Tom's Mad Blog
January 2nd, 2018 | Posted in Monday MADness
The now former art director of MAD Magazine Sam Viviano reminded me of this project while we were exchanging emails and reminiscing recently. Not only was it my first book with MAD, but it was also one of the toughest deadlines I was ever challenged with. The book was called Bo Confidential: The Secret Files of America’s First Dog. Bo was, of course, the first pet the Obama’s brought into the White House. He was a 6 month old Portuguese Water Dog, and he got a LOT of media attention. Naturally the folks at MAD thought that was ridiculous, so they quickly wrote a short book… READ MORE
January 1st, 2018 | Posted in General
READ MORE
December 31st, 2017 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: As the owner of a business that does caricatures in various theme parks, do you have trouble finding people to work on holidays like today (New Year’s Eve)? What do you do if you can’t get anyone to work on these days? A: This: Christmas Eve, 2018… Thanks to R Griffin for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here! READ MORE
December 29th, 2017 | Posted in General
The startup comic book company I recently did some work for, Sitcomics, is getting some press for both the “Binge Book” format of their comics and how they are trying to buck the standard comic book distribution system with what they call “sell-through distribution”. Bleedingcool has a write-up as does The Outhousers. Sitcomics publisher and main writer Darin Henry wanted to do something different with his comic book lineup. Coming from a background as a successful TV writer (Futurama, Seinfeld, The Ellen Show, etc) he is applying today’s new dynamic of TV consumption to comics. His “Binge Books” contain 64 page full story arcs for… READ MORE
December 29th, 2017 | Posted in Stuff from my Studio
It’s another thrilling installment featuring stuff in my studio! This time around we are having a look at this: Whenever I travel somewhere interesting, I always try and get some item to remind me of the trip. I try and find something that represents the place I’m visiting, the reason I am there, or something that will remind me of some specific moment or event from the trip. This is a hand-made toy truck I bought in Kandahar, Afghanistan while on a USO trip with a group of cartoonists from the National Cartoonists Society in 2013. It’s meant to be what are referred to as… READ MORE
December 28th, 2017 | Posted in News
Workshop availability update: Both the London and Dallas workshops are sold out! If you missed out you can be added to the waitlist of any sold out workshop by emailing me and letting me know which one you are interested in. I keep a waitlist request queue and in the event someone backs out I offer that spot to the first person on the list. If they decide not to do it, I go to the next person on the list, etc. I often have at least one person back out, so the sooner you get on the waitlist the better chance you have at… READ MORE
December 28th, 2017 | Posted in General
I’m currently working on my first job for the new MAD staff, and part of this project requires me to recreate the look/style of another cartoonist. MAD does this sort of thing quite often, having lampooned comic strips, comic books, book illustrators, and other visual artists over the years requiring one of their artists to “ape” the look of another artist to pull off the parody. Doing a perfect copy of the style of another artist isn’t exactly the goal with a parody. It’s more capturing the “feel” of the work and certain signature elements of it, so the viewer sees it and instantly recognizes… READ MORE
December 27th, 2017 | Posted in Classic Rock Sketch Series
My final Sketch o’the Week for 2017, and the last of the KISS series, original drummer Peter Criss! Original available in the Studio Store. My apologies to fans of Eric Carr, Vinnie Vincent, Mark St. John, Bruce Kulick, Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer… but I’m only doing the original band members. I think this is also the end of my “Classic Rock Series”, I’m getting bored coming up with new subjects. Time to start doing something new in 2018! READ MORE
