Sam Viviano (born March 13, 1953, in
Detroit
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
,
Michigan
Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...
) is an American
caricature
A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, ...
artist and
art director
Art director is a title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, live-action and animated film and television, the Internet, and video games.
It is the charge of a sole art director to supe ...
. Viviano's caricatures are known for their wide jaws, which Viviano has explained is a result of his incorporation of side views as well as front views into his distortions of the human face. He has also developed a reputation for his ability to do crowd scenes. Explaining his twice-yearly covers for ''Institutional Investor'' magazine, Viviano has said that his upper limit is sixty caricatures in nine days.
Early life
Viviano grew up on Detroit's east side, and attended the
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, graduating
summa cum laude
Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...
with a
Bachelor of Fine Arts
A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students pursuing a professional education in the visual arts, Fine art, or performing arts. In some instances, it is also called a Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA).
Background ...
degree.
Career
In 1975, he drove up the East Coast to
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, where he attempted to show art directors his portfolio, which consisted of various types of work he did in art school, including cartoons, abstract
expressionist
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
paintings, etc. When no assignments came his way, he took a job as a
textile
Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, and different types of #Fabric, fabric. ...
designer, while he pondered his lack of success in the illustration market. He soon came to the realization that, in order to compete in the field, he needed to choose a specialty, stating that what one sacrifices in width and breadth one gains in depth. He decided that he enjoyed doing caricature the most, and took out ads featuring his caricature work in trade directories such as ''Showcase'' and ''Black Book'' (against the advice of publishers who insisted that depictions of children and products would be more marketable). These advertisements yielded his first notable advertising illustration, a full-page ad in the ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' for "On TV", a satellite service presenting the 1979
James Bond
The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...
film ''
Moonraker''.
By this time, Viviano was already working for many titles published by ''
Scholastic Magazines'' (most notably ''
Dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern German ...
'' and ''
Bananas
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – berry (botany), botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa (genus), Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called pla ...
''). Because of the nature and style of his illustration, he was encouraged by a number of colleagues to show his work to
''Mad'' Magazine. Although Viviano's samples were well-liked, he was told that there were no openings at that magazine, as it was a "closed shop" of about a dozen artists. However, in 1980, he was contacted by ''Mad'' Editor Al Feldstein, who told him that their usual cover artist (
Norman Mingo
Norman Theodore Mingo (January 25, 1896May 8, 1980) was an American commercial artist and illustrator. He is most famous for being commissioned to formalize the image of Alfred E. Neuman for '' Mad.''Lambiek Comiclopedia, https://www.lambiek.net ...
) had died, and asked Viviano if he would provide one for the magazine. The cover, Viviano's first, was for ''
Mad'' #223 (June 1981). Advertising
Lou Silverstone and
Mort Drucker
Morris "Mort" Drucker (March 22, 1929 – April 9, 2020) was an American caricaturist and comics artist best known as a contributor for over five decades in ''Mad (magazine), Mad'', where he specialized in satires on the leading feature film ...
's take-off ''Dullus'', the cover of #223 depicted actor
Larry Hagman
Larry Martin Hagman (September 21, 1931 – November 23, 2012) was an American actor, best known for playing ruthless oil baron J. R. Ewing in the 1978–1991 primetime television soap opera ''Dallas'', and the handsome astronaut Major Anthon ...
in his role of
J. R. Ewing
John Ross Ewing Jr. is a fictional character in the American television series ''Dallas (TV series), Dallas'' (1978–1991) and its spin-off (media), spin-offs, including the Dallas (2012 TV series), continuation series (2012–2014). The charac ...
from the
television series
A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming plat ...
''
Dallas
Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...
'' being shot through the ear with an
Alfred E. Neuman-emblazoned flag. Viviano has stated that he was so nervous about his first job for ''Mad'' that he made the illustration (with six-fingered hand) twice. The issue sold so poorly (eventually becoming the worst-selling issue of ''Mad'' up to that point in time) that Feldstein did not allow Viviano to contribute any further to ''Mad'' until his retirement four years later, at which point Viviano began regular contributions, including the movie
parodies
A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satirical or ironic imitation. Often its subject is an original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, etc), but a parody can als ...
and mock
advertisements
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages, and qualities of interest to consumers. It is typically us ...
that magazine is known for.
He has since done work for corporations and for the advertising industry. He has contributed to ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason.
The magazine was first known fo ...
'', ''
Family Weekly'', ''
Reader's Digest
''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wi ...
'' and ''
Consumer Reports
Consumer Reports (CR), formerly Consumers Union (CU), is an American nonprofit consumer organization dedicated to independent product testing, investigative journalism, consumer-oriented research, public education, and consumer advocacy.
Founded ...
''.
Viviano taught a caricature class at
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
’s
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design.
History
This school was started by Silas ...
from 1981 to 1992, where he expressed the viewpoint that the goal of caricature is to use exaggeration to express an inner truth about an individual. Among the students of his who went on to enjoy prominent careers as illustrators specializing in caricature is
Hanoch Piven.
Viviano produced the first
digital illustration
Digital illustration or computer illustration is the use of digital tools to produce images under the direct manipulation of the artist, usually through a pointing device such as a graphics tablet or, less commonly, a computer mouse, mouse. It is ...
for ''Mad'' Magazine. The illustration, a series of nine satirical road signs parodying aspects of
rock concert
A rock concert is a performance of rock music.
During the 1950s, several American musical groups experimented with new musical forms that fused country music, blues, and swing genre to produce the earliest examples of "rock and roll." The coi ...
s, accompanied an article written by
Desmond Devlin titled "''Mad''’s International Signs for the Rock World”", which appeared in ''Mad'' #328 (June 1994).
In 1994, ''Mad'' editors
Nick Meglin
Nick Meglin (July 30, 1935 – June 2, 2018) was an American writer, humorist, and artist. He was known for his work as a contributor, comics writer, illustrator and editor for the satirical magazine '' Mad''. He also scripted ''Superfan'', a 1 ...
and
John Ficarra invited Viviano to come on staff at the magazine, but he declined in order to focus on his freelance career. In late 1999, they again extended the invitation, this time for the position of the magazine's Art director, and Viviano, now the father of a four-year-old girl, accepted. He currently oversees a staff of three that designs, layouts, and produces the art that appears in ''Mad''.
Viviano is listed in the most recent edition of ''The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons'' by
Maurice Horn
Maurice Horn (June 28, 1931 – December 30, 2022) was a French-American comics historian, author, and editor, considered to be one of the first serious academics to study comics. He was the editor of ''The World Encyclopedia of Comics'', ''The ...
.
[ Horn, Maurice. ''The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons''. Chelsea House Publishing, 1999.]
Personal life

Viviano is married to a New York physician, and is known to include his wife and daughter, as well as various other members of his family, in the backgrounds of scenes he illustrates. He is a cousin to New Testament scholar and author
Benedict Viviano.
Notes
References
A & D News interview with Sam VivianoNational Cartoonists Society’s Biography of Sam VivianoThe Grand Comics Database page on ''MAD'' #223
External links
''The Complete Book of Caricature''by Bob Staake
''The Disco Handbook''by Bruce Pollack, 1979, Chapter 8 illustrations by Sam Viviano
{{DEFAULTSORT:Viviano, Sam
1953 births
University of Michigan alumni
Artists from Detroit
Living people
American people of Italian descent
American caricaturists
American humorists
American comics artists
American parodists
American satirists
American satirical comics artists
Mad (magazine) cartoonists
School of Visual Arts faculty
American art directors