Tom's Mad Blog
January 27th, 2014 | Posted in Monday MADness
For this week’s Monday MADness I actually discovered something I didn’t even know I had… full sized scans of the final pencils for a complete movie parody… this one being “Spider-Sham Too” from MAD #446, October 2004. Several people have asked me how rough my “roughs” really are compared to my final pencils. Usually I scan in the pencil roughs that I do at print size on the actual layout pages for MAD to review, and don’t bother scanning in the final pencils before inking, so I can’t show them as examples. I am not sure why I did it this way for this parody,… READ MORE
January 26th, 2014 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I’ve seen you address the question of ape-ing the style of another artist previously, but I wanted to ask it from a different angle: at what point did you begin to shape your own style of art? It’s my opinion that there is no shame in being influenced by superior and more famous artists when you are finding your own lines. In fact, it’s probably silly to assume that it’s even possible to not mock someone (even if it’s your elementary school art teacher) when you’re first introduced to a given medium. But what measures did you take to draw features YOUR way, when… READ MORE
January 24th, 2014 | Posted in General
That’s it! The Limited Artist’s Edition of my book is all sold out. To paraphrase the immortal Popeye: 120 editions is all there is, and there isn’t no mo’! Many thanks to the 120 folks who ordered one of these, and for the patience many showed when it took me sometimes up to a month to get their book done. The folks who ordered the last several of these won’t have to wait that long, I should be able to get these last few done early next week. READ MORE
January 24th, 2014 | Posted in General
Looks like one of the final three backed out suddenly, so there is actually one left! Get it while it’s hot! READ MORE
January 24th, 2014 | Posted in General
Is It Schilly in Here, or is it Just Me Dept. If you have been thinking about getting one of the Limited Artist’s Editions of my book for yourself or as a gift for some MAD fan or caricaturist… now’s the time. There are exactly three left of the 120 limited editions, and when they are gone, they’re gone. Have a caricature of you or the person of your choice drawn by me inside a copy of The Mad Art of Caricature!, complete with a hand-numbered bookplate. You send in your photos Tom draws you on the half-title page! (click image to enlarge) 117 crazy… READ MORE
January 23rd, 2014 | Posted in General
I get the occasional email or other message from concerned individuals who write to tell me they have found my book The Mad Art of Caricature! available as a free PDF download here or there, and just wanted to make me aware of it. I really do appreciate that, but I am sadly very aware of it. These are copies someone has spent hours scanning in from a printed copy (presumably) cut up into individual pages. The images look terrible and the text is furry but it’s readable. There is not much I can do about this, unless I want to spend all day every… READ MORE
January 22nd, 2014 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
With less than a month before MLB pitchers and catchers report to camp, this week’s Sketch o’the Week is local Minnesota Twins catcher first baseman Joe Mauer. This is a quick, live-caricature style drawing of Joe for a Twins-related event I will be doing this weekend. I’ll report on that next week sometime. READ MORE
January 21st, 2014 | Posted in General
Sunday night The Lovely Anna and I watched the third season premier of “Sherlock”, the updated re-imagining of the classic character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle… it was great as expected. As a Sherlockian myself, I love this show. I wrote a review of it when I posted the above drawings as a Sketch o’the Week a while ago. All of what I said in that review stands true in the new episode, which bodes well for the rest of the season. I especially love the nods to some of the original canon in a few of the side stories and quick moments… among… READ MORE
