That old mag o' mine...

In the late 80's when comedy clubs were sprouting all over town, RAVE was "The Playbill of Comedy Clubs."

Every month featured interviews and photos with the top stars...it gave me a great opportunity to meet so many comedians that I grew up with (The Smothers Brothers, Steve Allen, Bill Dana, Jackie Mason) and to get to know the smartest new performers (Margaret Smith, Emo Philips, Judy Tenuta, Brett Butler, Richard Jeni, Steven Wright) and to hob the nob with everyone from Jerry Seinfeld to David Letterman.

Here's a collage of some of the photos I took of comedy stars as I made my way from New York to Montreal to Las Vegas to Chicago... anywhere to get a laugh. Some stars even turned up at my place for a photo shoot...

I tried to balance every issue of RAVE with features on both the newest stand-up sensations and the best of the old pros. We had a joke column (the inspiration for my Doubleday book "The Comedy Quote Dictionary") news features, and sometimes the comedians offering their own comic bios, stories and even recipes...
Some sample covers from RAVE, including many portraits done by me at home or "on location"...

I also got the opportunity to hire one of the great comedy artists of all time...a great thrill. I remembered his album covers for Homer & Jethro, Bob & Ray...his montage for "Mad Mad Mad Mad World," and now Jack Davis was drawing a cover for ME...

That cover was promoting the ABC-TV "Comedy Awards" show. One year George Carlin told the world, "What the Wall Street Journal is to finance, RAVE is to comedy." Thanks, George.
In fact, RAVE was responsible for the awards for new comedians. We put ballots in all the clubs so folks could vote on their favorite new stand-up stars..
Another cover won an award and appears in the book "HUMOR" from the Society of Illustrators... I'm glad RAVE was able to help the careers of so many new performers... It was a great highlight in my career.