First Look at "Mad Men" Tie-in Book 'Mad Men: The Illustrated World'

[JamesG]

Exclusive Images from New "Mad Men" Book and a Chat with the Author
by Maureen Ryan
posted Oct 13th 2010


After Sunday, fans of "Mad Men" will have to wait until 2011 for the next season of the addictive AMC show. Fortunately there's a fabulous new book that will help Don Draper devotees get through the long wait between seasons.

No, it's not Sterling's Gold, the hilariously banal memoir ad man Roger Sterling worked on during season 4 of the drama.





The delightful new book is Mad Men: The Illustrated World, and it's the creation of Dyna Moe, the illustrator and designer behind the 'Mad Men Yourself' feature on AMC's Web site.

If you've always wanted to learn how to dance the Charleston, make a gelatin-based "salad," learn more about jai alai or simply dress up a Joan Harris paper doll, this is the book for you.





Moe's swell illustrations will take you back to Don and Betty Draper's swanky trip to Rome and the Draper family's litter-intensive picnic, and the encyclopedia-style volume also has entries on everything from architecture's International Style to the duties of an efficient secretary

("Most of her time will be spent loyally making up for her employer's behavior with clients while tactfully avoiding his meaty hands and leering glances").











The 94-page book contains short essays from cast members Bryan Batt and Rich Sommer, tips on dealing with accidental amputations and enough cocktail recipes to keep your next office bash going well into the wee hours.


Moe's work is well known to longtime devotees of the Drapers' world. A few years ago, she created a "Mad Men" Christmas card for Sommer, whom she knew through the New York improv troupe the Upright Citizens Brigade.

Not long after Sommer posted the Christmas card on his site, Moe began uploading weekly "Mad Men" images on her Flickr page, where her tongue-in-cheek, retro style caught the eye of not just fans but "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner.










For the show's third season, Moe created the 'Mad Men Yourself' online makeover feature for AMC's Web site, and earlier this year, Lionsgate, one of the show's producers, approached her to create the first-ever official "Mad Men" tie-in book.

"I was brought in April 2010," Moe said via email. "I had less than three months to write and illustrate 100 pages. Near the end of the last month I was sleeping once every three days."






Some of the images from Moe's Flickr account were used for the book, but the majority of the illustrations are new.

"Based on no facts whatsoever, I will say I reused 30 percent with heavy modification," Moe noted. "That is fictional math."





Some of her favorite images in the book are Lever House, Don's Cadillac, examples of mid-century designer furniture and the Cuban Missile Crisis board game ("There's a screaming Khrushchev on one space," she pointed out).

"Because of that time crunch and also because I wrote it, it became less encyclopedic and more humor-based," Moe said. "Write what you know."









The book does indeed display a Sterling-esque wit. In a list of Phrases for Well-Intentioned Squares, there's this bon mot:

"I was known as the Medgar Evers of my Princeton eating club."



And the directions on how to create a bouffant hairdo contain this step:

"Realize at this point you have no idea what you're doing as large chunks of your hair start coming out in your hands. Go to a proper salon and have someone fix what you've done."







Weiner is known to be a stickler for details when it comes to his show, but according to an interview with Moe on AMC's Web site, the "Mad Men" creator merely "approved it at the end and made sure his name was spelled right on the cover."

http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/10/13/mad-men-book/