirts with your work?' And he'd have to say no."
"I got the Martins' number from [their] lawyer and called them up and told them, 'We will give you the same page rate. We will give you your original art back and you'll own the copyright.'" DelleFemine said in If You're CRACKED, You're Happy.
During DelleFemine's time at Cracked, he was successful in raising the perception of the magazine among some readers and those in the industry.
"He turned the magazine around by hiring Don Martin," Lou Silverstone, a longtime MAD writer who joined the Cracked team in 1990, said in If You're CRACKED, You're Happy. "He didn't increase the sales by that much, but he made Cracked legitimate by getting artists and writers to work there who wouldn’t work there before."
"I like to think I turned Cracked from a fifth-rate imitation of MAD into a 3rd-rate imitation," DelleFemine joked to Lee Sobel in a 2020 Greasy Kidstuff interview.
DelleFemine was a fierce champion and promotor of the magazine and many readers recall his time there with great fondness. Among some fans, his Uggly Family series of strips, done in collaboration with Clowes, is especially loved.
"Desperate for material, we took an idea we'd come up with a few years earlier, an Addams Family/Munsters 'homage' called The Uggly Family, and turned it into a feature," said Clowes. "It was quite popular despite featuring parodies of shows that no kid in the Cracked demographic could possibly have seen (Ben Casey, The Millionaire)."
"At Cracked, Dan and I did The Uggly Family strip, which my publisher hated," DelleFemine told Greasy Kidstuff. "I snuck it into the magazine and it became a fan favorite. Around then Dan started doing Lloyd Llewellyn at Fantagraphics and I wrote and/or drew a few stories in the early issues."
DelleFemine was known as a wise guy and troublemaker and during his Cracked years he engaged in and encouraged the art of screwing with the competition, MAD. Some antics included the theft of an oversized MAD styrofoam sign at a comics convention and an incognito visit to the MAD offices for an encounter with publisher Bill Gaines that was captured for a photo in Trasher Magazine. "When Gaines found out [about the prank], he hit the roof," he told Greasy Kidstuff. DelleFemine also had the Cracked business cards redesigned to serve as de facto replicas of the MAD cards' design.
"How many humor magazines were there?," DelleFemine asked in If You're CRACKED, You're Happy. "Two. And a lot of creators worked for both magazines. MAD was like 'We shouldn't socialize or communicate with [Cracked].' It was Stalin-esque. Evidently that ruffled my feathers. ... I went out of my way to piss them off, and wanted them to sue, because I wanted to expose the hypocrisy. They can make fun of anybody, but when somebody makes fun of [MAD], it's time to get the lawyers."
"I worked for Cracked from 1985 to 2000," the cartoonist Gary Fields said in If You're CRACKED, You're Happy. "Michael DelleFemine was ... really ... passionate about Cracked. ... Michael really pushed to get everyone aware of Cracked. Michael was the guy who got under MAD's skin and there was a little battle of the humor mags going on."
DelleFemine left Cracked in 1990 over a contract dispute with management. He would go on to scheme up countless other comics-related projects during the next three and a half decades of his career.
***
Michael Jon DelleFemine was born in Rhode Island on Nov. 9, 1961, and grew up in Yarmouth, Maine, the state where he also lived his later years. His mother, Constance, was a stay-at-home mom and his father, Olivo, started a union for aircraft mechanics.
"[My father] was a comic fan too," he told the comics historian Alex Grand in 2021. "He loved Plastic Man ... even before I knew that he liked Plastic Man, I loved Plastic Man. I think Plastic Man, by Jack Cole, is one of the greatest comics ever created. ... When I first moved to New York, at 17, 'Plas' was my [graffiti] tag. Plastic Man. I put it everywhere."
An artist, comics fan and editor from the early age, as a 12-years-old he had his first "job" as the editor for a summer camp weekly newspaper.
“We'd draw the covers and write all the content and doodle and everything," he told a local Maine television news station in 2021. "Then during the off months when they didn't have camp I was, like, 'You don't really need that printing machine, do you?' So I'd take it home and print my own comics."
"In his early teens, he was able to acquire the magazine and comic book rack from our local corner store," his brother, Douglas DelleFemine said. "[He used it to] keep his collection of comic books in. I remember it filled the whole wall in his bedroom ... he somehow charmed the store owner for the rack. ... He was in there every week for his comics and penny candy."
At age 17, DelleFemine moved to New York City and enrolled at Parsons. Some time later, he fell in with a group of young aspiring cartoonists — Clowes, Altergott and Pete Friedrich — to self-publish two issues of the legendary (at least among Clowes fanatics) Psycho Comics in 1981.
"By the time we were all sophomores, we were all together, all collaborating," Altergott told me in a 2024 interview for the Comics Journal. "Dan and I and Mort – and I guess Pete – had come up with Psycho Comics at the end of our first year [at Pratt]. That was our first self-published thing."
"Me and Dan Clowes and Rick Altergott put out our own comics with Pete Friedrich," DelleFemine said in If You're CRACKED, You're Happy. "We put out two issues and some other goofy titles. This was just as direct sales was starting, so we slipped in there and got it into comic shops. We were doing riffs on Atlas/EC-type crummy crime and horror and romance comics. We were all these little punks doing these short little horror tories, thinking that we were pretty dang clever. I had then done a few other comics and written Superman for Action Comics and sold cover sketch ideas to Julius Schwartz."
By that time, DelleFemine had begun submitting work to Marvel, DC, and several small publishers. He also did the cover art for a series of garage rock music compilations called Back from the Grave. Over the years, there were many volumes in the series.
DelleFemine's connection to music was also seen during his tenure as editor of Marvel's short lived Marvel Music imprint (1994-95), which produced some mostly forgotten comics featuring stories about Bob Marley, Alice Cooper, the Rolling Stones and others. Other projects included an unsuccessful relaunch of the Charlton line of comics (Charlton Neo) in 2017 and he produced countless "special issues" for Cracked and his own Comicfix imprint.
"If you look at my career, it’s always about putting out ‘alternate’ comics material that I think would appeal to a much wider audience than the assumed, safe, limited comic shop audience," he told Greasy Kidstuff. "Sometimes it has worked, sometimes not, but not for [lack of] trying."
In 2013 (April 1st), he announced the discovery of a large collection of obscure horror comics published by the little known Zeus Comics in the 1940s and '50s.
In an announcement about the "discovery," he wrote the following on his website: "Few have ever seen a 'mint' condition copy of a Zeus comic book and that may be for many reasons. 1.) Zeus had an odd, non-traditional distribution network and the comics were mostly found in unconventional retail establishments. 2.) As opposed to other titles, these weren't passed around with other collectors. The comics were very special to the owners and re-read over and over until well-worn. 3.) The backlash against the Zeus titles in the 1950s was so severe, the majority of copies were burned and outright destroyed in adult-fueled outrage."
It was a prank. Zeus Comics never actually existed, but countless examples of comics DelleFemine had a hand in creating do exist. Not all of them were successful, but the man was certainly productive. As of this writing, his website was still (somewhat) functioning. You can see some of his work there.
***
DelleFemine went by several different names, but to the comics world he was best known as Mort Todd.
"My real name is too unpronounceable and always misspelled (even spelt differently by family members) so I came up with this pseudonym," he told Greasy Kidstuff.
That alias also captures his dark sense of humor. In French, the word for death is "la mort." In German, "tod" is a word for death. As a young man, he signed his work Dr. Death.
"What can I say? I was a morbid kid!" he said.
Those were fitting aliases for a smart aleck young artist who often worked in the horror genre, but given his relatively early demise, they now take on a different, more solemn tone. Despite his somewhat macabre take on the subject of death, DelleFemine could also offer some thoughtful perspective on the topic. In a 2018 Facebook post, he wrote: "Don't be bummed out about how many great comic creators have passed recently after the fact. They lived long productive lives. Better to let those still cooking be aware how much you respect their contributions to your existence. They're still out there, kids, and let them know!"
He is survived by his brother Douglas and sister Nancy. In the space below, some friends and colleagues provide their thoughts and memories about his life.
***
Daniel Clowes
cartoonist
I was first introduced to Mike in 1979 by my high school pal Peter Friedrich, who was his classmate at Parsons in New York City. I was a freshman at Pratt and had heard about this punk kid across the river who was into the same kind of comics I was. He seemed incredibly worldly at 17, while I was a gawking rube, barely emerged from the chrysalis, but we immediately felt a deep connection due to our mutual love for Jimmy Olsen, off-brand 1950s horror comics, Dragnet, Paul Henning, Plastic Man, Herbie, etc., etc.; all stuff I had been privately obsessed with, but had never dreamed of actually sharing with anyone else. Our first conversation was one I'll never forget, like meeting an alien who can see into your deepest, stupidest thoughts. On the way out of Pete's dorm room, we took the elevator down with a bunch of random art students. Michael was meeting someone on the second floor, and when the doors opened he said goodbye, turned, and tripped on the sill, falling out of the elevator dead-weight flat on his face. He began moaning in agony right as the doors closed, horrifying the art students; a beautiful gag, just for me. I couldn't wait to see him again.
During that time, he was briefly known as "ModMike" or "Plas" (his graffiti tag), having recently transitioned from his high school alias "Doctor Death." (Later, when we were roommates, he'd occasionally get a call from some old chum from Maine who'd invariably ask to speak to "Doctah Death.") I remember when he came up with the name Mort Todd. I told him I thought it was too hokey, but he stuck with it for the rest of his life. Mostly I called him Mike or MIKEY! (based on the way Nick Dennis addresses Mike Hammer in Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly).
Before long, we were hanging out every weekend. We'd go to triple features on Times Square and places like the Mudd Club and the Red Bar, where Mike would get into affable conversations with strangers in which not a single word of truth was spoken. I remember once seeing him talk to a small group of people out my my earshot and when they left, one of them waved to Mike and said "Good luck with your taxidermy!"
Eventually we became roommates in Brooklyn, where we drew comics (watching him draw was a revelation. He'd smoke a joint and the pages would just flow out of his hand. Once I was inking one of his pages and totally fucked it up. It took me a long time to garner the courage to tell him, but he was completely unfazed and happily drew it again, even faster), made movies and watched tapes on the Betamax he got at a discount from his job at J&R Music World. A favorite was the dubbed American version of El Baron Del Terror aka The Brainiac, which we watched roughly 500 times.
One day, he spotted a listing in the paper for an office assistant job at Cracked magazine. Sick of selling stereo equipment, he applied for the job and got it immediately, impressing them with his vast knowledge of Sylvester P. Smythe and the work of Don Orehek. A day or two later, he came home and told me to MARK HIS WORDS, he'd be the editor-in-chief by the end of the month. He'd always been a gifted hyperbolizer and his confidence and optimism almost always outdistanced mundane reality (he used to tell people that a very amateurish student film we made one summer was actually a pilot for HBO and had played on "German television"), but I'll be damned if he didn't pull it off! Within a few months, he'd given me my first paying gig, hired many of our art school pals, including my close Pratt-friend Cliff Mott as his right-hand-man, stole Don Martin from MAD, become good pals with John Severin, etc. Plus, the magazine was a hit.
Over time, I moved away from NYC and Mike's reign at Cracked ended. We drifted off in different directions, as close college friends often do, and mostly fell out of touch. I always imagined I'd go visit him in Portland one day and we'd recall the madcap adventures of our youth.
The second or third time we met, he told me he was born with a "hole in his heart," and that he'd be dead by twenty-five. This concerned me at first, but I soon understood it to be a facet of the comic-bookish self-mythologizing that led to his many alter egos, and it faded from my mind. Twenty-five came and went, but when were were both around forty-five, I had to get open-heart surgery myself. Afterwards, Mike wrote me for the first time in many years and explained how he'd been born with the same heart defect I had (not quite a hole, but a defective valve) and had been advised to get the surgery since he was in his 20s, but had always put it off. He said I had inspired him to finally get it taken care of. So strange to think we were sitting in that Brooklyn apartment with matching heart defects, hidden from view. Anyway, as far as I know, he never did get the surgery. The morbid pen-names hadn't been the wiseass super-villain aliases we imagined them to be, nor were they a simplistic mask for the true and complicated Michael DelleFemine, but overt expressions of fear and defiance in the face of his own frail mortality.
Bebe Buell
model/singer
Immortality was something he knew how to draw … he channeled it effortlessly! So it gives me comfort to know that a lad I'd known since he was 17 years old will in many ways live forever in that pocket of cool and pop culture infamy.
I never got used to calling him Mort, so he was always Michael to me. Or "Mikey Likes It," a nickname Liv came up with when she was just three years old from some longtime running cereal commercial on TV while she watched the Electric Company. Or was it Pee-wee's Playhouse? Of course with Michael. They would shout, "Hey you guys!" at the screen during the start of the Electric Company at the top of their lungs! It became a ritual around the house even when Michael wasn't visiting.
He was like an older brother to her and like a brother or even a son to me.
I will never forget the first time he showed me his art. I almost fell off my chair. His talent was supernatural and unique! He made the poster for my first-ever live show with my band Bebe & The B-Sides in 1980. He then went on to do a single's cover for Stiv Bators's song Circumstantial Evidence.
And of course there is his legendary history with comics and music … which I'm sure will be covered extensively by others for this article. It always made me so proud of his accomplishments and we remained like family for decades!
He even made me a living cartoon character in the form of Nanny Dickering for Cracked magazine when he was the editor!! It was Liv's first role. She played a secretary … she was 9!
There's so many memories. I loved our swims at Sebago Lake and trips to the beaches of Maine. Two Lights State Park was one of his favorite spots as was a walk around Mackworth Island. Or a day at Old Orchard.
I can't completely articulate this loss yet because I haven't fully digested its reality! But I'm hoping others can and will fill in all the holes. His body of work was stunning and his friendship to me was steadfast and true! We often argued about politics but it never got resolved or ended our bond. Even when he had Fox News blasting in the background during our phone calls!
Portland Maine won't be the same without him … no place will feel the same without Michael there, but he's always with me. He's all around me. And a part of my eternal heart. My soul tribe, so I'll see him again I'm sure!
The day I met him he was dressed from head to toe in black and his pants were pleather! Not leather. He made a point of telling me that!
Peter Bagge
cartoonist
Mort Todd was one of the funniest and hyper characters I have ever met in my life (when asked who inspired my own Stinky character, Mort's name was always at the top of my list). I first met him and his own cartooning posse (which included Dan Clowes and Rick Altergott) at a NYC comic con back in the early 1980s, where Clowes didn't say a word while Mort never stopped talking. He was full of million-dollar ideas right out of the gate, and wanted me, you and everyone else in earshot to be a part of it. He also already had a fully evolved yet hopelessly dated drawing style mostly inspired by 1960s-'70s era Charlton comics, a look that he always regarded as the gold standard of Art Of Any Kind throughout his life.
Mort also epitomized the "fake it 'til you make it" philosophy, though he didn't always pull off the "make it" part, since he wasn't the least bit shy about applying for positions that he had zero qualifications for, while somehow occasionally landing them. The first was the managing editor position at Cracked magazine, then MAD's main (only?) imitator. He was, what, 23 at the time? And he wasn't the least bit shy about publicly "going after" MAD, to the point of actually and unthinkably stealing Don Martin from them. You can also spot a Mort-era Cracked from a mile away, since they ALWAYS featured a John Severin-drawn cover of a bunch of '80s-era celebrities beating the shit out of each other ("mayhem" was another of Mort's calling cards).
Fortunately for me, Mort gave me a lot of work during his Cracked stint, since at the time I getting very little decent paying work. This also meant having to deal with Mort's occasionally bulling behavior, where he would, say, call me and go "write a spoof of Dolly Parton's new variety show, NOW," and then cackle with glee before hanging up, knowing that meant I had to then WATCH Dolly's saccharine TV show. Other young contributors got it much worst from Mort, though, yet when I'd mention their complaints to him, rather explain himself or show regret he would simply fall off his chair laughing. Nothing made him laugh harder than his own bullying!
Another bit of Mort insanity was when he talked his way into a glamorous gig as the head of Marvel's "music" division, a position that I assume he invented, and which was supposed to result in a series of titles starring popular bands of the day. But I don't recall anything coming of it, other than him touring the West Coast and "burning the Marvel plastic" (his words) by throwing a party at the Chateau Marmont (with only cartoonists in attendance and no musicians in sight, as I recall), and partying in Seattle with Mudhoney, who, being comics fans themselves, were all in favor of starring in their own title. Only Marvel didn't send Mort to Seattle to land a Mudhoney deal. They wanted Nirvana or Pearl Jam or perhaps even Heart! But Mudhoney were fun to hang out with, and that was all that mattered in Mortland.
Then there was our late '90s MTV debacle, where he somehow talked himself (not through me) into a HIGHLY PAID position as an animator on my never finished HATE cartoon, that was then in development. I must've been the only person in the building who knew that, short of maybe teaching himself Flash, Mort was in no way a qualified animator. But I held my tongue while he would literally xerox some old-timer's walk cycles, trace them and then pass them off as his own. My director was most apologetic when she told me she was going to have to fire him, but I said, "Do it! The sooner the better!" The next time I saw him I wondered if he'd be pissed, but in typical Mort fashion he just started laughing his head off. It was fun while it lasted! Viacom can suck his dick!
But Mort wasn't all about the short con. For example, the last time he visited me my then band was practicing in my basement. After watching us for five minutes, he said "I'm gonna make a video of you guys." We said, "When?" Mort: "Right now!" And he did! All in one day! Well, I helped him with the little bits of animation (those walk cycles weren't going to trace themselves, after all), and the final result was a mess that looked like it WAS done in a day, but I loved that he did it — for free, and just for the hell of it. I also always loved running into him at cons, since we'd both always wind up laughing our asses off, especially if his equally hilarious sidekick Cliff Mott was present. He'll be sorely missed. RIP.
Cliff Mott
co-worker via Cracked
Dan Clowes and I first became friends when we shared an animation class at Pratt Institute. I remember being impressed that Dan's end-of-class submission was incredibly professional featuring a super team called the Ultimates and Acrobattler. I later learned that he had worked with a partner, his roommate, Michael DelleFemine, later Mort Todd.
Sometime after, I joined Dan, Rick Altergott and MDF on a sojourn to our preferred drinkery, the Alibi Club. On the way, MDF and I conversed about comics and about the comic book artist Don Heck, in particular. MDF then shouted out "Dan! This guy actually knows who Don Heck is!," and a (too short) lifelong friendship was born.
Several years later, MDF became editor-in-chief at Cracked magazine, where he hired me as Art Director, even though I'd never "art directed" anything in my life! He believed I could do it, so I did it. His brazen irreverence, along with a reliable paycheck sold me on the opportunity. It helped that there were just the two of us, so I didn't have time to chicken out. While there, we had the good fortune to work with childhood heroes like John Severin, Don Martin and Steve Ditko. Ditko's studio was nearby so he would drop his work off personally, and hang out with us. He was great company and we were especially entertained due to his reputation as being notoriously reclusive.
Every day at Cracked was a rollicking adventure, despite the pressure of generating a mammoth amount of product. We were (mostly) a two-man crew tasked with generating multiple titles to pack national magazine racks. Given our necessary reliance on sometimes decades-old material, MDF was tireless in his promotion of over-looked or forgotten writers and especially artists.
I think this aspect was appealing to some disgruntled writers and artists at our legendary competitor, MAD magazine, and led to Don Martin's exit from there. Shortly after Don joined our crew, we decided, while on lunch break, to embark on a tour of MAD itself. MDF had met Bill Gaines' son at a comic con and he had offered a tour. Upon our initial entry inside, I can confirm that we both instantly reverted to the genuine MAD fans we always had been. After perusing amazing artwork on the walls and in flat files, we were escorted into Bill Gaines' office where we noted the famous zeppelin collection and multiple personalized art from the "usual gang of idiots." At this point, Bill's son ushered in his father and introduced us as "old E.C. fans." At that point, we thought we were utterly busted. Luckily, Bill replied, "Those aren't old E.C. fans, those are new E.C. fans!"
Cool as ever, MDF produced his MAD skateboard and had Bill sign it, soon immortalized as a photo in Thrasher magazine.
All during this time, MDF was producing iconic artwork for the Back From The Grave series of LPs for Crypt records, while also writing stories for DC and Marvel comics. After our time at Cracked, MDF hired me for multiple gigs at Marvel Music and we travelled together for projects in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Memphis for work with the Elvis Presley estate. He also made a significant trip to Jamaica, to work with the Bob Marley estate. After negotiating graphic biographies with these highly protective estates, Marvel carelessly decided to cancel the imprint. During a meeting announcing the cancellation it was reasoned by an executive that an Elvis comic wouldn't sell. MDF replied that if you put Elvis' likeness on a tampon, it would sell, perhaps hastening his departure.
We often worked together over the years and had plans to collaborate in the future. We were often confused for each other, at times by the same people that had hired one, the other or both! I welcomed that confusion. His loss is a profound one to me and so many others. He changed the trajectory of my life, and provided kinship and much, much laughter along the way.
Rick Altergott
cartoonist
I loved the stories that Dan and Mike did together, Mike writing and Dan illustrating.
My all time favorite sequence is the origin of Blockhead in a Divisible Man strip they did together. It's a riff on the Dark Passage film noir. What cracks me up to this day is how self-aware and accepting of his new reality Blockhead is, "Ya disfigured me, ya Quack!” His presence of mind is what always cracks me up, and for me is the highlight of the story. Mike was a terrific artist, kind of like an updated Jack Cole. He was a great pal, and I owe him a lot. Because of him, I got to ink the pencils of Steve Ditko back in 1987.
Mike was always great with wordplay. My two favorite examples are first when we started Look Mom Comics, Pete Freidrich was one of the organizing influences who wanted to expand and really turn it into a real comic studio. He developed a sheet that broke down the basic duties: Writer, Artist, Inker, Letterer, for when there were collaborations. Mike right away joked that when one person did all the tasks together, he would “W. A. I. L.” on the story. That silly nomenclature has held through all the subsequent years among Look Mom alum.
He was also the one who, during the Cracked years who turned the band REM into “REAM,” by adding an “A.” Always a sharp and funny guy!
He will be missed for sure.
Molly McCann
longtime friend/former girlfriend
I met Michael DelleFemine in June of 1997 when I was 19. I had just moved to New York, and he became my boyfriend, and we lived together for the next several years. He introduced me to so much! People, places, music, art, and food! Panna I on 6th street was our favorite Indian place! He was my champion. Always supported me, encouraged me, remained steadfast and devoted to me, and loved me unconditionally through it all even when I didn't deserve him. We visited Maine together many times and stayed at his mom's beautiful 200-year-old house in his hometown of Yarmouth, where he took me to the Clam Festival. And when I was living in Paris, he came to visit me, and we explored the romantic city together. He was always incorporating me into his art. My image or name started appearing in covers he illustrated for the New York Press and other publications, and he developed the comic strip "Molly the Model," which he based on my life and was published in the New York Post and the New York Daily News. We shared a love of cats with each other and our two rescue cats, Sylvia and Sammy, were our babies. We had the best times together and just liked each other so much! I hadn't seen him in quite a few years, but we remained very close friends and talked on the phone often. He was always there for me and would answer my calls any time of day or night. I called him several times the weekend he passed away and was very worried when he didn't call me back. The shock and devastation I feel at his passing is almost more than I can bear. He was a precious person, funny, smart, loving, and kind and I will always adore his wonderful heart. I will miss him deeply.
Rick Parker
cartoonist/co-worker, Marvel Comics
He was a little guy with wavy black hair in a biker jacket with steel studs on it and Ray-Bans and he had brass balls and was bold and irreverent and as an artist and a man who knew no fear. He was smart and quick with an exhaustive knowledge of comics and pop culture. He could write and draw and color and make you laugh. The physical movements of his body and his voice were very animated, almost like he was a ventriloquist dummy and only he himself could pull the strings. It was impossible to be bored when in his presence. He lived his life according to his own rules. I will miss him greatly.
I knew him for almost forty years, but my favorite memory of Mort is from that time I bumped into him in 2009 at the San Diego Comics Convention. I had flown there on my own dime from Newark to try and interest some publisher in Deadboy, a graphic novel I had done. I hadn't seen Mort since we were both working for Marvel years earlier. We both loved humor and horror and he was very smart and fun to talk to. I liked him from the moment I met him. Comics was the most important thing in his life.
We happened to meet at a place where some kind of awards ceremony was taking place and we both took seats in the audience near the front. As one award was being given out, to my surprise, he began to heckle the recipient.
Fall 1979, I met Mort Todd, his nom de plume ("death" times 2). We all had nicknames then, punk rock monickers, graffiti tags.
He was always up for a prank. He was so funny, and so well-read, so well-listened. Iconic comics, obscure horror, beatnik nuggets, hip to all that. Aware of music, film, animation. He remained cognizant of intellectual properties lapsing into public domain. He never ran out of ideas. You could talk to him about anything, you might not agree — but there'd be lots of humor, puns, hooting. Mort was an instigator always.
A cool gang of Maine kooks, "mainiacs," gathered around Mort. Tim Warren, Michael Chandler, Charles E. Hall, Bebe Buell, the Horne siblings, the Chalmers brothers, and so on. Mort designed Tim's iconic Crypt Records logo, my fave label, and every cartoon cover of Crypt's seminal Back From the Grave garage rock compilations. Still love 'em.
I won't go about comics, Cracked and Marvel, others will. I will admit: when Globe was revamping Cracked, Larry Hama was asked who should be editor. As Larry's assistant then, I nominated Mort. He got the gig. At 23. Later, when Marvel started its music line, same pattern — Mort was hired.
In 1991, I was editing Confessions of a Rat Fink. Mort tagged along to Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's compound in Manti, Utah. I still quote jokes we made up on that hilarious road trip! He convinced me it wasn't cool to show up at Ed Roth's in an economy rental, so we upgraded to a red Cadillac. I'm having a hard time keeping this short. I miss him. Respect.
Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson
writer
I have known Mort since 1980 when I met my father, Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, Jr. for the first time at 30 years of age. Mort was then Michael DelleFemine and an art student at Parsons, I think. He was very much a part of the life of my family, often at family dinners at "117" and much loved. Auntie Diane, in particular, adored him. He was so kind to me at a very weird time in my life and told me an absolutely hilarious story about my family that is iconic and has helped me soldier through some rough moments. For that alone, I will treasure him forever. Several of my cousins were close to him and at least two worked for him at various points. They can tell their own stories if they wish. From those early days and onward, Mort has been supportive and encouraging to me throughout. He understood my journey. One of the things that should be noted about his innovative comics is that it was fully based on a strong foundation of knowledge of comics history. For a young person in 1980 to know precisely who Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson was is heroic in my book. Mort/Michael was a smart, funny, genuinely creative soul. It's a big loss. Thanks for listening. I hope you are all being your best creative selves.
Mark Arnold
comics historian and host of the Fun Ideas Podcast
In 1974, I became a MAD reader. In 1975, I also became a Cracked reader. As I didn't love Cracked as much as MAD, I would occasionally read Cracked until the mid-1980s, when Cracked underwent a change in editors.
Prior to 1985, Cracked was a so-so humor magazine whose main draw was repeated parodies of such subjects as Star Wars, the Fonz from Happy Days, Diff'rent Strokes and M*A*S*H, plus the always excellent artwork by John Severin. In 1984, then-publisher Bob Sproul decided to call it a day and Cracked was sold to different hands.
These new publishers knew next to nothing about how to run a humor magazine, and a call went out for someone who did and in came Paul Laikin. Laikin's pedigree was that he had written for literally every black-and-white humor magazine since 1956 and at various times edited many of them including at one time, Cracked.
Unfortunately, Laikin at this time was older and rather than coming up with fresh, innovative and funny material for Cracked, he relied on tired formats and jokes and even resorted to some self-plagiarism, which ultimately led to his termination.
One of the people Laikin hired to assist was a young upstart named Michael DelleFemine. DelleFemine noticed how lame the revamped Cracked was and soon started contributing material that was decidedly more current.
After Laikin left, a search was on for another editor, but everyone interviewed wanted Cracked to be renamed and wanted the mascot, Sylvester P. Smythe to go, which was exactly what the new publishers had purchased, so needless to say, none of these potential editors were hired.
DelleFemine, meanwhile, quietly continued to edit the magazine during the interim. He changed his name to the easier-to-pronounce Mort Todd and sales started to pick up, pleasing the new publishers and ending their search for a new editor.
With Todd at the helm, he made Cracked a hip and trendy publication that spoke to '80s kids and teens much better than MAD, which was now looking old and stodgy. To top it all off, Todd had the ability to lure his idols from the comic book world such as Steve Ditko and Gray Morrow, the ability to find new talent such as Dan Clowes and Bob Fingerman, and the ability to lure some of MAD's top talent away such as Don Martin and Lou Silverstone, who eventually succeeded Todd as editor.
Todd remained editor for five years, but the stresses of doing the job took its toll, so Todd resigned, but not until after revitalizing Cracked for the 1990s. Cracked changed hands again at the end of the decade and after a slow decline, the original publication breathed its last in 2004, surviving today as an in-name-only website.
Flash forward to 2009, I had just released the highly-successful Created and Produced by Total Television Productions, about the company that produced Underdog and Tennessee Tuxedo cartoons. My publisher Ben Ohmart and I were discussing what to do as a follow-up. I had casually mentioned that thanks to eBay, I now owned every issue of Cracked. Ohmart said, "Why don't you write a history of Cracked magazine?" to which I responded, "Does anyone really care?"
I put feelers out on Facebook and discovered that people did indeed care, and also attracted quite a few people who did work for Cracked, including Mort Todd. Todd was very helpful in getting me in contact with many of the people who worked for him and also consented to a lengthy interview discussing his time with the publication.
He even went so far as to design the front and back covers of the resulting tome, the two-volume If You're Cracked, You're Happy, published in 2011 by BearManor Media, utilizing a previously-unpublished piece of Severin artwork that I had acquired.
After these books came out, Todd and I remained in touch as we both knew that someday we would work together on some other projects.
Eventually, I wrote an article for Todd's Charlton Arrow about Charlton Comics' version of Sick magazine. Next, I hired Todd to update my Fun Ideas Productions logo and my website. I also interviewed Todd a few times on my Fun Ideas Podcast.
But the ultimate collaboration came during the recent pandemic, when we both decided to reprint some Cracked material in the form of two books as a Kickstarter. The resulting books were called The Comedy of John Severin and The Comedy of Jack Davis. They were basically updated reissues of article compilations that Todd had done in magazine form for the Cracked Collectors' Edition series back in the '80s, but now they were to be reissued as paperbacks with new covers and introductions, and better paper quality.
After these projects, Todd and I remained in touch, and we had planned to do further Cracked reissues, namely one on Shut-Ups, but nothing ever solidified.
The last time I worked with Todd was when I was preparing the front cover for my two-volume MAD history called Unconditionally MAD, which needed a version of Alfred E. Neuman with a paper bag on his head in order to avoid any lawsuits. Todd sent me the rough in 2023, but when it was time to finalize the cover, Todd was no longer responding to my emails for some reason. I went ahead and had the BearManor Media artists complete what Todd had started and because of that, I never paid him.
Also, somewhere along the line, Todd sent me his version of Crazy Magazine's The Nebbish, and he said that if I ever published the history of Marvel's Crazy Magazine, I should use his drawing. Both Unconditionally MAD and Crazy: The Magazine That Dared to Be Dumb came out in 2024.
I had hoped to contact Todd again for another project, but that time ended when I heard the news from my friend Lee Hester of Lee's Comics that Todd had passed away on Aug. 24. His death actually affected me strongly even though we had never met face to face. I felt that I had lost a close friend. He was certainly someone I was happy to have collaborated with for over a decade.
Mort Todd will be missed. He was one of a kind and I am very happy to have known him in the way that I did.
colleague, Marvel Comics
Rest easy, Mort Todd.
Mort Todd was a great Cracked mag editor, comic artist, and comics writer, but he was also a great friend and helping person to a lot of people, including me!
Mort Todd kindly let me interview him for Crypt Of MADness issue five, the Cracked magazine themed issue! He also did the front cover artwork (of a zombie Sylvester P. Smythe) and artwork coloring (of Michael Elias sidebar artwork) for that same issue's second printing.
Mort also let me help with some of the layout/numbering for one of the two Cracked magazine artist-centric reprint collections that were funded on crowdfunding website Kickstarter a few years back. The Jack Davis and John Severin collections — I got a credit in the books ("Contributing Editor") as well!!
I remember Mort writing a "letter of recommendation" about me, for me to send to Heavy Metal magazine. This was before the magazine's recent reboot. (While I did not get into HM then, I am now currently contributing to HM's website!) It meant a lot to me that Mort took time to write that letter for me to send in!
All said, Mort was a pretty great guy to work with (even though we never got to meet in person) and he will very much be missed.
Sean Moran
cartoonist
If I had to sum up Mort Todd in a one word, it would be "genuine." I first met Mort back in 2009 at the Maine Comic Arts Festival (MECAF). Since Mort didn't drive I would often give him rides to conventions and gallery shows we were both attending. He was always was dropping wisdom and factoids, as if he had to share his knowledge with anyone who would listen, and if you listened, you were all the better for it.
His gregarious nature was wrapped in a shell of punk attitude. He suffered no fools, his honesty wouldn't allow it. He wasn't selfish but he knew how to get what he wanted and wasn't afraid to ask for it. Mort possessed an uncanny ability to get free drinks, and was happy to drink the cheap stuff. He would always be sure to stop by my table and see if I wanted a drink or smoke if he was stepping out for one.
He would honestly critique my work noting strengths and weaknesses, and be happy to note any improvements he saw. Despite my lacking skills he was happy to introduce me to fellow creators and even noted my what he liked about my work to them unsolicited. I was not special in that regard, I met numerous other cartoonists and musicians through Mort and he was happy to do the same for them.
I never got to work with Mort, but having known him it is easy to see why he was chosen to be an editor at the young age of 23. He was a coach, cheerleader and fan all in one. He is missed already.
Douglas DelleFemine
brother
My earlier memories of Mike is our time together at home, sharing a bedroom with bunkbeds. We seemed to have similar interests. However, I'm sure he was an influence on me mostly. Classic horror films, comics, sci-fi, and the golden age of TV back then, Hogan's Heroes, Gilligan's Island, Batman, Star Trek and Saturday morning cartoons. He was a sponge for information with anything to do with TV and films. He knew all the actors character names, real names, bios, directors, musical scores, just incredible. His collection was huge, including rock and roll comics as well, I remember him getting the Kiss comic with their blood all allegedly in the ink.
He seemed to spend just enough time with strangers, learning their stories and befriending them effortlessly. We got to go to the Monster Convention number 4, I believe, in New York City in 1976? Which was a "bucket list" event at the time. Who knew just a few years later he'd be living in New York City, going to college and soon after editor-in-chief of Cracked magazine? As well as dabbling in the DC and Marvel universes.
He was always drawing and sketching with pen and pencil in hand. In his teens, he adopted the back of an Ouija board as his drawing board and that never left his side; working in pen and ink at an early age with his trusty Rapidograph ink pen.
He was self-taught before college, studying anatomy on his own and many of his favorite comic artists, was his passion. Eventually being able to re-employ many of his favorite childhood artists out of retirement and actually get them paid and recognized for their work. I know he was proud of that.
I believe his proudest accomplishment may have been the curator for the Steve Ditko estate.
The post Mort Todd is Dead Dead: RIP Michael DelleFemine appeared first on The Comics Journal.
Hello, my name is Jack Sparrow. I'm a 50 year old self-employed Pirate from the Caribbean.
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