Tom's Mad Blog
October 7th, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Are you going to get the new Modbook Pro that was just announced as being available soon? A: For those who don’t know what a Modbook is, it is a Mac laptop that has been converted into a tablet computer that has a pressure-sensitive screen using Wacom technology, so you have a totally portable digital drawing/painting solution. A company called Axiotron originally produced these Modbooks, using the old white MacBooks as the base computer. The company went under and disappeared without much explanation a year or two ago. Apparently the original inventor of the technology, or one of them, is now working with a… READ MORE
October 5th, 2012 | Posted in General
video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player I haven’t posted much about my gig drawing caricatures for CNN at the Democratic National Convention, mainly because the photographer who took pictures of my and promised to send them on has not followed through… I was too busy drawing to take any. However, the above video clip from the TV show Ellen shows me briefly drawing Rainer and Atticus, these two kids she sent as correspondents to the DNC. They have an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of US Presidents, and get quizzed by Anderson Cooper, Zach Braff and Michelle Obama. Towards the end they show me for a… READ MORE
October 4th, 2012 | Posted in Freelancing
I received several emails and at least one comment asking about the process involved with going something like the Minnesota Twins team illustration above, so I thought I’d share a little about my approach to such a project . . . it is a little different than a typical crowd illustration. I’m a big proponent of doing all the drawing on a given illustration as one organic piece. In other words, I don’t like doing separate caricature study “heads” and then pasting them into a layout, trying to get them to work together. That always results in a “disconnect” for me, where the illustration as… READ MORE
October 3rd, 2012 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This week’s subject is actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who has come a long way since “3rd Rock from the Sun”. READ MORE
October 2nd, 2012 | Posted in Freelancing
Some months back I eluded to a mysterious book project I was working on, which I could not reveal until it was actually published. Well, today is the official release date. It’s called The Bro Code for Parents, written by that awesome dude Barney Stinson, and some guy named Matt Kuhn, published by Simon and Schuster. For those who do not watch American TV, this is the latest in a series of books that stem from the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother”, the others being The Bro Code, The Playbook and Bro on the Go, none of which I illustrated. These books are ostensibly… READ MORE
October 1st, 2012 | Posted in Freelancing
Clicky to Embiggen… Back in the early-mid 2000’s I did an illustration of the entire Minnesota Twins baseball team roster each year, which was given away as a poster at the ballpark on the last home game of the season aka “Kid’s Appreciation Day”. I hadn’t done one since 2006, but this year the Twins hired me to do it again. The above is the result, given away at yesterday’s game. The ones I did in earlier years were ink and watercolor original paintings, which now hang in the Twin’s offices. This new one I did digitally. *EDIT– Due to popular request (and since no… READ MORE
September 30th, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Do you think the printed version of MAD will eventually stop, and it will become digital only? A: That’s a question with two answers. Will the printed version of MAD ever stop? Yes, of course it will. Nothing lasts forever, and eventually MAD will cease publication. Hopefully not for a long time. Will it stop because the “digital revolution” will eventually kill all traditional printing? No, I don’t think so. I think magazines and especially books will continue to exist in printed form for a long time. The death of radio has been predicted since TV really got going in the 1950’s, but radio… READ MORE
September 28th, 2012 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Sketch week wraps up with this far less ambitious caricature of actress Mila Kunis, drawn while being very distracted by Michael Jantze‘s excellent presentation on his animation process at the Kenosha Festival of Cartooning. Full report to come next week! READ MORE
