Tom's Mad Blog
June 22nd, 2025 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Welcome to the beginning of the end. MAD #12 (April 2020) was released shortly before the pandemic hit, but COVID had little to do with what was happening at MAD. This was the first issue that showed what MAD was going to be like going forward… issues built around a theme with features related to that theme curated from the archives. This issue’s theme was TV. Of the 56 pages in the magazine, only 13 featured all new material, not including the cover and the letters/table of contents pages. There were also a handful of pages that were colorized versions of previously B&W only art.… READ MORE
June 19th, 2025 | Posted in General
Every few years I collect my the drawings from my ‘Sketch o’the Week” feature into a book, and it’s time for yet another release. “Volume 6” is at the printer as we… uh… read, and is now available for presale in The Studio Store. This is the biggest volume yet, with 84 pages of goofy caricatures from the last 20 months or so. The books should land by mid-July, and all pre-orders will ship forthwith! I’ll have copies at San Diego Comic Con as well. READ MORE
June 18th, 2025 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
We’re back with a new “Sketch o’the Week”, and another Python! A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat, eh? Or so says “Arthur Nudge” as portrayed by Eric Idle from classic Monty Python sketch “Candid Photography” (or as the rest of the world knows it, “Wink Wink Nudge Nudge.”) I had a tough time decided what character to draw Eric Idle as. He has so many that are key parts of Python lore… The “Door-to-Door Joke Salesman”? The “Dead Collector” from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”? The “Amorous Marriage Counselor?” How about “Sir Robin The Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot?” I decided on his… READ MORE
June 16th, 2025 | Posted in General
A few weeks ago I was interviewed for the “Cartoon Everything” podcast with Chris “Meesimo” Meesey and Kelly Light. The episode just dropped today! You can watch it on YouTube or down below. I’ve known Chris for a very long time. He was just a kid when he came to work for me as a caricature artist for the operation I had at the time at Six Flags St. Louis, probably in 1995 or so. He’s since become an accomplished caricaturist, illustrator and comic book artist. I’d never met Kelly but she was a delight to talk with and her work is terrific. Anyway it… READ MORE
June 2nd, 2025 | Posted in General
My workshop in NYC is sold out, so if you were procrastinating on pulling the trigger you are out of luck! Or maybe not… You can get on the waitlist for any sold out workshop in case of a cancellation. There’s never any cost to be on a waitlist for any of my workshops, and no obligation to take a spot if one becomes open and is offered to you. If we have a spot open up we contact the first person on the waitlist and offer that spot to them. If they decline to take it we offer the spot to the next person… READ MORE
May 28th, 2025 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
We continue with our Monty Python series with the late, great Graham Chapman! Of all the Pythons, Chapman always seemed to me to be the “quiet one”. He always seemed to play the straight man in sketches, and rarely was the one to play the “over the top” crazy characters. The other Pythons often cited Chapman as the best actor of the group, which is probably one reason why he played the lead in both “The Life of Brian” and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. I’m guessing he was also willing to be the straight man, while the others preferred to do the funnier,… READ MORE
May 27th, 2025 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Here we go with another of the last few stumbling steps of my work for MAD Magazine. This was the second of the two pieces I did the art for in the “MAD 20 Dumbest People, Events, and Things of 2019”, and Advent calendar featuring potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, written by Amanda Stellberg and first published in MAD #11, Feb 2020. This was an easy two pager for me, as all I did was thirteen spot illustration caricatures of various Democratic politicians. Here are the pencils and the individual spots: This issue was really the beginning of the end for MAD. We had been… READ MORE
May 22nd, 2025 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
And now for something completely different… a new sketch series: the members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus! We start out with the great John Cleese from his immortal skit “The Ministry of Silly Walks”. READ MORE
