Tom's Mad Blog
November 18th, 2010 | Posted in News
This was printed up as a USO Autograph Card for giving out on tour Visting FOBs NCS Osama Watch– No sighting. Pastis claiming 65% of any reward if we spot him Originally each group was supposed to visit up to 6 forward operating bases (FOBs) over the three days we were spending in the Kandahar area, but due to the flight snafus we were only scheduled to visit two each. Considering how long it took us to actually GET to Afghanistan it was really too bad our time there was so short that we could’t visit more sites, but co-ordinating and promoting our visits were… READ MORE
November 17th, 2010 | Posted in General
In honor of the premiere of the newest Harry Potter movie this week, here’s a study of Bellatrix herself, Helena Bonham Carter. READ MORE
November 16th, 2010 | Posted in News
The view from one of the few windows in the C-17 Kandahar, Afghanistan One of the things that the U.S. Military and the USO take seriously on these tours is security, so we were not informed of any of our actual destinations until we were ready to depart. Therefore none of us knew until the tour commenced that we were headed to Kandahar, the second largest city in Afghanistan (after Kabul) and the location of the Kandahar Airfielf (KAF) the largest military base in the southern part of the country and second largest in Afghanistan after Bagram. It’s also a NATO base, with 27 nations… READ MORE
November 15th, 2010 | Posted in News
Click for a closer look: L to R: Stephan Pastis, Mike Luchovich, Jeff Keane, Rick Kirkman, Garry Trudeau and myself in Kandahar, Afghanistan Some Background The annual member business meeting of the National Cartoonists Society takes place early on Saturday morning at each NCS Reuben Awards weekend, and it’s usually filled with equal parts routine and contention… but every once and a while something is brought up that ends up being something special. At the meeting in 2007 in Orlando, cartoonist Jeff Bacon stood up and what he had to say started something very special. Jeff is a retired Navy captain and the creator of… READ MORE
November 14th, 2010 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Can you take us through your process for a typical illustration job, from start to finish? A: Fortuitous timing on that question, as the editor of an article in School Library Journal that I did an accompanying illustration for recently wrote a blog post describing some of the process. You can read her article here, but I will elaborate a bit more from my perspective using this recent job as an example of a typical project’s process. The basic anatomy of an illustration job: Initial communication with client & agreement Discussion of the project details with the Art Director Research Initial concept sketches Review… READ MORE
November 12th, 2010 | Posted in General
Now that we have left the area we are allowed to say our cartoonist’s USO tour spent three days in Afghanistan, specifically Kandahar and FOBs in the southern part of the country. The picture was taken at the Kandahar Air Field prior to one of our trips to outlying camps to draw for the deployed troops. I thought maybe the soldiers might get a look at me in the gear and think I was Special Forces, but it turns out they thought I was Special Ed. A full description of the trip is coming next week. READ MORE
November 11th, 2010 | Posted in General
Rick “Baby Blues” Kirkman and I draw for U. S. Army SGT Jason Gilbert of East Lake, OH Our band of cartoonists are still drawing away at an undisclosed location in the war zone in the middle east, and as US Military¬¨‚Ćrules won’t allow me to say where we are or when we return, I’ll have to wait until I get back to share our experiences… which have been amazing. The above picture is courtesy of the USO, and can be seen here along with several other images and a brief story about the first stop on our tour in Landstuhl, Germany. READ MORE
November 10th, 2010 | Posted in General
Sorry, but I can’t figure out how to scan or upload a sketch this week from here in the middle east. I can barely find internet access to communicate back home. This is an old one from the tour we did last year to Iraq and Kuwait. I’ll make up for it next week… READ MORE
