Tom's Mad Blog
October 28th, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: When you were in college and first working at Six Flags, what was it like? Was it really nerve-wracking? Did it help build confidence in your drawings and style, and what kind of feedback did you get from the people you drew? Do you have any examples of the work you did back then? A: For those who may not know this story: I got my start in caricature working at a Six Flags theme park during my college years in the mid to late 80s. I was skipping a highly pretentious art class while attending the University of Minnesota, hanging around the studio… READ MORE
October 26th, 2012 | Posted in News
I just received the shipment of the third printing of The Mad Art of Caricature! today, so the book is back in stock both with my direct sales website and my distributor . . . we were only out for a week. Not bad timing. Monday I will be announcing the availability of a “special edition” of the book, so if you are inclined to think about ordering a copy, you might want to wait until then to see what that is all about. Some people might think it’s cool, others might just go “meh”, but it will be limited to a run of 120… READ MORE
October 26th, 2012 | Posted in MAD Magazine
That episode of CBS “Sunday Morning” featuring the segment on MAD Magazine’s 60th anniversary that I may or may not actually be on camera for is going to air this Sunday on . . . ummmm . . . CBS! Check your local listings but here In Minneapolis is is running from 8-9:30 am. Guess I’ll be DVR’ing it! READ MORE
October 25th, 2012 | Posted in Freelancing
These books didn’t make it past the editorial department of their prospective publishers . . . the authors names have been blocked out to protect the guilty: The above one is a little over the top. READ MORE
October 24th, 2012 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Clicky to Embiggen… Not the NCC-1701(x) imaginary version, but the CVN 65 real thing. I actually did this for the USO and it will appear in their magazine On Patrol soon. Marker/pen on sketch paper. READ MORE
October 23rd, 2012 | Posted in News
It finally happened, I am totally out of copies of The Mad Art of Caricature. I am supposed to have the third printing in stock by this Monday, but we will see if the shipping people stay on schedule. In the meantime, there are still a few copies on Amazon, and they sell it cheaper there (but unsigned!), but they will be out shortly as well. My apologies to those looking for a signed copy. READ MORE
October 22nd, 2012 | Posted in MAD Magazine
As long as I am shilling MAD books today, I also just got my copy of MAD’s Greatest Artists: Mort Drucker last week, and it is fantastic. Mort is a visual genius who influenced generations of cartoonists over fifty years (and counting) of work in MAD. Of course Mort was also one of the most successful freelance humorous illustrators of the 20th century, and his work was just as incredible outside the pages of MAD, but this book concentrates (obviously) on just his MAD work. From his early “Bob and Ray Dept.” art through his defining the movie and TV parodies in the magazine, his… READ MORE
October 22nd, 2012 | Posted in MAD Magazine
While I was in NYC last week for that MAD segment on the CBS morning show, I got a copy of the new 60th anniversary book Totally MAD (and a bunch of signatures from some terrific members of the “Usual Gang of Idiots” while I was at it). This book is a real treat. Even the inside flap of the dust jacket gets the MAD treatment! I know this book wasn’t easy to put together, considering that: a) the gang at MAD did it in about three months, and b) they somehow had to take over 26,000 pages of material from the magazine’s 60 year… READ MORE
