Tom's Mad Blog
September 14th, 2015 | Posted in Monday MADness
In honor of the start of the NFL season, here’s a look at the final art for a sports piece from MAD #416, April 2002. It’s called “Their Team… Your Team…” written by J. Prete. It is one of only four jobs I ever did for MAD in black and white, although MAD was in full color by the time it saw print. The concept was gags involving how the same behavior or situation is looked at differently if it applies to a team you root for, or for one that you don’t. Clicky any to embiggen: Their Team… bought a pennant. Your Team… made… READ MORE
September 13th, 2015 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: This question may sound funny, but I think it is quite relevant: Imagine you are doing live caricatures and there is a desirable long line of customers waiting. Suddenly you really have to powder your nose. What are you doing/saying? Have you ever been in such a situation? And do you remember how long your longest non stop live drawing session has been? A: I started doing live caricatures 30 years ago at a theme park called Six Flags Great America near Chicago. That summer in 1985 had long lasting effects on me in multiple ways. First, I fell in love with the art… READ MORE
September 11th, 2015 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
The old drawing board is crazy right now, mainly because I am furiously trying to finish the “Z-People” comic book that is now ridiculously overdue. Lesson learned: do not accept a large job with the understanding you will “work on it in between jobs”. There is no “in between jobs”… ever. I’ve had to start turning down other work to get this thing finished, and should have started doing that months ago. However there are some longtime clients I can’t turn away, since I need them to be there after this comic is done. So, here’s what I have going right now: Z People Comic–… READ MORE
September 10th, 2015 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
From the mid to late 90’s I did a fair amount of work for a publishing company out in the San Fransisco area that produced magazines for the local pro sports teams, including the San Fransisco Giants baseball team. I did quite a few spot illustrations to accompany short articles. Here’s a few done in traditional media from 1995 to 1999 or so. There are a few caricatures but mostly just generic ballplayers. I believe that’s Mike Piazza and Barry Bonds first and third from the left… READ MORE
September 9th, 2015 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Here’s the last of the Doctors, Peter Capaldi. This is another one I did a year or so ago, but as I still like it I’m going to use it for the new print rather than do another one. Speaking of the new print, not all the studies I shared over the last two weeks will make the final cut. Some need tweaking and one or two I have soured on, and will redo. So, when the print is released don’t be surprised if some of the caricatures of the Doctors are changed or altogether different from these studies. I’ll be debuting the print on… READ MORE
September 8th, 2015 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Back to my little run of caricature studies of the Doctors, here’s Doctor number eleven, Matt Smith! READ MORE
September 7th, 2015 | Posted in MAD Magazine
DC Comics announced its 2015 New York Comic Con panel lineup recently… including one on MAD Magazine: “Mad About MAD” – The country’s #1-selling humor magazine (in a field of 1), MAD Magazine is dumber than ever! Join Editor John Ficarra, Art Director Sam Viviano, Peter Kuper, Tom Richmond and Jonathan Bresman for a ridiculous peek at what’s happening at the magazine, and an epically, moronic Q&A. Sunday Oct 11th, 2:30pm, Room 1A21 If you are attending NYCC, stop by and find out what kind of stupidity you can expect from the Usual Gang of Idiots in the next few months! READ MORE
September 6th, 2015 | Posted in Mailbag
These are several related questions about organizing my digital illustration work, so I’ve broken them up into different single ones: Q: What does your computer filing system look like? You must have millions of works of art in various formats all over your hard drive(s). Do you organize by dated folder? By publication? Do you have a coded filing system of any kind? I don’t have millions of pieces of artwork, but I do have well over a thousand, possibles thousands. I have a separate hard drive on which I store all my artwork, including roughs, layered working files and flattened final art. It’s a… READ MORE
