Artist and writer Mort Todd has created a career in comic books.

PORTLAND, Maine — Growing up in Yarmouth, Mort Todd loved to write and draw. By the time he was 12 and working as a junior counselor at a summer camp in Brunswick, he was getting paid, in part, to publish the camp’s weekly newspaper.

“We’d draw the covers and write all the content and doodle and everything,” he recalled. “Then during the off months when they didn’t have camp I was, like, 'You don’t really need that printing machine, do you?' So I’d take it home and print my own comics.”

Crazy about comic books and a fast learner, he moved at 17 to New York City and started to get work as a writer and illustrator.

At 18, he sold his first screenplay. At 23, he was named editor of the satirical humor magazine “Cracked," which was selling hundreds of thousands of copies a month.

His you