Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1359: Being a Magic Artist

Episode Date: July 3, 2026

In this episode, I talk about the weird fact that I'm a published Magic artist on an evergrowing number of cards. Note that I recorded this before Bicycle Elemental was made public.

I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time rather drive to work. Okay. So I have had many hats in my time at Wizards. I've done many jobs. But there is one job that I still can't believe that I not only have I done that I continue to do, which is being an artist. I need to stress, I have no artistic ability whatsoever.

I did not go to art school. I do not know how to draw very well. But yet, so far, I'm on nine different cards, and there's more coming. How do this happen? Why do they keep making me draw? That's today's topic. Okay. So let's go back to the beginning, to the origin of my illustrious illustration career.

So we have to go back to unglued, which came out 19. 98. So one of the things that we were trying to do in unglued was we wanted a lot of jokes on every level. And so we were looking for a lot of cool and different ways to do art. We had art that broke the box. We had art that, you know, interacted in weird ways. There was art that went off one card onto another card. So one of the ideas that I thought would be funny was one of our cards, what if one of the cards looks kind of like It was done by a child. You know, what if we had like a children's drawing? And then it dawned on me that I can draw like a child.

And I decided that it might be fun if we put it on, look at me on the DCI, since the joke basically is us making a joke about how we ban cards. And the joke was really simple of show an R&D member throwing darts at a dartboard with magic cards on it. And I'm like, okay. I could draw that. And so I ended up drawing the art for Look at Me on the DCI.

I used crayon because I was trying to tap into my inner small child. Luckily, my drawing style is very much like a small child. And so I drew in crayon. In fact, that's the only one of my nine illustrations. That's the only illustration that's in color. All the rest. I will talk about it. I continue my crayon.

I use the cran medium, but we'll get into that. So anyway, I, and the way I drew the art, which is probably not how most artists do it, is I got a stack of paper, I got my crayons, and I just drew the art a hundred times. I mean, I just kept drawing the art. And the idea was I would pick the one that I thought was the best version, the one I liked most.

And that's the one I picked. So I showed. it, I hand it in. Now, originally, the plan was that they would pay me like any other artist because every art gets a certain amount of money. And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, we should pay real artists because they do real work. What I did, well, it took me an hour to draw 100 pictures, whatever. I go, look, I'm not a real artist. You can pay me to the quality level of my art. And so I said a dollar. The reason it was a dollar, by the way, instead of nothing was that I think that they needed to pay me something. And so I figured a dollar was below

end of the spectrum. So I got paid a dollar to draw that card. The funny story with this is many months later, I get a call from our finance department. And they say, we see here on the books that we owe you a dollar. And I say, yes, I did a piece of art. You owe me a dollar. And they go, can we just give you a dollar bill? And I say, no, no, no, no. We need a check.

I need a check. And they're like, you do understand that it costs us more than a dollar to make a check, meaning you'd be more expensive to make the check than what we'd be paying you. And I say to her,

look, I get it, but I mean, I was supposed to be paid a lot more money. I said, no, no, no, just pay me a dollar. But I really want the check. You know, that's the thing. And she goes, well, why do you want to check? You go, well, I'm not going to, I'm not cashing it. I'm going to frame it with my picture.

And she's like, you're not cashing it? And I'm like, yeah, you'll be down a dollar. I don't know. So anyway, they did make me a check. I do in my den have my original look at me in the DCI art in all its glory, along with a copy of the card and the check, which to this day, yes, I've never cashed. And so that was my first illustrious. So I didn't know how people would respond to it.

Like I said, my art is far. I mean, magic is known for the high quality of its art. My art is anything but high quality. But I think the joke played. People got that it was, you know, a blindfolded person throwing darts at a dartboard. And in fact, to make fun of my art, in one of the duelists,

Normally, when art is done, the artist does a sketch before they do they turn the card in. I obviously didn't make a sketch since my art was at sketch level. But for one of my columns in the do list, I took a picture of Richard Garfield as if he was posing for the picture,

and then I made a sketch version of the picture. Because I joked that many people asked me, is that Richard Garfield? I'm like, why, yes, it is. And I showed the picture, his modeling picture, and then my sketch picture. Anyway, that card went on to be pretty well liked by people. I mean, like I said, I do not believe the art is good,

but I believe the art does sell the joke, and people enjoyed it. And then I started, people have always had me sign cards, especially Morrow because it's named after me. But after Morrow, part of the number two card I ever get to, asked the sign is, in fact, look at me in DCI, because it has my name on it. In fact, it's the first magic card to ever have my name on it, which was pretty cool. You know,

we design magic card. I mean, obviously, Maro is named after me, and I know that. And there's a lot of magic cards that I made, and I know that. But it's also kind of cool to actually have a magic card that your name is literally on the magic card. That is just, that is quite cool. It's very cool. I will admit, it is very cool. So anyway, I assumed that was a good. going to be my one venture into a magic illustration. Honestly, honestly. Like, I'm like, okay, we did one joke set. I did one card. I've, you know, I now can claim, you know, I'm a magic artist and whatever that means. And I could, I could rest on my laurels. But then, Gavin Verhe made Mystery Booster. And as part of the mystery booster, they decided to make a bunch of

playtest cards. And the playtest cards were, you know, just sort of silly cards that do things that we probably wouldn't normally do. They were meant to be played in the limited format. And they were meant one of the things I try so hard with Uncards is it's really important to me the Uncards have a long-term play value. And we do a lot of playtesting. Even though the cards are funny and are doing weird things, we do want them to have a lot of play value to them. I think the idea behind the playtest cards was more of these are funny to read, they're humorous, and hey,

you can play a couple games with them in limited and they'll be fine. They're not a lot of playtesting that goes into the playtest cards, even though they're called playtest cards. But anyway, I made a few of them, and one of them I made oh, by the way, I should tell you what Look at Me MDCI does, sorry.

Look at me if DCI caused five white white sorcery, ban a card other than a basic land card for the rest of the match. all cards with that name in any zone or sideboard are removed from the match. So the idea is, I ban a card and then it's gone. That's the flavor of looking at the DCI.

That's why the joke of it was we were throwing darts at a dartboard. Like, you too can be the DCI. The DCI, by the way, is the Duel's Convocation International. It is what we used to call the body that oversaw tournaments. Since then, we stopped calling at that.

But, for example, we used to put out a magazine, or not a magazine, but I don't know what to call it, a flyer. For people who are in the DCI called the DUL's Convocation. Anyway, that was what we were joking about with that card. Okay, so we get to the mystery booster and the playtest cards. So I make a card called Marrows Gone Nuts, green, green enchantment, double any effect that doubles. And then the reminder text is it quadruples.

I thought it was a funny, like I said, this is a good example of a card that I don't think is particularly fun. I think that it reads fun, and obviously I have a, one of the jokes is that I just like to double things. And so I've made a lot of cards that double things. So what if I made a card that doubles everything that doubles is the joke. And because I made the, I named the card, I costed the card, I designed, everything about it, I said, oh, I should do the art.

One of the things that was fun for looking at me at the DCI is I named the card, I designed the card, I illustrated the art, I wrote the flavor text. And so I believe the only other card where that was true, I think. Yesper and Mirforce did, what's the name of the card? It's in the dark. I'm blinking on the name of the card. Maybe it'll come to me.

But anyway, not a lot of people have done all four. So Marlowe's Gone Nuts doesn't have flavor text, so I didn't do flavor checks on it. But I did name it and design it. and I did the art for it. So the art on it was I just took my little guy throwing darts, my blindfolded guy throwing darts from Look at Meadec and just drew it as many times as I could. Now, I will say the test card, we did not get her names on it.

So it is unlike Looking at D.C. that has my name on it. Now, it is called Marrows Gone Nuts. It is a very distinctive style that you might recognize as being my style. So people did crack that I'm the artist. And I think we told somewhere that I was the artist. But anyway, I signed plenty of Marrows Gone Nuts. So that was my second effect. So, okay, I made a card and an unset.

I made a playtest card. That's really the two categories you would expect to see my art. I'm done. I am done making magic art. But wait, Jess, when you think you're finished, they pull you back in. Okay. Then, a number of years later, we're doing a fundraiser. Child's Play is a charity that we work with that raises money.

for children's hospitals, a very good cause. And so we were doing a fundraise. We were doing a secret letter for them. And so what we did is we had children from the hospital that we were raising money for draw pictures of existing magic cards. And the idea is we then took that picture illustrated by the child and we had an actual, an actual artist, then interpret the sort of takes the child's picture as the inspiration,

but then to make an actual piece of art out of it. But the idea was as much as the artist could, they used the original art as the inspiration for the piece. They turned out really fun. It's a fun thing to do. But anyway, in secret layers, there always is a bonus card that's a secret. And so the idea that they thought would be really funny for the bonus card was what if the bonus card, I was the young child. So obviously I've obviously made a name for myself in drawing like a child. And so what they did is for the secret it was questing Felderiff. For those who don't know, one green, white blue creature Feldegriff, 4-4.

Green, questing Feldergift gets plus one plus one to end of turn. target opponent creates a 1-1 hippo token. White, questioning Feldergift gains protection from black and from red until end of turn, target opponent gains two life. Or blue, questioning Felderiff gains flying until end of turn. Target opponent draws a card. So the original Feldergryph, which showed up in alliances, was made by the East Coast Playtefters as a joke about Richard Garfield.

When Richard used to do interviews, the PR department, always insisted that everybody who referred to Richard refer to him as Richard Garfield, PhD, because Richard had a PhD. They liked that he was a doctor. And so R&D used to tease him about that all the time. And so they decided to make a card making fun of Richard. And there had been an ongoing joke that one day, that we'll keep making cards that one day will make a flying purple hippo. So they decided they would make the flying purple hippo and then name it after Richard. So Feldergriff is Garfield PhD. anagramed. We would later make questing Feldegroff, which was a throwback to Feldergraf. That's the

card I was illustrating. So for the first time ever, they had me illustrate an actual magic card. Yes, there are, there are, I mean, obviously I've illustrated something like looking at me at DCI, but now I'm illustrated a card that you can play in the legal eternal tournament. Your commander that could have a Marker-Roswater illustrated card legally in your deck. So for this one, I had to draw a Feldera, which is a flying purple hippo. So I did my best. I drew a hippo in the sky. There's sun.

There's clouds. I put a cape on him so you can tell he's flying. And I put some speed lines. All of which made it into the final art, which my wife, by the way, did purchase for me. Not my wife. My mother. My mother purchased for me as a present. And also, on all the things.

cards we listed the age of the children. It's like, you know, Jonathan, age nine. So I'm listed on the card, I have my art credit on it, which it says 53 and a half, or 53, sorry, 53 and three quarters. I was almost 54, so I decided that would be fun. So this is my third illustration, my second credit on a magic card. So for next year, they decided to run it back. They decided to do the same promotion again. And again, they asked me to do, they asked me to do an illustration. This time, they decided it would be fun if I did Morrow. Morrow, the original Morrow was done by Stuart Griffin. In fact, Sue N. Harky, who was the art director at the time, found the piece. The piece is called Green Man originally, at an art show and bought the rights to the art from the artist, which she later

used on Morrow. I bought the, I bought the art from him. Pete Venters, I think, did the art for Morrow in, I want to say, seventh edition. So this is, this and the artist's interpretation of my art are the third and fourth art ever for Morrow. And so I drew a little sort of living nature creature. It's got a little bird nest in his head, and he's got flowers for eyes and vines for a mouth. So Morrow, by the way, if you don't know, two green-green, star, star, elemental, creature-elemental. Maro's power and toughness are each equal to the number of cards in your hand. For the people that don't know the story of Maro real quickly,

since I'm telling stories, when I was working on Mirage, the second ever development team I was ever on, versus the alliances, there was a hole in the file. And I said, hey, I have a card because I had made a lot of magic cards and I saw an opportunity to get a magic card in a magic set, very excited. So I pitched the card. It was a green hole.

And Bill Roy liked the card, so he put it Bill, Bill. was the lead of the development. Bill actually led design and development for Mirage. Bill put it in the file and in our way back when we used to do the way our email worked was it would fill if you typed in letters and there was only one combination those letters match it would fill it in. So Bill, I don't know just, I'm not sure it's lazy or efficiency, figured out what is the smallest number of letters he had a right for each person in order to get them to come up in the email system. For me, it was M-A-for-Marrow, M-A for Mark, R. O for Rosewater. So when I gave him a card, he wrote Morrow on it, less to be a name and more like, well,

this is just my way of saying Mark gave me a card. But he wrote Morrow on it, and then the continuity people, the creative people of time, that used to be called continuity, said, oh, yeah, that's fine. So they left the name. And once again, this is at a point where vanity cards were allowed, where things could be named after designers, no longer true. But anyway, so I got my name on a card. And now I got name on a card, it's the kind of a creature.

So there are multiple cards, because if you talk about a Morrow creature, which is the name of nature elementals in magic, and the way vanity cards work is once you're in your grandfather in, so that's what elementals are called in. So the word Morrow actually showed up on a bunch of cards, which is kind of cool. It's neat to be part of it. Okay, so, okay, I had done an un-card,

I had done a playtest card I had done some child's charity cards that's got to be it right four cards that is that is way way above my weight as an artist but no

we started doing the thing called Festival in a box and they were doing the very first one and they wanted to put some stuff in it that just was cool so they came to me and they said Mark would you mind making sort of a play test card

you know it would look like a playtest card, basically. Could you make a playtest card for the convention in a box? And what they said to me is they wanted it to be something that could be your commander, but it needed to be something that was like a playtest card. The way I thought of it is kind of silver border. Plaintest cards and silver border are slightly different to each other, but I mostly designed my playtest cards as if they were silver border. That is my training. So I made a card called Convention Morrow. So it is a... is one green and then there's two hybrid two-brid costs.

So it's either two or a blue and then two or a white. The reason I did this is I wanted to be a three-collar card. So it's a green-blue white card, a band card, if you will. So legendary creature elemental gamer, 3-3. Whenever you cast a spell, that choice A, create a green elemental creature token named Morrow with this creature's power and tufters are each equal to the number of choice. As you create your deck, choose A and B.

So the idea is you have to pick what this card does. Once you lock it in, like at the beginning of the game, you have to say this is what it does. So A can be the number of watermarks, the number of landscape orientations, or targets a creature you control. So cards that target your creature. And B could be cards in your hand,

car types among cards in the grave, or artists among non-land token permanence you control. So the idea was I gave you a, I mean, obviously if you want to make Maro be a normal Mario, you can. If you wanted to be it like, care about like a Tarmagoy if you can. If you wanted to care about artists, you can. So I did a bunch of things that were very, some of which were normal, some of which were on.

But the idea was I made a variety so you could choose. So this test card does have my name on it. So it's the fifth time. I get my magic name on a magic card. And anyway, that went to Festival in a Box. Well, once I did one Festival in a Box card, they're like, oh, we got to keep that running. So for now, I've been making Festival in a Box cards.

The rule is that each one has to match the city that it is being hosted in. So the first card that I did was in ProTor Chicago. So I made a land called. called Second City. So it's a land town. It's a land subtype. Tap add colorless.

Or tap, add one mana of any color. Spend this mana only to capture your second spell in a turn. When that mana is spent, create a deep dish pizza token. It's a food token with three tap. Sacrifice this token. You gain three life and draw a card. So the idea is Second City is a nickname for Chicago. and the joke here is it makes mana,

but it allows you to have any color for your second spell because get it, it's second city. And then to play into the deep dish pizza, which I love from Chicago, I then, it makes, instead of a normal food, it makes deep dish pizza, which is a bigger food that also draws you card. It's like a better, a better pizza food.

It's better food because I like deep dish a lot. So the art I drew for it, Oh, sorry. The art I drew for convention was a morrow at a convention, and he had a little shirt on, said Magicon. For Second City, I drew the skyline of Chicago with the sun is a pizza. And I spent a lot of time trying to make sure that this, in fact, is the Chicago skyline. Probably a few people who have any appreciation of that, maybe, some Chicago residents, maybe.

But I did spend time. I did actually copy, I mean, to the best of my ability, but that is the skyline. island of Chicago. Okay, next up, we were in Vegas. And so I made all you can eat buffet. Two green green enchantment. You may look at the top card of your library at any time. You may play lands and cast creature spells from the top of your library. The top card of your library is a food token. It is still a card. It has two tap sacrifice, gain three life. So one of the things I make sure my cards all have a little bit of unto them. You can't actually turn cards on your library into food, really, that doesn't quite work.

But I thought it was kind of fun. The idea being basically is you can keep, like, it's all you can eat. You can keep playing stuff on the top of your library. And if you ever run into something you can't cast, you can just eat it. And so that was the idea for that card. And I drew a whole bunch of food. I'm always nervous. This also has a pizza, by the way.

This is the second card in a row that has pizza on it. Not all my cards of pizza, but there are two cards that pizza. I'll find trivia question. Name an object on two different Morrow Illustrated cards. And the answer is Morrow or Pizza. I did draw two Morrow's. And I draw two pizzas. Okay.

Next up, we were going to Atlanta. So it turns out in Atlanta, there is a intersection of a whole bunch of highways that is very messy that they call spaghetti junction. So I made a card to call spaghetti junction. It's a land. Tap, add colorless. Four tap. Create a three, two, cul-lis vehicle.

artifact token with crew one. Whenever a vehicle you control attacks, put a traffic counter on this land. When this land has eight traffic counters on it, you may sacrifice it. If you do, create Atlanta Cool, a legendary 2020 Eldrazi creature token with Annihilator 2. So the idea there was underneath the spaghetti junction, because they refer to, people refer to Emmer Kool and the Eldrazi as spaghetti monsters. So I was leaning into that. And then I thought Atlanta cool, sounds funny. So that is spaghetti junction. And I drew a picture of the freeway, the freeway intersection with little cars on it and there's a face behind it because I'm trying to say that it's alive, it's alive and it can get you. Okay, the last card, at least the last

card that's been released, there are more coming. It's called In Residence. We were back in Vegas. So in Residence costs X red green. It's an enchantment. When this enchantment enters, search your library for a legendary creature card with man of value extra less, exile it than shuffle. At beginning of your first main phase, you may introduce the exile card using an introduction you haven't used

this game. If you do, put that card onto the battlefield, it gains haste, exile the creature's beginning of the next end step. So the idea was, in residence means there's a performer that performs every day at the event. So what I thought was fun is having a card that you get the card every turn but it goes away.

And so obviously you could attack with the card if you wanted to, but the more fun thing was, are there enter battlefield effects? Are there tap effects? Like, what is it fun to keep bringing back turn after turn? And so I thought that was, anyway, I thought that was, I enjoyed that. Okay, so, let's talk a little bit about how these get made. How do I do my art? Oh, by the way, I did not, there is one more piece of art that is published.

It's not a magic card, but it is a mark of words about illustration. For mood swings, my game, we decided we wanted to do a chain, or a headliner, I think is what we call it. We want to do a headliner. A headliner is a card that shows up very infrequently. So the idea they came up with is what if we took a card, I chose the card, love. What if I illustrated a copy of love? And then we made it very rare. There are only 500 of them.

We printed those in foil. I hand-signed everyone. and with different color markers drew on the faces because there's two faces on it. I drew on every card. On 50 of them, I wrote little notes. But anyway, so that's the headliner of Moose Wings. So I do not own one.

I hope one day to own one. But it's the only Moose Wings card right now. I do not own. And it's the one that has my name on it. So anyway, so I did one more illustration for a non-magic card, but a wizard's game. But anyway, so the way it tends to work is at least for a festival in a box.

They come to me. They'll tell me the city we're going to. I have free reign to design whatever card I want. I know I have to draw the art for it, so I also keep in mind, it's got to be something that I think I can draw. And so, and that is a limitation. And then what I'll do is try to come up something.

Normally my rules are I want to make something that's a little bit of an uncard, meaning we couldn't just print it normally. There's a little bit of something about it that is. It doesn't actually be super un- It's just a little tiny bit. And I wanted to make it something that's fun and humorous. Obviously, my drawing, I will use comedy

because my drawing style is not particularly serious. I still use crayons. I decided that my medium was crayon. Interestingly, only the first card ever did in color. So I do use different colors, which you can tell a little bit, because even black and white, you can tell that different colors

of different texture, I guess, or different, slight shading. But anyway, I normally do the card and do the art really near each other. Like I said, I don't quite... I mean, I do draw it multiple versions of the card just to make sure that I get a version I like. But normally these days, I draw a couple.

I don't draw... Like when I did look at me, I'm the DCI, I literally drew like 100. I drew a lot of them. Now I draw something. In fact, the story I've told about love, my version of love from Mootswings is Christina is my producer.

She had mentioned many weeks before that I needed to make art for love. And I said, fine. So I assumed someone would contact me, okay. Because normally when I do Fethel and Box, someone contacts me and gives me a deadline. And she wrote to me and said, oh, two weeks ago, you're supposed to make a piece of art. And so I quickly grabbed my crange, drew her picture,

and ran it over to her. And I believe it was two minutes from me reading the email to her having in her hand, which is the speed run record for commissioning, which I don't think it will have to be broken. But anyway, normally I draw it when I'm working on the card. I do the card first, but then when I'm about hand off the card, I draw the art. And these days, I just, I'll draw until I get a version I like.

Usually, sometimes on a few of them, the first version I was happy with, some of them, it takes a couple versions. Stuff like the Skyland in Chicago, there's a lot of, that's a very slow detail work, so that took me a little bit of time. But anyway, I will admit, while I don't really believe. believe I'm worthy of being a magic artist. It is kind of fun. People come and have me sign my cards all the time. So I, the fact that I now have, I guess I technically have eight cards

when they name on it. Or no, well, if you count the headline, or nine cards with the name on it. Ten total, the, Maro's gone, what is it, Maro's gone, is it crazy? I think Maro's gone nuts,

is what it's called. Maro's gone nuts. So it is fun to have cards with my illustration on them. I do want to stress that we highly, highly value our artists, and our artists are really, really good. I think that the reason they have me do these cards from time to time is the novelty value that it's me doing them. And people do seem to enjoy that.

But I hope people understand that it... I know I do not meet the standards of our art. I'm not even close to a standards of our art. So I am tickled that I keep getting to make cards. And the two cards that I have that are actual, like, eternal legal cards, there are real artists have taken my art and made much, much better versions of them. So if you like the inspiration of my art, but better, that is also available to you. So anyway, it is a lot of fun.

I do enjoy occasionally getting to do art just because it's something different. And it is fun. It's fun to be part of the game in a different way. I've joked that one of these days I should go to MagicCon and set up a booth and then just have famous magic pictures but have me reinterpret favorite magic pictures in

you know with stick figures who knows maybe one day will do that but anyway that is my life as a magic artist it is crazy to me how many pieces I have and like I said I'm not even done

I've done pieces you haven't seen so I don't know when the dust will settle. When my magic artist career, it comes to a close, but right now I'm up to nine. And nine and more coming. So anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed my story of my magic artist days, but I'm now at work.

So we all know what that means. It means the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you all next time. Bye-bye.