By: Tom Richmond
January 28th, 2018 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Any suggestions on staving off the frustration that comes from not being as good as you want when you first learn to draw. Every time I start practicing and realize it looks bad I get frustrated and stop. A: Actually I tell people that those kinds of feelings, as discouraging as they may seem, are a good thing. Drawing is as much, if not more, mental than it is physical. You need to develop great hand/eye coordination to become good at drawing, but it’s really your brain that draws as it needs to see and visualize what you want to create and then command… READ MORE
January 27th, 2018 | Posted in News
Caricature of Mort by me from the 2007 NCS Reuben Weekend (held in Orlando) art Comic strip legend Mort Walker passed away early this morning. His health had been deteriorating and he’d been hospitalized with Pneumonia recently, so we all know this was coming. The National Cartoonists Society has a nice write up here as does writer extraordinaire Mark Evanier here. Mort was, of course, best known for the long running syndicated comic strips Beetle Bailey (started in 1950) and Hi and Lois (started in 1954 with Dik Browne). By the way Hi and Lois is actually a spin-off of Beetle Bailey… Lois is Beetle’s… READ MORE
January 26th, 2018 | Posted in News
I just booked two more workshops for 2018: September 7-9th in Las Vegas and October 12-14th here in Minnesota! If anyone is considering traveling for one of these, the workshops I hold in MN are unique in that the Friday part of the weekend is held in my home and studio. You get a real look at my illustration process as I demo my inking and coloring in the actual space I work at and with the tools I use everyday. You also get to see a lot of original art, both mine and ones from some incredible cartoonists I’ve collected, get fed and watered… READ MORE
January 25th, 2018 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
From 1990 to 1994 I did pencils for a comic book title called “Married… with Children” for a company called NOW Comics. I did 26 issues in total (I think). The first several issues were penciled by artists Dave Schwartz and Mark Braun, and I took over with issue number 6. After issue 7 they restarted the numbering (#1’s sold better… shocking, I know). They after Vol. 2 number 7 they gave up on the title run and just started doing mini-series story arcs and one shots. Most of the time they used photo covers of the actors from the show in character (actually most… READ MORE
January 24th, 2018 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
More 60’s Bat-Villains… Lee Meriwether as Catwoman! Don’t worry, Batfans! Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt are forthcoming… READ MORE
January 23rd, 2018 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
It seems silly to “review” something as basic as a stand for a graphics tablet, but if you use one of these you will understand how frustrating it can be to NOT have an good solution to hold said tablet at a comfortable and stable working angle. Wacom released it’s Mobilestudio Pro a little over a year ago, but they did not have a stand available for it until very recently, forcing users to find imperfect third part solutions. I got one of their new stands to test drive and with the public release can now post my thoughts on the hardware. BTW, you can… READ MORE
January 22nd, 2018 | Posted in Monday MADness
This week’s Monday MADness is a look at the pencils for the parody of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1” from MAD # 507 , written by Desmond Devlin. Click images to Embiggen… Here’s what the final pages looked like: READ MORE
January 21st, 2018 | Posted in General
Q: On Monday you mentioned in your post that Dave Berg was one of “many” classic MAD artists you never got to meet. Who have you met, and who are the ones you most wish you had? A: Back when I first got started with MAD in 2000 they still had an annual holiday party at the Society of Illustrators in NYC. The Lovely Anna and I went to a couple of those until they stopped, and there I was able to meet a number of old school members of the Usual Gang of Idiots, as well as many of the newer contributors like myself.… READ MORE
