Tom's Mad Blog
July 14th, 2020 | Posted in General
The National Cartoonists Society, of which I am a longtime member and a past president, just released a fun kid’s activity book as part of their “Cartooning for Kids” program. Originally this was going to be a printed book that the NCS would have available for schools, kids organization and for our children’s hospital visits, but the coronavirus scuttled all that. Instead, the NCS has made it available as a PDF that anyone can download and print out (although they will eventually have a printed version). They are suggesting a donation of any amount you choose for the book, all the proceeds of which will… READ MORE
July 13th, 2020 | Posted in MAD Magazine
This week’s Monday MADness is a look at the complete parody of “The Wizard of Oz” from MAD #505, Oct. 2010, written by Desmond Devlin. with the increasingly poisonous partisan dialogues of the political talking heads of the time as a target (little did we know). This was a really fun but exhausting one to work on, considering I needed to do caricatures of dozens of political pundits as either munchkins or other characters. It’s always challenging to try and incorporate both a caricature likeness and some other recognizable visual identity like the Tin Man, Scarecrow or the Cowardly Lion into the same character. Here… READ MORE
July 10th, 2020 | Posted in General
I’ve been slowly but steadily working my way through the huge stack of commissions from my “Corona-Con Virtual Artists Alley Table” I did back in April and May. Little did I know when I did that promotion that I was about to get socked with multiple freelance jobs with tight deadlines. Some of these folks have been waiting TWO MONTHS for their art. Everyone has been very patient with me, and for that I am grateful. Here are a few more. Some are straight “Alfred as…” drawings, some are caricatures of people with celebrities, some are just famous people. All the ones you see here… READ MORE
July 9th, 2020 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
I do illustration work for superstar ventriloquist Jeff Dunham (who still hasn’t invited me over to take a drive in his ’89 Burton Batmobile, not that I’m expecting that). Back in 2013 I did a bunch of art for a game app that Jeff produced called “Achmed’s Bombsweeper”, which was basically Minesweeper but with Jeff’s Achmed character trying to build a giant Robo-Achmed and the player trying to stop him. This was my design/illustration of the robot Achmed. The app is now defunct so don’t bother looking for it… you’ll just have to take my word for it. READ MORE
July 8th, 2020 | Posted in Daily Coronacature
Not only are the films of “The Master of Suspense” director Alfred Hitchcock still revered and studied by film students today, 40 years after his death, but caricaturists are still having fun drawing him! READ MORE
July 7th, 2020 | Posted in Daily Coronacature
Katy was actually yesterday’s subject but who’s counting? The original was a small pencil sketch and I added the grays digitally… this one appears in my The Mad Art of Caricature book. READ MORE
July 6th, 2020 | Posted in Monday MADness
Back in 2016 MAD started producing a series of parodies of children’s books starting with Goodnight Batcave (spoofing the beloved Margaret Wise Brown/Clement Hurd classic Goodnight Moon) written by MAD editor Dave Croatto with art by me. We followed that in 2017 with Superman and and the Miserable, Rotten, No Fun, Really Bad Day, also written by Dave with art by me, and in 2018 with Don’t Let the Penguin Drive the Batmobile, this time penned by another MAD editor, Jacob Lambert, and again with art by yours truly. Shortly after MAD moved to Burbank in early 2018, we actually pitched another kids book parody… READ MORE
July 5th, 2020 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Do you think about caricatures differently when you are working on a MAD parody with multiple faces, as compared with caricaturing a single face. For example, do you consciously play the faces off against each other to see how they differ, and how those differences might help with your choices about exaggeration? Do you think the relationship to other faces in a parody causes you to make different choices than if you were caricaturing a subject on their own? Does this also apply with caricaturing couples or groups in a live setting (or maybe more so apply in those settings)? Very seldom would I do that in a… READ MORE
