Tom's Mad Blog
October 31st, 2010 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I see that full sized Batman in the pictures of your studio. Is that really a costume? Where did you get that awesome suit? A: I get at least one of these every year as Halloween approaches. Here is one of the pictures in question: And yes, it’s costume: That’s me!… I’m Batman. It’s an exact replica of the Val Kilmer “Panther” style suit from “Batman Forever”… complete with nipples :mad:. You can read all about how I put this together, along with lots of other pictures on this post: The Saga of the Batsuit. READ MORE
October 29th, 2010 | Posted in General
The great Sergio Aragon?¬©s is celebrating 50 years as a professional cartoonist, which since 1963 include his contributions to MAD Magazine. The Huffington Post has an artcile about Sergio and his new book MAD’s Greatest Artists: Sergio Aragon?¬©s: Five Decades of His Finest Works (which, BTW, is as fantastic as you would expect). Congratulations mi amigo… and here’s to many more years! READ MORE
October 28th, 2010 | Posted in News
I’ve been remiss in linking to the weekly “NCS Member Spotlight” over on the website of the National Cartoonists Society that gets posted every Thursday. Put together by NCS Member Leif Peng, these are short retrospectives of the work of some of the long standing members of the Society… well worth a look. This week’s Spotlight is on commercial/advertising cartoonist Roy Doty. Last week’s was on the legendary Jack Davis. READ MORE
October 28th, 2010 | Posted in General
An Aston Martin DB5 built for the filming of the 1965 James Bond film “Thunderball”complete with (mostly) functioning gadgets was auctioned off yesterday in London. The famous modifications include front machine guns that shoot blanks, an ejector seat (that doesn’t work), radar navigation, a nail spreader, tire shredders, bullet shield and a revolving number plate. Man, I really wanted that car, but as it went for $4 million it was exactly $3,999,990 more than what The Lovely Anna allows me to spend in online auctions. For about seven years I had the cheapest of all the Bond cars, a BMW Z3 convertible like the one… READ MORE
October 27th, 2010 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
I recently rewatched Peter Jackson‘s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy with Number One Son Thomas who had inexplicably never seen any of the films before, and was captivated all over again by how good they are. Easily they set the bar for fantasy films. Here is a quick study of Sir Ian McKellan as Gandalf. It looks like the LOTR prequel “The Hobbit” might finally be in production in earnest. Actually this is not Sir Ian’s first appearance in the SOTW. Some years ago I did this sketch of him from the film “Richard III”: READ MORE
October 26th, 2010 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
SWAMPED… and as I am leaving to an undisclosed location(s) on another of those USO trips on the 5th, the blogging might be a bit on the light side for a while… MAD– A 6 page movie parody!!! Woot! MAD Animated show– Back to work on some new episodes. Penthouse– Series of illustrations for an ongoing celebrity column Advertising job– series of caricature illustrations for a big corporation Workplace Poster– My usual monthly assignment Speaking of workplace posters, here’s last month’s illustration. Click for a closer look: The pencil sketch Finished Artwork READ MORE
October 25th, 2010 | Posted in News
I never met Jess Rubio, but as a live caricaturist and the owner of several theme park caricature operations I sure heard about him. Rubio was the “face” of caricatures and art concessions at the Walt Disney theme parks. He started as a fill in portrait artist in 1957 at Disneyland, and a chance meeting with Walt Disney when Rubio came in early to set up his location started him on a road that led to his being the exclusive art concession operator in all the Disney theme parks in California and Florida. For about 40 years after, if there was ever consideration of a… READ MORE
October 24th, 2010 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I am a longtime fan of MAD Magazine and my favorite parts of each issue are the movie and TV parodies. I hope you’ll forgive me but I have several questions about that. I know you have been doing both types for a long time… which is your favorite to work on, a movie or a TV show, and why? Do you like doing parodies more of shows you love or hate? Finally, are we ever going to see MAD return to having at least one parody in every issue? They used to always have one movie and one TV show spoof in each… READ MORE
