'New Wave Comics'.
Mark Marek is an American animator, producer and cartoonist. Beginning his career in the 1980s, he was an illustrator/cartoonist for magazines like National Lampoon, High Times and Rolling Stone, creating characters like 'Dirty Father Harry' and 'Hercules Amongst the North Americans'. Afterwards, he became active in the animation industry, working on music videos and TV shows for Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV and Cartoon Network. In his artwork, Marek plies the border between primitive and savage, while his markets balance between underground and mainstream. Mark Marek the animator should not be confused with the Slovak-Canadian Mark Marek, who ran the shock site bestgore.com.
Early life
Born in 1956, Mark Cyril Marek showed an early interest in art and animation. Among his favorite childhood shows were Hanna-Barbera's 'Jonny Quest', early 'Looney Tunes' and the seasonal specials with Charles Schulz's 'Peanuts' characters. Graphically, he has been influenced by the cartoonists George Herriman, Mark Beyer and Gary Panter, as well as the multimedia artist Red Grooms and the Hairy Who collective from Chicago. In 1978, Marek graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Texas in Austin.
'Hercules Amongst the North Americans' (National Lampoon v2 issue #77, December 1984).
Cartoon and illustration career
Marek began his cartooning career during the 1980s, creating satirical comics in a scratchy, punk-inspired drawing style. His art appeared regularly in magazines like High Times, Rolling Stone and National Lampoon, creating several comic strips for the latter's 1980s Funnies section. His first contribution to National Lampoon was the funny news report feature 'New Wave Comics', of the episodes also appeared in the 1983 comix collection 'Mark Marek's New Wave Comics' through the Manhattan Design imprint. In 1994, this comic book received a French translation through Édition Moderne. Another National Lampoon feature was 'Hercules Amongst the North Americans', a parody in which the ancient Greek demi-God Hercules ends up in 1980s New York for a series of daft encounters with the modern world. In 1986, a comic book collection was released by Viking Design.
From: 'Two-Fisted Management' (1990).
Also appearing in National Lampoon was Marek's 'Dirty Father Harry, Private Celibate Dick', featuring a religious sleuth. The character was originally created for the 1986 'Dirty Work' album of the Rolling Stones, but turned down by the band's legal team as it "would offend too many people". Other cartoon collections by Mark Marek have been 'Patient's Revenge - How To Get Even With Your Doctor' (Simon & Schuster, 1983) and 'Mark Marek's Two-Fisted Management: An Arnold Harris Read'N'Lead Manual' (Pharos Books, 1990), starring the world's most cranky CEO. Additionally, Marek's illustrations appeared in Regardie's magazine, Premiere Magazine, Details magazine, New England Monthly and Nickelodeon Magazine.
Cover illustration for They Might Be Giants' 'She Was A Hotel Detective'.
Music videos
While working as a cartoonist for print media, Mark Marek also turned to creating animated shorts and record sleeve designs for the music industry. In 1984, he designed the characters in the animated sections for the music video of the Cyndi Lauper song 'She Bop', and also provided the illustration for the music single. Mark Marek also provided artwork for the 1984 electronic funk/soul album 'Evacuate Your Seats' by Junie Morrison, and he did the inner sleeve artwork for the Rolling Stones' 'Dirty Work' album (1986). In the late 1980s, Marek also worked with the alternative rock band They Might Be Giants, creating the cover/label art for their 1988 EP '(She Was A) Hotel Detective'. In 1990, he also provided the stop-motion animated papier-mâché sculptures for their music video of 'Istanbul (Not Constantinople)', while J. Otto Seibold was in charge of the digital animation.
KaBlam's Henry and June appeared in comic strip-style animated segments.
KaBlam!
By the early 1990s, Marek was doing stints directing videos at Bloomberg L.P. and teaching illustration at The New School in New York City. During this period, he sent a demo tape with rough animations to a couple of directors at Nickelodeon, resulting in his participation with the animated children's TV show 'KaBlam!' (1996-2000). An anthology show featuring shorts with alternative forms of animation, Marek was responsible for creating the program's hosts, Henry and June, who introduced the short animated shorts in short zany intermissions. During a chat on FOX's website (6 April 1999), Matt Groening named 'KaBlam!' as one of the animated series he currently enjoyed on TV.
Starting production in 1995, Marek set up his independent animation studio Crank! It! Out! Inc., which eventually consisted of ten animators and artists. Besides the animations, Marek also provided the voices for a couple of secondary characters. The Crank! It! Out! team also contributed short animated segments like 'Dave, Son of Hercules'. Comic strips with the Henry and June characters were drawn for Nickelodeon Magazine by William Bredbeck.
'Hulked on Phonics', fragment of an animation for the 'MAD' TV show.
Animation career
When 'Kablam!' came to an end in 2000, Mark Marek closed his studio and began an association with John Carlin and Peter Girardi's Funny Garbage, a digital design studio in Manhattan's SoHo district. In 2002, he was appointed lead animator for the adult puppet TV show 'Crank Yankers' (2002-2007) on Comedy Central, produced by Adam Carolla, Jimmy Kimmel and Daniel Kellison. In 2005, Marek created the short film 'Yuck Yuck Goose and His Sidekick, His Butt' for MTV2's short-lived adult sketch comedy series 'Wonder Showzen'. Two years later, he became a special effects animator for Adult Swim's comedy series 'Saul of the Mole Men', while also doing animated segments for the MTV sketch comedy show 'The Andy Milonakis Show'.
Between 2010 and 2023, Marek lived in Los Angeles, California, where he worked at Warner Bros. Animation, co-producing the Cartoon Network animated sketch series 'MAD' (2010-2013), based on the humor magazine of the same name. Each episode was a collection of short animated parodies of television shows, films, video games, celebrities and other media, using various types of animation. At Warner Bros., Marke also worked as director and theme music composer on the 'Flintstones' spin-off series 'Yabba-Dabba Dinosaurs' (2021-2022) on HBO Max, and as co-producer for the Looney Tunes direct-to-video film 'Taz: Quest for Burger' (2023). Since 2023, Mark Marek has lived in East Setauket, New York.
Illustration for Sports Illustrated (1991).