Mort Todd (born November 9, 1961, in Maine), is an American who has spent his career in comics, animation and entertainment, notably as the editor-in-chief of Cracked magazine, and later, Marvel Music. He is the owner of Comicfix, a media company which has developed licensed properties for publishing, film, TV, and animation.
As a writer, artist or editor, Todd has worked at just about every comic book company, contributing to a variety of characters, from Superman and Spider-Man to licensed characters like Barbie and Looney Tunes. Newspaper comic strips Todd has written and drawn include Speed Racer, Rat Fink, and Molly the Model. His illustrations have graced many CD covers, magazines, newspapers and ads.
Todd 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.
Todd was raised in the state of 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 advertisements 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. Many record labels created knock-offs, and Mort re-created the first cover for a new album from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
Along with Daniel Clowes and Rick Altergott, Todd 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 Clowes as a teen rock 'n' roll superhero. Mort also wrote and penciled some stories for Clowes' Lloyd Llewellyn series from Fantagraphics. Around then he started freelancing for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Kitchen Sink, Myron Fass, and many other smaller publishers.
Cracked and Monsters Attack!
In 1985, Todd became Editor-in-Chief of Cracked magazine at age 23, Todd helped transform Cracked, and sales tripled as Mad's steadily shrunk. While at Cracked, Todd made headlines by getting renowned artist Don Martin to defect from Mad Magazine after a 32-year career there. Todd also worked with notable artists like John Severin, Bill Ward, and Steve Ditko, as well as helped start the mainstream careers of Altergott, Clowes, and Peter Bagge. A collection of Todd and Clowes' "Uggly Family" strips from Cracked is forthcoming, along with an animated series.
Todd 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.
AAA
Todd 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 bilingual humor comic called Pepito with stories by Sabrina the Teenage Witch-creator George Gladir.
Marvel Comics
In 1994, Todd launched a line of music comics called Marvel Music at Marvel Comics, working 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 at Marvel, Todd also edited a series of pre-Comics Code horror and giant monster reprints (Curse of the Weird and Monster Menace) from Marvel's past, and developed the over-sized 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 noted Objectivist Steve Ditko to sign on.
Film and TV
Recently, Todd was assistant director on the live action film Distraction and directed his first live action short, a gangster comedy called A Change of Heart. Todd 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 U.S. premiere at the San Diego Comic-Con in July, 2009.
Comicfix
Todd’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, Todd 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.
Return to Cracked
In 2005, Todd re-joined the struggling Cracked magazine, this time as a contributing editor. But several months later, Todd parted company with the revamped magazine, complaining about low pay rates and work-for-hire issues of copyright.
Recent work
Even more recently Todd has written and illustrated for the new Tales from the Crypt comic series, and completed new comic books featuring Lucy Hell, Devilgirl and Mr. Krime. With his long-time collaborator Cliff Mott, Todd has created and directed three new animated cartoons for Playboy.
