Tom's Mad Blog
January 8th, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I am just starting my career as a freelance artist/illustrator. I just completed a project with a credit union for a character design that they used in their advertisements. When the obvious discussion of pricing came up, I wasn’t sure where to begin. We settled, quite quickly, without any problems. I was just curious if there is any method to the madness? A: This is a question I get pretty frequently, so every once and a while I re-post this answer from a few years ago.. simply because it’s still as good an answer as I can come up with: I get individual e-mails… READ MORE
January 6th, 2012 | Posted in News
Do you wish your school or local public library carried The Mad Art of Caricature!? So do I! Well, now they can. The Mad Art of Caricature! is officially being distributed for K-12 school libraries through Follett Library Resources and for U.S. Public libraries through their sister company, Book Wholesalers, Inc. Unfortunately no library will have a book on their shelves they don’t know exists. So, how can you go about getting them to stock a copy? Just ask one of the librarians about getting one through the appropriate resource above. Libraries won’t stock self-published books unless they have a national distributor, and now we… READ MORE
January 5th, 2012 | Posted in General
The fine people at Wells & Drew have generously published these awesome, free “shortcut cheat sheets” for the users of Adobe Illustrator and Indesign: Brought to you by Wells & Drew, makers of fine engraved stationery. Courtesy of Business Stationery Click on them to go to their website and get versions in various resolutions or in PDF form. Nice that they have both Windows and Mac versions listed. No real instruction here, just a very handy list of shortcuts. I wish I’d had that Indesign one when I was designing the book. I basically went from 0 to 100 mph in knowledge of Indesign, thanks… READ MORE
January 4th, 2012 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Kicking off the 2012 edition of the “Sketch o’the Week” is one of The Black Key’s drummer Patrick Carney. I came across a picture of him on CNN and couldn’t resist. According to an upcoming interview in Rolling Stone, Patrick thinks the band Nickelback is killing the rock and roll genre. Not sure I agree that rock and roll is dying, but I do agree Nickelback sucks. READ MORE
January 3rd, 2012 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
Here’s what’s cooking in the studio right now: MAD parody– Wrapping this up this week, can’t reveal the subject until it’s out in MAD #514. TV commercial character design– blogged about this earlier. Major book project– This was pending for a while but it looks like a “go”. Not a MAD book…I’ll be illustrating another author’s concept. This will take months. More Jeff Dunham art– Ongoing project. READ MORE
January 2nd, 2012 | Posted in General
Comic Book Resources recently published an all-MAD edition of their enjoyable “Comic Book Legends Revealed” feature. In it, they tackle three legends (or myths if you prefer) about MAD: Alfred E. Neuman existed well before Mad Magazine ever came about. Mad Magazine used to sell actual straight jackets! Every Mad cover has an easter egg of the letters “ind” to form “Mad Mind”. Check it out here! They even linked back to one of my posts here on The MAD Blog concerning legend number one (Thanks, CBR!), but they also debunk my explanation of the “ind” legend… you decide which explanation is true. READ MORE
January 1st, 2012 | Posted in General
Happy 2012! Let the annual three weeks or so of angrily crossing out “11” and writing in “12” on all my checks begin. READ MORE
December 29th, 2011 | Posted in General
Caricaturist extraordinaire and fellow member of the Usual Gang of Idiots Drew Friedman was the guest speaker at the International Society of Caricature Artists convention held last month in St. Pete’s Beach, Florida. Drew has posted a wrap-up of his trip, including lots of pictures and a transcript of a Q & A he did as part of one of his two presentations that week. Well worth a look. READ MORE
