Tom's Mad Blog
April 11th, 2011 | Posted in General
The 112th Congress Edition of Bobble Rep should be available in the Apple App Store soon now… just awaiting Apple’s approval. Of course, you never know with Apple. Maybe this time they’ll decide my artwork was racist because 90% of the caricatures I did were of old, white guys. Well, this is the U.S. Congress after all. Just for fun film director and app creator Ray Griggs had me do bobblehead versions of the people who produced the program, so above is my bobblehead. Another old, white guy. Anyway, look for that updated app with 107 new congressional caricatures coming soon. READ MORE
April 10th, 2011 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I’m a hard working freelance cartooning/comic making guy with a few decent clients and long studio hours. I work at an art related job during the day, and at night I do two different comics for a regular client as well as many freelance caricature commissions. I want to help boost my commissions and find some more good clients. Any advice on growing as a freelancer? A: I get a lot of “How do I break into freelancing” type questions, but not too many from people already finding work but looking for more. Honestly the advice I’d give those just getting started and… READ MORE
April 8th, 2011 | Posted in General
Super Hero media saturation is really reaching outrageous proportions these days. Since the success of the Spider-Man, Batman and now Iron Man films, Hollywood can’t get enough of superheroes. Films on the way from Marvel include Thor, Captian America, X-Men: First Class and supposedly followed by the Avengers featuring both Iron Man and the Hulk, a reboot of Spider-Man and another Wolverine. On the DC side, Green Lantern is coming out shortly with a third Batman and yet ANOTHER reboot of Superman on the horizon. Even television is getting in on the act. A new series featuring on Wonder Woman is shooting a pilot for… READ MORE
April 7th, 2011 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
One day late this week…. my apologies. Quick 15 minute or so study of singer Taylor Swift. READ MORE
April 5th, 2011 | Posted in General
Yesterday’s nostalgic post about kid’s breakfast cereals, and some of the comments, got me thinking about how influential the art on cereal boxes have been over the years in the world of cartooning. I did a quick internet search looking for a book on the subject, but it appears there is none. There is an out of print 1995 book called Cerealizing America: The Unsweetened Story of American Breakfast Cereal by Scott Bruce and Bill Crawford, but I have no idea if it’s centralized on the cartoon character angle.¬¨‚Ć Somebody needs to do a “The Art of the Cereal Box” coffee table book. I… READ MORE
April 4th, 2011 | Posted in General
This link on Mark Evanier‘s excellent blog about the most terrible (or awesome) breakfast cereals got me thinking about the oddity that is the American breakfast cereal. First, the fact that 95% of all breakfast cereals are about as far from what anyone would consider a good thing to eat for breakfast as it’s possible to be. I know there are plenty of breakfast cereals that really ARE good for you… high in fiber and with natural vitamins and minerals… but as a kid I hated that crap. I wanted the sugary stuff, man! The kind of cereals I liked probably had less nutritional value… READ MORE
April 3rd, 2011 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I see whenever you mention working digitally, you cite “PhotoShop” as the software you use. Why PhotoShop? Painter seems to be more of an artist-orientated program with a lot more choices for emulating natural media. Why don’t you use Painter? A: I have also heard that Painter, and least compared to previous versions of PhotoShop, was a much more artistically versatile program. I dabbled in it once and found there was a dizzying number of choices as to drawing and painting media, paper and canvas textures and ways to mimic natural media down to applying watercolor “wet” and then “drying” the watercolor whenever you… READ MORE
April 1st, 2011 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
I’m currently working on the last parts of my book on drawing caricatures and a new episode segment for “MAD” on the Cartoon Network, which is all keeping me pretty busy. I should be able to share work from MAD #509, a few magazine jobs including a cover illustration and some other goodies this month. In the meantime, here is my latest workplace poster job for The Marlin Company: The pencil sketch The final artwork READ MORE
