Tom's Mad Blog
March 12th, 2015 | Posted in News
Back in 1962, MAD‘s Mort Drucker illustrated a satirical coloring book about the Kennedy clan called the “JFK Coloring Book”. It was a brilliant piece of satire written by Paul Laikin and Jackie Kannon, making fun of a president who was wildly popular and bucking conventional wisdom. It spent 14 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller’s list. Then came the assassination, and the book was pulled from bookstores and never saw print again… until now. Actually the reprint took place last September, but I just found out about it through a MAD fan group. I have a vintage copy I got from eBay… READ MORE
March 12th, 2015 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
The cover of Broadcasting and Cable magazine, Aug 1999. Airbrush and watercolor for a cover story on new syndicated talk shows. Depicted left to right: Martin Short, Richard Simmons, Tia Carrere, Louie Anderson, ??? and Queen Latifah. I have no clue who the blonde lady is with the microphone raised up in the center. She must have debuted a syndicated TV talk show in 1999, but as I have long lost the actual magazine (just have the cover tear sheet), I can’t remember who she was. This was sixteen years ago… that’s a lot of ink, paint, and scotch under the bridge. UPDATE: Two commenters… READ MORE
March 11th, 2015 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
A very quick digital study of the embattled Brian Williams… complete with obvious gag. READ MORE
March 10th, 2015 | Posted in General
I’m trying to make some room in the studio, and I ran across a small stack of this MAD variant cover I did last year from DC Comic’s Batman/Superman #10, which I just listed in the Studio Store, signed and everything. These were made in very limited quantities. There were no MAD variant covers this year, which was a real bummer. Those were very fun to do. Maybe DC will do something like that again in the future. READ MORE
March 9th, 2015 | Posted in Monday MADness
In MAD #475, March 2007, I did the art for one of MAD‘s “Deconstructing TV Talk Shows” recurring feature. This one was of “The Best Damn Sports Show Period”, written by Desmond Devlin. The cast of the show were great sports and they brought out the issue on the air: [youtube]http://youtu.be/DQRUsBP_rpo[/youtube] Here’s some of the art from that: READ MORE
March 8th, 2015 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I was wondering if you could give some information about drawing live retail caricatures (as in setting up on a sidewalk or in a busy tourist area.) I was curious about making things nice and legal. A: That’s a question that is too specific to answer in general. The legal necessities for do retail caricatures differ by state, venue, circumstance, etc. Most of my expertise in this area would be drawing at theme parks and tourist retail centers or malls. In almost all instances you would need to be licensed as a business in the spot you intend to draw at. If it’s a… READ MORE
March 6th, 2015 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
The old drawing board is actually close to being reasonably caught up for a change. I just finished several big projects in the last week or so: MAD Movie Parody– This was not for the magazine but for a special project that I don’t think I can announce yet. It may end up in the magazine eventually or for sure in some collection or bookazine, but for now it’s going to be available for this limited item. BTW, this parody contains the most insane two page spread I’ve ever done for MAD. Took me four full days to do these two pages. Jeff Dunham Illustrations–… READ MORE
March 5th, 2015 | Posted in General
Well… okay. Not really “battle” damaged like your favorite action figure variation, but sort of. Books bought wholesale for brick and mortar stores can be returned if unsold within a certain timeframe. Sometimes these returned books come back with a crease on the cover, a bent corner, a little wear on the spine… very minor damage that does not reduce the readability of the book at all, but does preclude the distributor from selling it again as “new”.¬¨‚Ć I picked up a limited supply of these returned but lightly damaged copies from my distributor the other day, and am selling them for a mere $9.99!… READ MORE
