Tom's Mad Blog
February 14th, 2012 | Posted in News
The Comics Beat is reporting that legendary comic book artist John Severin passed away on Sunday, Feb 12th in his home in Denver, Colorado, surrounded by family. John had one of the longest and well-respected careers in comics we will probably ever see. He was one of the early artists for E.C. Comics, and one of the first artists for MAD, doing work for the first several issues under Harvey Kurtzman from 1952-1954. The above image is his first appearance in MAD #1. He did so much comic work over the years it’s almost impossible to list it all. He eventually became the main artist… READ MORE
February 14th, 2012 | Posted in MAD Magazine
As promised, here is a peek at the MAD parody of the TV Show Mike & Molly, written by Arnie Kogen! Clicky to Embiggen Sharp-eyed people might notice the absence of empty word balloons that usually adorn my MAD artwork. I could tell you WHY the folks at MAD have decreed I am no longer allowed to draw in and color around said word boxes . . . but then I’d have to kill you. One day I will be able to tell that story. Until then, you will all have to stew in the land of uncertainty and rumor! MMWUUHAHAHAHA!! Anyway, go buy a… READ MORE
February 13th, 2012 | Posted in MAD Magazine
On news stands Feb 21st, in comic book shops this week and in subscriber mailboxes today: MAD # 514 (April 2012) Cover (Mark Fredrickson) The Fundalini Pages (Jeff Kruse, Charles Akins, Kenny Keil, Rick Tulka, Jason Yungbluth, Evan Dorkin & Sarah Dyer, Ward Sutton, John Caldwell, Darrenn Johnson, Paul Coker, Dick DeBartolo, Tom Bunk ) Bigg & Bulky (Arnie Kogen, Tom Richmond) The MAD Guide to Smartphone Etiquette (Kenny Keil, Tim Hamilton) MAD’s Make Your Own Twilight Movies (Uncredited) Spy vs Spy (Peter Kuper) The Soft Stool Diner Placemat (Scott Maiko, Photos: various) MAD’s Dreadfully Undercooked The Hunger Games Outtakes (Uncredited) The MAD Vault (Paul… READ MORE
February 12th, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Is your book The Mad Art of Caricature! ever going to be released as an eBook? If so, will it be available for the Kindle? A: I’d like it to eventually be available as an eBook for the iPad, Kindle and Nook, but making that happen is problematic. I have been researching ways to convert the book’s digital publication file to ePub (iPad) and PRC (Kindle/Nook) formats, and it’s not going to be an easy thing to do. There is no magic way to take the book’s Indesign master file and just convert it. That might work for a text-only book like a novel,… READ MORE
February 10th, 2012 | Posted in General
I occasionally interrupt this cartooning/illustration blog to digress on some other subjects of which I have an interest. Some such subjects include bodybuilding/weightlifting, gadgets and technology and the occasional movie or book review. This post is of the latter variety. Followers of this blog might know I am a pretty big Stephen King fan. I have read everything he’s ever written, with the exception of his non-fiction book On Writing, and I’ll get to that one of these days. The Dark Tower books are particular favorites of mine. The comic book geek in me enjoys his subject matter (usually horror and/or the occult,… READ MORE
February 9th, 2012 | Posted in News
On Monday of this week the art director of the New York Times Sunday Review section sent out an email to a number of the top names in editorial cartooning with an announcement that they would once again be featuring a weekly editorial cartoon beginning on February 26h. That was great news! However, the method they are going to employ to obtain this cartoon was not so great. Their proposal was to solicit submissions of completely finished cartoons with a weekly deadline of Fridays at 11 a.m.. The submissions would be reviewed by the editors, one chosen, and then that cartoon would run in the… READ MORE
February 8th, 2012 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Here’s a quick warm-up sketch of the new Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield. Can’t really tell if that’s what his hair looks like after a few hours of swinging around NYC in the Spidey-suit, or it’s like that all the time. Gotta wonder if I’ll end up drawing a movie parody of this film for MAD. I have no idea if MAD will even DO a parody of this one, since we did all the Tobey MaGuire Spider-Man films (I did the art for the first two), and maybe they are going to be sick of doing reboots that are only six years apart. READ MORE
February 6th, 2012 | Posted in News
Splash of the MAD Watchmen parody- Art by me, words by Des Devlin No one can say that comic book fans aren’t a passionate bunch. There has been so much commentary on DC Entertainment’s announcement of a new series of stories featuring the characters of the beloved Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon‘s classic Watchmen, that I can’t even begin to link to them. Here’s a story on it that made CNN. Much of it is outrage over messing with such an icon part of comic book history as Watchmen. My take: calm down. They are just comics. I actually don’t understand the venom. There is… READ MORE
