Tom's Mad Blog
May 1st, 2023 | Posted in MAD Magazine
It’s Monday again… or IS it? You never really know what’s real and what’s not in the shadowy world of espionage, but regardless we are going to spy out this TV parody of the Showtime series “Homeland” from MAD #523, October 2013, written by MAD editor David Shayne. One thing I remember about doing this one was that that the MAD folks wanted me to put the spies from Spy vs. Spy in as many background cameos and gags as I could. I didn’t include them in the splash page in my initial rough so I added them in the final. They show up a… READ MORE
April 26th, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This week’s sketch is a repeat of one from a few years ago (The Lovely Anna and I were in Amsterdam last week)… although it still fits with our “classic TV Sitcoms” theme. Here’s Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke from “The Dick Van Dyke” show. Back in 2021 I did the art for a CNN docu-series called “History of the Sitcom”. That art featured about 40 characters from various sitcoms… but not “The Dick Van Dyke” show. I was berated by many people for “not including” it in the art. This was, of course, coming from a bunch of idiots who immediately got… READ MORE
April 24th, 2023 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Goblins, Wargs, and Dwarves… oh my! It’s a Middle-Earth Monday as we continue our journey along the paths through the Mirkwood that was my work for MAD Magazine. That trip seems short compared to the long, drawn out, padded three movie trek to the Lonely Mountain that only took one book to accomplish! This was the parody for the first of “The Hobbit” trilogy movies “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”, written by my CLAPTRAP cohort Desmond Devlin and first appeared in MAD #522, September 2013. Due to the odd nature of the splash with the map and overlaying insets I didn’t do the inked text… READ MORE
April 19th, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Just when I think I’ve run out of old TV sitcoms I used to watch after school as a kid, I remember another one! How could I forget “The Beverly Hillbillies”, which was a show that actually holds up pretty well when watching even today. On the surface it makes fun of stereotypes of back-woods country folks as being dumb and unsophisticated, but it actually conveys the message that living a simple and uncomplicated life and being happy is all anyone needs. In fact, the Clampetts proved many times on the show that there is a lot of wisdom in their way of life, and… READ MORE
April 12th, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Gaaaah-lee! Just when I was thinking I’d run out of shows I actually watched after school as a kid, I remembered this one. “Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C.” was, of course, a spin-off of “The Andy Griffith Show” featuring the Mayberry NC gas station attendant turned Marine “corpse” recruit Gomer Pyle played by Jim Nabors, My caricature also features the often exasperated drill instructor Sgt. Carter, played by Frank Sutton. This show wasn’t syndicated as often as some at that time, so I only caught it occasionally when it did run. One thing I always wondered about… was “Gomer” his actual name, or a nickname? For all I knew,… READ MORE
April 10th, 2023 | Posted in General
I just got confirmation that the incomparable Al Jaffee passed away early this morning at 102. This is a hard one. Within any art form there are some creators who are just plainly on another level than the rest. There will always be a debate about who is the G.O.A.T. in anything creative, but the sign of true greatness is always being one of the people in that conversation. Any debate about the greatest cartoonist of all time that does not include Al Jaffee is not a legitimate debate. Like so many, I grew up a fan of MAD Magazine. I loved the work of… READ MORE
April 10th, 2023 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… MONDAY! That means it’s time for another super-disappointing look back at my work for MAD Magazine! It’s kinda funny (funny haha not funny strange) that I interrupted posting about this MAD job last week to share a new cover I had just done for the magazine, considering I intended to write about how I was always angling to do a cover and kept taking baby steps towards that goal with the MAD staff. This was one of those baby steps. Throughout its existence MAD has produced quite a lot of different special issues,… READ MORE
April 6th, 2023 | Posted in News
Here is a big announcement… Tom’s Caricature Workshops are BACK! I am nearing completion of CLAPTRAP, the long delayed crowdfunded book Desmond Devlin and I are doing, and I am beginning to make post CLAPTRAP plans including getting back to doing my two day “in person” caricature workshops in locations all over the U.S., and even overseas! When the pandemic hit in 2020, I was doing eight to ten workshops a year and had multiple ones lined up for the summer and fall of that year. Thanks to COVID I had to either cancel or postpone and reschedule them all. I eventually managed to get most of those in over… READ MORE
