I began these in 1987 when I combined photos of me and my friend Nigel, then retouched the prints with acrylics and Prismacolor pencils so they looked like a single person. In 1992, the editors at MAD magazine hired me to do a series of characters for them. I did them the same way, painting on prints with airbrush and pencils. In 1993, they asked me to do the guy hanging himself with the phone cord, so I learned Photoshop.

Now the process is easier, but most of the work is still finding good combinations. The rest is the technical problem of retouching, which is easy for me. I learned the most important principle of retouching — how light falls on form — before I had the luxury of digital media.