Tom's Mad Blog
July 25th, 2020 | Posted in General
Here’s some samples of recent commissions from my virtual Artist’s Alley table! These are color and Black & white “Mock” MAD covers, done on 9×12 bristol in brush pen and Copic markers. I’m also doing pencil sketch covers, and “live caricature” style drawings of “Alfred as… somebody”, you, your mom, your gardener, or whoever you can get me pictures of. I’m open for San Diego Comic Con @ home ONLY through Sunday at 5pm PDT! After that I’ll have to go into my bat-cave and draw for about two weeks straight. READ MORE
July 24th, 2020 | Posted in News
The Lovely Anna and I are in our traditional Friday Comic-Con shirts today, even though our “booth” is virtual. We are only open through Sunday, so visit our Virtual San Diego Comic-Con booth to buy goodies or original art commissions while you still can! READ MORE
July 23rd, 2020 | Posted in General
San Diego Comic Con is supposed to be in full swing right now, but thanks to the pandemic the San Diego Convention Center is all quiet. The SDCC folks are doing a virtual comic con instead, complete with an online exhibitor’s hall! My virtual booth is open for business through Sunday only. You can get my comic-con style commissions at the same prices I charge at conventions, with FREE DOMESTIC SHIPPING on any commissioned art or any orders of stuff over $45. All my books and prints are also available including these two new ones I just debuted: Visit my virtual comic con booth now… READ MORE
July 22nd, 2020 | Posted in News
San Diego Comic-Con was supposed to start today, but of course the event was cancelled and no one was able to go… so they brought San Diego Comic-Con to YOU! Comic-Con @ Home opened today and features online panels, watch parties, other goodies, and a virtual exhibitor’s hall features many of the vendors that would have been at SDCC starting today… including me! I’ve opened my “Virtual Comic-Con Booth” again, but only through Sunday July 26th to coincide with the dates of San Diego Comic-Con. Once again I am offering the various Comic-Con level commissions, products and pricing. I also have copies of all my… READ MORE
July 22nd, 2020 | Posted in Daily Coronacature
Here’s my take on Salvador Dali. Between his “10 minutes after 10” mustache, the buggy eyes and his mugging for the camera, he’s a lot of fun to draw. READ MORE
July 21st, 2020 | Posted in Freelancing
I did the art for this “commemorative plate” gag in the latest issue of Viz. I had to do it in a real hurry in the middle of a couple of other deadline jobs, so I used a lot of Photoshop tricks to create the image. It’s not really a full painting. I used a few different photo references I got from the web, shot a couple myself, put them together into a composition, ran them through a few filters and then painted over it all creating the parts that needed to be done from scratch. The editors didn’t want it to look cartoony or… READ MORE
July 20th, 2020 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Today’s Monday MADness is a look back at a three pager Desmond Devlin and I did for MAD #504, August 2010. Back then Toyota was in some hot water for an “unexplained acceleration” issue with their card that resulted in a lawsuit and investigation. This was a play on that with the Toy Story gang. Originally I just did a movie poster spoof that was a little different than the above for the MAD website, but then they expanded it into a short story for the actual magazine. Trying to get the look of the Pixar characters was time consuming. I went straight from pencils… READ MORE
July 19th, 2020 | Posted in General
Q: Are there elements of illustrations that you don’t find fun or enjoyable, that you routinely have to motivate yourself to labor through? For example, I find substantially less pleasure in drawing backgrounds and would much rather focus on drawing the subjects. If there is something you find less fun, what do you do to combat that? Do you draw the boring stuff first to get it out of the way? Curious about your process! A: I can find interest in any aspect of a job, but you do need to get in a different mindsets for different parts of a project: Conceptual Stage- This… READ MORE
