Tom's Mad Blog
March 5th, 2012 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
A few things going and upcoming right now: MAD Parody– Movie for issue #515. Deadline rushing headlong at me and it’s angry. Graphic Novel Cover– Not sure how to classify this, but it’s a fun job that the publisher wants me to do just the inked art for, and a colorist will be painting. This will be the first time since my comic book days another artist has colored my work. Should be interesting. Company Logo Design– I usually refuse to do logo work because I hate working with type, and it’s not really my forte anyway, but this one was a rare instance that… READ MORE
March 4th, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: What was your very first paid professional freelance job? A: That depends on your definition of “professional freelance job”. If by that you mean the first time money was ever given to me in exchange for my artwork, that would have been in 10th grade in La Crescent, MN, when a fellow classmate named Lori paid me to paint my concept of a Van Halen album cover… not a copy of one of their album covers, but my idea of a new cover. I did their classic VH logo looking like it was rising out of a glowing, smoking crater. I did it using… READ MORE
March 2nd, 2012 | Posted in General
This past weekend I traveled to Des Moines, IA, to meet up with my fellow members of the National Cartoonist Society North Central Chapter to judge out division for the annual NCS awards (we did Greeting Cards this year). While there we got to hang out in freelance cartoonist/illustrator Buck Jones and his wife Kim‘s house for a little welcome party. Besides the great food, drink and company, the best part was getting to pour over Buck’s great collection of original artwork by dozens of well known cartoonists. You can check out some pics on the NCC blog. Knowing I had quite a few originals… READ MORE
March 1st, 2012 | Posted in News
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViOmxr-TMzk[/youtube] I have a number of caricature and comic artist friends who swear that the iPad is a very functional tool for sketching, drawing and painting. I’ve seen some impressive results by several digital artists, but in my personal experience the iPad lacks two important features to make it a truly useful art tool: a stylus that uses a reasonably-precise point (as opposed to a marshmallow tip) and pressure sensitivity. Yes, you can apparently work around the lack of these features and create some good art, but you can work around the limitations of using a broken stick and dirt also… by why would you… READ MORE
February 29th, 2012 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This week’s sketch subject is Dexter star Jennifer Carpenter. She has a very long face, a crooked mouth and small, angular eyes very far apart. READ MORE
February 28th, 2012 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Looks like the guys at MAD are already running out of good material for their Official Blog, The Idiotical… they are resorting to featuring me as their “Artist Spotlight”! Actually the MAD gang are really pulling out the stops for The Idiotical. This is no afterthought. They constantly update with daily (and often multiple times per day) content that is a combination of original stuff, classic MAD bits, peeks at current content from the magazine and other fun garbage. They have recurring original features as well, like this “artist spotlight” thing. I wonder if my being featured this week has anything to do with that… READ MORE
February 27th, 2012 | Posted in News
Clicky to Embiggen Last week Chris Sparks posted a look at the dust jacket artwork for the upcoming Team Cul De Sac book. The artwork is done (of course) by the incomparable Richard Thompson. I’ve posted about the book before…it features artwork by 150 well-known cartoonists with their take on Petey, Alice and the Cul De Sac world. The full list of contributors can be found here, and it’s damned impressive. I am so happy to have been a small part of this project, which will raise money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for research for Parkinson’s disease. Chris was even kind enough to… READ MORE
February 26th, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: How do I break into MAD? A: If you want to break into MAD, the easiest way is with a grappling hook, 50 feet of rope, a glass cutter and suction cups. You can bribe your way in on Wednesdays with home baked cookies offered to Dick DeBartolo. Seriously, getting into MAD is notoriously hard to do, but it isn’t quite the impenetrable fortress it was in the 70’s and 80’s. Back then MAD had their legendary freelancers in their prime, and there was frankly very little work they had in the magazine that one of their established and well known “Usual Gang of… READ MORE
