Tom's Mad Blog
November 11th, 2011 | Posted in News
I’m currently in Savannah, GA attending an event put together by the Southeast Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society and the Savannah College of Art and Design, featuring a gaggle of Idiots. No, not the cast of Jersey Shore. It’s a gathering of some of the “Usual Gang of Idiots”, as the contributors of MAD Magazine call themselves. As you can see from the list above, it includes some of the true greats from the magazines history, and also me. Some of the conference involves private seminars and workshops with SCAD students. I’ll be doing a workshop on caricature and participating in portfolio reviews, etc.… READ MORE
November 10th, 2011 | Posted in General
Regarding Bil Keane‘s passing… they say you measure your life by how many other people’s lives you influence. If so, Bil led as influential a life as one can. Yesterday I was called and interviewed by both the New York Times and NPR about Bil (in my capacity as current president of the National Cartoonists Society), and have heard and read about his passing in at least two dozen places in the last 24 hours. He was certainly one of the most beloved cartoonists both by the public and within the industry, ever. The image above is an original Family Circus Sunday that was given… READ MORE
November 9th, 2011 | Posted in News
The cartooning world lost a true giant yesterday. Bil Keane, creator of The Family Circus, has passed away at age 89. I’ll never forget the first time I met Bil… In 1999, Anna and I attended our very first Reuben awards in San Antonio. I was a new member and basically knew no one, so we walked about wide-eyed seeing all the legendary cartoonists milling about like Charles Schulz, Jack Davis, Jeff MacNelly and many more. One of those legends I knew and admired the most was Bil Keane. “The Family Circus” was a staple in our home growing up, and while my cartooning tastes… READ MORE
November 9th, 2011 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This week’s sketch is done in honor of Number One Son Thomas, 15, who thinks Zooey Deschanel is “the greatest person in the world”… Translation: “She’s hot.” READ MORE
November 8th, 2011 | Posted in General
…so says MAD Magazine via their official blog, The Idiotical. They also posted this some weeks back: MAD isn’t exactly know for their subtlety. By the way, if you haven’t been regularly visiting The Idiotical, you are missing out. The guys at MAD have been serious about updating this thing, and with multiple posts a day it shows. Some posts use previous content from the magazine that has some up-to-the-minute current relevance, some of it is wholly original content, and some are sneak peeks of upcoming features in the magazine. All of it is funny. Sometimes brutal, but funny. Make it a daily stop for… READ MORE
November 7th, 2011 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
Clicky to Embiggen… Currently on the drawing board: MAD Job– for #513. Acutally just wrapped that up today. Something for the MAD 20. Workplace posters- Not one, not two, but three of these all at once! Speaking of these jobs, artwork above was for a recent one. Jeff Dunhan Illustration- Something you should be seeing on T-Shirts and merchandise from Jeff soon… rush job. That’s actually it right now. Kind of quiet on the drawing board all of a sudden… READ MORE
November 6th, 2011 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I know you do a lot of different kinds of humorous illustration, but you are primarily known for doing caricatures. What first got you interested in drawing caricatures? Was it something you started doing as a kid, or did you discover it later? A: I started typing out an answer to this one, then realized that the following excerpt from the preface of my book said it better, and I’d already written it!… From The Mad Art of Caricature!: When I was a young man, drawing caricatures for a living never struck me as something I was interested in doing. I never opened a… READ MORE
November 4th, 2011 | Posted in News
Photo by David Folkman via NewsfromME.com Back on Oct. 29th, The Comic Art Professional Society (CAPS) had their annual gala dinner where they honor someone from the comic art world… this year’s honoree was the indefatigable and unfoldable Al Jaffee. I was not there to attend (gotta make it to one of those one of these days), so go to Mark Evanier‘s excellent blog to read all about it. READ MORE
