Tom's Mad Blog
April 23rd, 2012 | Posted in MAD Magazine
The show “What, Me Worry? 60 Years of MAD” opened this past weekend at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Fransisco, CA. Here’s one of many pictures you’ll find on the CAM Facebook page: Clicky to Embiggen… Shown above: MAD #1 cover reproduction, hand-colored by Marie Severin; Hex! splash page by Jack Davis from MAD #2; Melvin! splash page by John Severin, from MAD #2; cover to MAD #3 by Harvey Kurtzman; splash from Dragged Net! by Will Elder from MAD #3; cover to MAD #4 by Harvey Kurtzman; splash page from Shadow! by Will Elder, from MAD #4; house ad by Wally Wood from… READ MORE
April 22nd, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I am contemplating a resurrection of my own cartooning talents that I abandoned years ago, and am considering the art of caricature as part of that. Do you think it would be beneficial to study real life portraiture first, then go into caricature? I think if you could master a good portrait, caricature would be easier to accomplish. Would you show a sample of one of your portraits that you have done? I, along with most of the visitors to your site, would be quite interested in seeing one. A: No question that having a strong grasp of realistic drawing will only help an… READ MORE
April 20th, 2012 | Posted in General
I’m currently in Massachusetts where my theme park art concessions just opened at Six Flags New England, and I’m even working the chair! These guys are clearly thrilled to be getting thier drawing done… Another satisfied customer(s)! READ MORE
April 19th, 2012 | Posted in News
Last year I was honored to be one of the speakers at a fantastic cartooning event in Kenosha, WI called…oddly enough…the Kenosha Festival of Cartooning. The festival was organized by Anne Hambrock, wife and assistant of cartoonist John Hambrock (The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee), and featured Tom Bancroft, Sandra Bell Lundy, Paul Gilligan, John Read, Scott Standis, John and myself. While there were no guarantees this would become a recurring event, it was such a big hit there was a lot of talk about having another one down the road. Well, Anne and Company are ready to go down that road . . .… READ MORE
April 18th, 2012 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
After hearing of his passing away, I had to do this quick study of TV icon Dick Clark for today’s Sketch o’the Week. I’m sure the tributes will be endless in the next week or two . . . the man worked with everyone in show business at one time or another, and was universally liked. Rest in Peace, Mr. Clark. READ MORE
April 17th, 2012 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Final splash page, sans words… Since EW.com scooped me on the sneak peek of the MAD parody of The Hunger Games, this post will be more of a “behind the scenes” of the job. As always, clicky image to embiggen. The writer of the parody was Desmond Devlin. First pencil rough . . . Grade: F- Above is the first pencil rough of the splash. This was a complex splash, because all the word boxes were being spoken by one person (Stanley Tucci’s host character “Cesear Flickerman”), there were a LOT of word boxes, necessitating three rows, and most of them described a character that… READ MORE
April 16th, 2012 | Posted in MAD Magazine
On news stands (and presumably the iPad) April 24th, in comic book shops this week and in subscriber mailboxes today: MAD # 515 (June 2012) Cover (Mark Fredrickson) The Fundalini Pages (Rick Tulka, Jeff Kruse, Marc Hempel, Duck Edwing, Andrew Schwartzberg, Jacob Lambert, Sam Sisco, Dick DeBartolo, Kevin Pope, Anton Emdin, ) Fake iPhone Ads (Uncredited, appear throughout issue) The Hunger Pains (Desmond Devlin, Tom Richmond) Everyday Annoyances of Elderly Monsters (John Caldwell) Hazard Fraught Tools (Scott Maiko, Scott Bricher) Least Revered Classical Music (Jeff Kruse) The MAD Vault- MAD #477, 2007 (Sergio Aragon?¬©s, Colors: Tom Luth) Planet TAD!!!!! (Writer: Tim Carvell) The Strip Club… READ MORE
April 15th, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Uh oh… looks like the mailbag is empty! Well, it’s not really completely empty, but the only ones I’ve got right now are either repeats of previous questions or of the “can you teach me how to cross-hatch?” or “how do you exaggerate people in caricature?” which aren’t really questions so much as they are requests for long and involved tutorials, and are needing a lot more time than I can give for this weekly feature. A good Sunday Mailbag question can certainly involve an image or two and a somewhat long answer, but anything like a tutorial is a different matter. It’s entirely possible… READ MORE
