Bored Panda got in touch with Mark to get to know more about him and his creative process. The artist shared that October is his favorite time to cartoon because he gets to draw monsters all month. "There are werewolves, vampires, witches, Frankenstein monsters, mummies, ghosts, creatures from the black lagoon, Godzillas, monsters under the bed, you name it. There's something undeniably appealing to me about combining scary with fun. Scary movies are a favorite subject of mine, and half the joy is doing facial expressions on the audience. Halloween is also about costumes and candy and bats and pumpkins so there's a never-ending source of fun ideas."
"As a child, monsters were one of my favorite things to draw because you couldn't get them wrong. If you're inventing a monster, you can make it look any way you want. There can be 12 eyes and a single strand of hair. Anything goes!"
In addition to the award-winning Off the Mark, which Mark has done for 35 years now, the artist has lines of greeting cards in various stores, and a middle-grade book series with HarperCollins called Marty Pants. He also has a book that he co-authored with Kim Tomsic called The Truth About 5th Grade, which is due out in the summer of 2023.
