A heartfelt farewell to Screaming Mad George (a.k.a. Joji Tani), who left us on February 10, 2026. He was my student at SVA in 1977. I was teaching media communications, and to involve the students in the art of creating a spectacle, we took to the streets. The idea was to use a diversionary tactic to grab public attention.
The students staged a fake demonstration about a real issue in front of the New York governor’s office — the environmental impact of the supersonic Concorde jet. In the midst of the demonstration, the protesters were attacked by New York’s legendary Sewer Monster, created by Screaming Mad George.
This was early in his extraordinally creative career designing visual effects for bizarre, macabre, and gruesomely realistic effects. Read the full story here.
Read his obituary here: “The Man Behind The PS1’s Oddest Game, Has Passed Away”,