Mookie’s dookie
When direct mail was still a thing, I used to submit false names in online warranty and magazine forms for entertainment. In addition to giggles, my goal was to see who was selling my information.
Mookie Swizzlestick was the alter-ego for whom I had the greatest affection. Two weeks after releasing this hell hound into the marketing jungle, he began to receive offers for credit cards, high interest loans and time-share real estate. A few boiler room stock brokers picked up the phone too.
Seeing Mookie’s name peeking through the cellophane address window on a piece of mail brought joy. Having an aggressive New York stock broker call to ask for Mookie was sublime.
Nom de plume
I’ve had a few distinct illustration styles over the course of my career — each dramatically different. When I developed the style shown here, I needed a unique brand to associate with the technique and, while this style was created after I’d thrown a dozen more different silly names into the direct marketing universe, I reached into the past to name the illustrator after a beloved friend who I thought had been lost to history: Mookie Swizzlestick.
I was an illustrator back then. Sometimes I still am.
Sometimes.
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