Tom's Mad Blog
May 7th, 2013 | Posted in General
I am a pretty tough person to buy gifts for. I basically have everything I could ever want (within reason… freelance illustrators as a general rule can’t afford Porsches or winter homes in Hawaii). I have a complete batsuit, for God’s sake. The Lovely Anna and my kids and family hate my birthday and the holidays because they just don’t have a clue what to get me. That means they have to ask me, so I am seldom surprised by anything. Anna is pretty creative, though. This year for my birthday (which was this past Saturday… 47, thanks for asking) she surprised me with some… READ MORE
May 6th, 2013 | Posted in Monday MADness
This week’s Monday MADness is a peek behind the scenes of a piece I did for MAD #467 (July 2006) called “Rejected Characters from Cars” written by Jacob Lambert. The premise was a collection of characters from the Pixar film Cars (Cars 2 was about to come out, I think) that were deemed “not marketable enough” to be included in the movie. The scene was a used car lot and I was supposed to mimic the Pixar look for the cars. As I was hand painting them (okay, digitally hand painting, but still using a brush tool) I could only get so close to that… READ MORE
May 5th, 2013 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I’ve seen your work used on websites without any credit to you and figure it is probably without your permission. Isn’t that copyright infringement? How do you handle that sort of thing? A: The Interwebs are a both a boon and a bane to visual artists when it comes to people stealing your artwork and using it without your permission. It’s a bane because if you put your artwork on the internet, it will get stolen… I guarantee it. It’s a boon because there are billions of people on it and some of them will be your eyes and ears (well, eyes anyway) and… READ MORE
May 3rd, 2013 | Posted in News
Encouraging kids of any age to discover and read comics has no downside, and to that end there is a wonderful annual event called Free Comic Book Day that happens in comic book specialty shops across North America and worldwide. Held the first Saturday in May each year, the premise is simple: any customer can walk into a comic shop and receive a free comic book! Now in its 12th year, Free Comic Book Day happens tomorrw, May 4th, at your local participating Comic Book shop!¬¨‚Ć To find shops near you, visit www.comicshoplocator.com. Go visit your local comic book store tomorrow, get a free comic… READ MORE
May 2nd, 2013 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
Here’s what cooking on the drawing board this week: MAD Project– A very interesting project for an upcoming book. I can’t give away much, but it’s being written by someone who is famous in the movie biz and will be an original part of a MAD collection book due out this fall. Promotional magazine cover/poster image– Repeat client I did an NBA cover image for last year. Workplace poster– My usual monthly assignment. MAD #522– I am supposed to have something in this issue but haven’t been assigned it yet. Kind of quiet on the freelance front right now, although with the Reubens coming up… READ MORE
May 1st, 2013 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Our ongoing series of caricature sketches of all the Doctors from Doctor Who continues with the sixth Doctor, Colin Baker. READ MORE
April 30th, 2013 | Posted in MAD Magazine
The latest in MAD‘s series of “Mad’s Greatest Artists” featuring Dave Berg just became available for pre-order on Amazon. From the Amazon page’s description: Included in this magnificent collection are some of the greatest works from Dave Berg…one of MAD Magazine’s most popular writers/artists. The material will be presented chronologically and interspersed throughout with rough sketches, a rare 1970 interview, an introduction and portrait of Berg by well-known American illustrator Drew Friedman, a “growing up with Dave Berg” essay by his daughter Nancy Berg, newly illustrated versions of classic Berg strips by several noteworthy cartoonists, and much more. I am one of the cartoonists who… READ MORE
April 29th, 2013 | Posted in Monday MADness
I occasionally get the question “What was the first piece you ever did for MAD“? which is not an easy one to answer. The full story is here, but the quick answer is a feature piece called “MAD‘s Cable TV Viewing Odds”, which I was assigned in June of 2000 but did not actually see print until MAD #406, June 2001. In between my doing that job and it seeing print I did several pieces for the MAD website and five jobs for the magazine including my first two TV/movie parodies. I recently ran across a dusty DVD with some old jobs archived, including that… READ MORE
