Tom's Mad Blog
September 20th, 2022 | Posted in MAD Magazine
MAD just announced the details of their 70th anniversary issue, due to drop on October 4th. MAD #28 is being designated the official 70th anniversary issue of MAD, and according to the MAD/DC press release it will contain a considerable amount of new material AND will be available in Barnes and Noble stores as well as comic book shops and via subscription. Here’s the DC press release: More Original Content, Including Contributions from ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic and Jordan Peele, a Unique MAD ‘Fold-In,’ and More from ‘The Usual Gang of Idiots’ Available at Participating Comic Book Stores, Barnes & Noble Bookstores,and to Subscribers on October… READ MORE
September 19th, 2022 | Posted in MAD Magazine
I’m not making this up… it really is Monday! Time for another high-flying episode of the seemingly endless flight that is our trek through my work at MAD Magazine. This week we reach new heights of mendacity both in the subjects of the work I did and my being credited for new work in issue #503 at all! I had two pieces in MAD #503, May 2010, although neither were technically new. One was part of a one pager that included three spoof DVD covers originally done for MAD‘s website. Yes, MAD used to do original content for their website. In fact, MAD pioneered that… READ MORE
September 15th, 2022 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Here’s another peek at a portion of the splash page from the new feature my CLAPTRAP co-hort Desmond Devlin and I did for the next issue of MAD, which is officially the 70th Anniversary issue of the magazine. Yes, it’s a movie parody… have you figured out which film yet? If not, you’ll get another peek next week! READ MORE
September 14th, 2022 | Posted in General
Don’t Get Me Wrong, our sketch subject has been the Talk of the Town for over 40 years as one of the original female stars of the punk rock scene. Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders also managed to bridge the gap between the club based pure punk world, new wave, and the commercial success of radio, with several big hits in the late 70’s and 80’s. She turned 71 last week! READ MORE
September 12th, 2022 | Posted in MAD Magazine
It’s time to roll the dice and move the around the board with this week’s look back at my work for MAD Magazine. Here’s a second piece I did for MAD #502, Jan 2010, written by Jacob Lambert. This two pager was a response to the rash of movies based on board games. This was the first time I used my “colored line” technique on a MAD job. I had just figured out how to do it and had done a couple of freelance illustration jobs using it, but I had never had the occasion to use it for MAD. The technique starts with the… READ MORE
September 7th, 2022 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This week’s subject was suggested by my youngest daughter, Gabrielle. At 28, she’s a well known DJ in the Orlando area, and if you attend any big comic cons like New York Comic Con, C2E2, Emerald City Con and many more you’ve probably seen her rockin’ the joint as “Atomic Blonde”. You can follow her via her website or on Twitter or Instagram. She knows music, and Joseph Quinn‘s metalhead character Eddie Munson from the latest season of “Stranger Things” is a favorite of her’s… and of many fans of the show. READ MORE
September 6th, 2022 | Posted in General
The pages of MAD Magazine has been graced by the work of some of the greatest cartoonists in the history of the medium… and that is not hyperbole. Jack Davis, Wally Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, Al Jaffee, Will Elder, Mort Drucker, Paul Coker, Antonio Prohias, Don Martin… the list keeps going. Perhaps the greatest pure cartoonist of them all turns 85 today! The incomparable Sergio Aragonés started with MAD in 1963 at age 26. He would go on to become one of the most prolific members of the Usual Gang of Idiots (second only to Jaffee, actually), appearing in (as of this writing) 501 issues (there… READ MORE
September 5th, 2022 | Posted in MAD Magazine
It’s “Happy Hour” somewhere in the world, even on a Monday, so let’s crack a brewski and have a look at another of the skunky and flat pours I did for MAD Magazine. This week we chug another cold one from the annual “MAD’s Twenty Dumbest People, Events and Things” feature, this time from the year 2009. This pint of suds first appeared in MAD #502, Jan 2010, writer uncredited. The subject was the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates by Sgt. James Crowley for trying to break into his own house. After an escalating media fight with accusations of racial profiling, harsh comments from Obama that were then… READ MORE
