Tom's Mad Blog
February 13th, 2015 | Posted in MAD Magazine
I guess “Weird Al” Yankovic is moonlighting in the publication biz these days. Al tweeted recently that he will be the first ever “guest” editor for MAD Magazine in issue #533, due out in April. The official MAD Press release: “The Usual Gang of Idiots” are getting a new Idiot-in-Chief! Celebrated musical satirist and comedian “Weird Al” Yankovic, the biggest-selling comedy recording artist in history, will helm the next issue of MAD as the legendary humor magazine’s first-ever guest editor. Winner of the 2015 Grammy¬¨?Ü for Best Comedy Album, Weird Al is the writer of some of the biggest song parodies in history. Speaking from… READ MORE
February 12th, 2015 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
Hoo boy. Here’s some humbling stuff that I thought was lost to all eternity until I discovered an archive of my website from 1997. The images aren’t too sharp but here are a bunch of old theme park caricature examples of mine from the early to mid 90’s, awkward lumpy bodies, broken-looking hands and all. There were meant to be examples of the live graphite and airbrush style we used. Hard to believe a few of these are nearly 25 years old: READ MORE
February 10th, 2015 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This week’s SotW is another in my little run of “The Walking Sketches”, this time of fan favorite Melissa McBride as Carol Peletier. I did something a little different this week and did this with a couple of different sized Micron pens. READ MORE
February 10th, 2015 | Posted in General
I’ve got two bits of Comic Con related news: Looks like I will be attending the Toronto Comic Con on behalf of the National Cartoonists Society, as we will be having a booth there this year. That will be taking place March 20-22nd, and you can come by and meet all sorts of NCS cartoonists from the Great White North including “Between Friends” creator Sandra Bell Lundy! I’ll have stuff along like prints, books and original art, plus I’ll be doing sketches. I also recently got the news I will have my own booth at San Diego Comic-Con this year. I’ll be in booth H-4,… READ MORE
February 9th, 2015 | Posted in MAD Magazine
This week’s Monday MADness is a look at MAD‘s parody of “30 Rock”, written by Arnie Kogen with art by me. From MAD #490, June 2008 (clicky any to embiggen): Pencil roughs Final splash page So, what’s with the odd looking monkey I added in the lower center of the splash on the final? Well, the issue before was the “All Monkey Issue”, and I did the art on a piece showing the MAD staff as monkeys: After the issue came out, the folks at MAD decided they should have added former art director Nadina Simon in that group. So they asked me to draw… READ MORE
February 8th, 2015 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Do you work with assistants and if not, why ? A: For those who might not know this, some cartoonists have assistants that do certain tasks for them in order to get work done more quickly and, thus, be able to accept more work. These tasks can range from minor stuff like erasing the pencil lines from inked boards to major stuff like literally doing all the work (called “ghosting”). In most cases these assistants get paid but get no credit on the final work. This practice has been around since comics began, and in fact was very common in the early days of… READ MORE
February 6th, 2015 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
In honor of the start of the second half of the season of “The Walking Dead”, I’ll be doing a few more “Walking Sketches”. Here’s Michael Rooker as Merle Dixon. Incidentally, this is not the first time I’ve drawn Micheal Rooker. I did a few caricatures of him for some film credits and as props in the super-hero spoof film “Super Capers”. These were used as prop oil paintings in his evil villain office: READ MORE
February 5th, 2015 | Posted in News
From the National Cartoonists Society Website: The incomparable Mort Drucker will be the inaugural honoree of the “NCS Medal of Honor” at the 69th Annual National Cartoonists Society Reuben Awards taking place in Washington D.C. on May 23rd, 2015. The NCS Medal of Honor is a new award instituted by the NCS board of directors in the fall of 2014, and Drucker was chosen as the very first recipient of the Medal by unanimous vote. The Medal of Honor is a lifetime achievement award bestowed upon a cartoonist “in recognition of a long and distinguished career of continued excellence in cartooning that has set the… READ MORE
