Tom's Mad Blog
February 24th, 2012 | Posted in General
Fellow caricaturist Rick Wright asked in the comments on yesterday’s blog post about my 2012 Reuben artwork if I used a 3D program to do the Las Vegas sign in the background, and I got a couple of emails asking how I handled that (one accused me of photomontaging it!). So, I thought I’d post the pencil roughs and inks for a little behind the scenes look: Clicky to embiggen Above is the the rough concept sketch. Typically I only take a rough stab at the caricature at this point because I am just working out the composition and general concept. However I did do… READ MORE
February 23rd, 2012 | Posted in News
Clicky to Embiggen The official brochures and registration info for the National Cartoonists Society’s 2012 Reuben Awards should be landing in member’s mailboxes starting today, so I thought I’d post the artwork I did for this year’s brochure. This image depicts the 2012 guest speakers, special award winners and our nutty emcee. Here’s the list of unlucky models: Top: Tom Gammill (The Doozies, TV writer and producer, Reubens emcee). Second row from left: Steve McGarry (Badlands, Trivquiz, Biographic, Kid City, NCS Silver T-Square recipient), Mark Simon (animator, storyboard artist, entrepreneur), Alfred E. Neuman (idiot), John Lotshaw (Accidental Centaurs), Dave Kellett (Sheldon, Drive), Michael Jantze (The… READ MORE
February 22nd, 2012 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Bit of a cheat this week for the SotW as this is a portion of a job I’m working on. Park of the rough sketch, thus the very loose drawing. I’ll post the final art when it’s appropriate. I would hope it’s obvious this is a caricature of Albert Einstein. READ MORE
February 21st, 2012 | Posted in News
Image courtesy and ©2011 Richard Thompson/Universal Uclick 2010 National Cartoonist Society “Cartoonist of the Year” Richard Thompson is taking a hiatus from his Universal Uclick syndicated comic strip Cul de Sac, and inviting six guest cartoonists to take over the reins of the popular daily during his absence. Richard is taking time off to receive treatment for Parkinson’s Disease. The six guest cartoonists will be Ken Fisher (Tom the Dancing Bug), Michael Jantze (The Norm), Corey Pandolph (Elderberries), Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine), Lincoln Pierce (Big Nate) and Mo Willems (award winning children’s book author/illustrator). Their guest stints began yesterday (Monday, Feb 20th) with Michael… READ MORE
February 20th, 2012 | Posted in News
Last week’s kerfuffle over the New York Times Sunday Review‘s new initiative restore an editorial cartoon to it’s features by soliciting submissions of finished cartoons on spec created quite a bit of negative response from professional cartoonists. Cartoonist, former National Cartoonist Society president and Cagle Cartoons syndicate owner Daryl Cagle was one of many who received the following response from the Times last week: As I’m sure you all know, we got a lot of reactions to our request for cartoons for a new feature in the Sunday Review — much of it negative. Your very good questions and criticisms of our process have forced… READ MORE
February 19th, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Regarding using DVDs or other video sources for finding reference for your caricatures: Ever since upgrading to MAC OS X Lion I’ve had a devil of a time finding a screen capture solution that allows me to grab a movie still from an iTunes movie or a DVD. I read on your blog that you recommended “CaptureIt!”,¬¨‚Ć but I downloaded and ran the trial version and it doesn’t work either. The images it captures are just the white-and-grey grid. Have you been able to find anything that actually works in Lion? A: This question came from fellow Minnesota illustrator Cedric Hohnstadt last week and… READ MORE
February 17th, 2012 | Posted in News
From the NCS Website: NCS membership nomination voting has been tabulated, and the nominees for the 2011 Reuben Award for “Cartoonist of the Year” are: Brian Crane Stephan Pastis Tom Richmond Brian Crane is the creator of Pickles, a daily comic strip syndicated by the Washington Post Writer’s Group. Soon after Pickles‘ debut in 1990, Brian “retired” as an art director for an advertising agency in Reno, Nevada, to devote his full attention to his comic strip. Although he often used cartoon figures in ads he designed, Pickles is his first syndicated comic strip.In 1995 and 2001, Pickles was nominated for Best Newspaper Comic Strip… READ MORE
February 16th, 2012 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Well, this is more of a retouch rather than a bonus sketch. I dug out this old sketch of Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, when I needed to put a bunch of pictures of recognizable overweight celebrities in the background of the splash page of the Mike & Molly parody I did for the last issue of MAD. I did a VERY quick colorizing job on the black and white pencil sketch with the above results. The image printed very tiny in the magazine (about 1/2 inch square), thus the very loose paint job. Shatner is notoriously hard to caricature, and I think the color… READ MORE
