Well, we have a very special bonus episode of the podcast.

We're talking to one of our heroes, Drew Friedman. Drew Friedman is a guy that if you grew up in the 90s, you're probably aware of his work, even if you don't know his name. That's right. I used to see him a lot in Mad Magazine. He also did illustrations for Entertainment Weekly, a million, you know, huge Condé Nass-style magazines. He did the cover of The New Yorker on the week that Obama was inaugurated, very famous portrait

of Barack Obama.

But that's not why we wanted to talk to him.

Why we wanted to talk to him was because he's an amazing artist who has very similar

interest to ourselves.

Okay, so my favorite Drew Friedman thing is his book,

Any Resembrance to Persons Living or Dead is purely coincidental, a collection of comic strips and cartoons he was doing in the 70s and 80s for magazines like Screw Magazine,

heavy metal. One of the iconic images of Shemp is his, and it was on the cover of Screw

Magazine. Oh, truly iconic. I mean, I really came to love him through his work doing comics about Tor Johnson, the star of the Ed Wood films. Curly Joe Derrita, he made one as well. Joe Franklin, a lot of Joe Franklin comics. In the 70s and 80s, you know, he came to prominence through this very particular pointillist style that he had developed.

You know, he got the nickname the Vermeer of the Borscht Belt, doing these ultra-realistic,

but also like slightly uncanny, uh, slight, just slightly distorted portraits of showbiz icons.

The most beautiful caricatures that you've ever seen.

Yeah. And there's a new documentary coming out about him.

Drew Friedman, Vermeer of the Borsh Belt, and it's playing on Saturday, March 29th, 2025, at the Aero Theater, part of the American Cinema Tech in Los Angeles.

We'll have details about the screening and the show notes. Drew Friedman will be there as part of a panel that includes the director of the documentary,

Kevin Doherty, the screenwriter Scott Alexander.

We all love him, don't we?

Oh, love him.

The Ed Wood movie.

Stephen Weber, Dana Gould, Leonard Malton, Cliff Nestoroff, Merrill Marco, I mean,

the mastermind of the David Letterman show in its early days, moderated by Larry Karazuski. I mean, a murderer's row. If you're in L.A. or the surrounding you've got to be there. If you don't go see this. Yeah, you're out of the club. The important cinema club, I mean. What are you doing? The documentary is an hour long and it's a comprehensive view of his life

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