Tom's Mad Blog
September 16th, 2010 | Posted in News
Every three years Ohio State University and the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum puts on the Festival of Cartoon Art, a weekend of presentations, lectures and panels on the art of cartoonist both past and present. The festival is self-described as “a unique celebration of cartoons and comics featuring exhibitions, presentations by top creators, panel discussions, an academic pre-conference, and other special programs.” This is a big deal in the cartooning community and something I am very much looking forward to attending for the first time when it takes place in Columbus, OH, October 14-17. Circumstances have prevented my being able to go to… READ MORE
September 15th, 2010 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Here’s something completely different. In the last 6 months I’ve been asked to do quite a bit of illustration for animation… stuff like iPad Apps, movie character design, character design for advertising and now of course the stuff for the MAD Show. The thing is I have never done anything like that before, and am flying mostly blind when it comes to doing things like turnarounds, style sheets… basically all the fundamentals that make animation character design work. So, I am taking my pal Steve Silver‘s highly recommended on-line “Character Design” course through Schoolism.com. Steve is one of the best animation character designers working today,… READ MORE
September 14th, 2010 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
I just finished up a bunch of projects over a brutal two weeks including: MAD– TV parody for issue #506 Workplace poster– The usual monthly thing MAD Show– some character design for this ongoing project Caricature Illustration– Sen. Harry Reid for a political campaign firm Product Illustration– Caricature of Rep. Dennis Kucinich for a deck of cards Private Commission– Rare one of these Now I am working on: Another Workplace Poster More MAD Show stuff Another private commission Here’s a little project I worked on a few weeks ago… this was a quick animation for a promo for that movie I did the CGI Animation… READ MORE
September 13th, 2010 | Posted in General
Mondays……Ecccccch. READ MORE
September 12th, 2010 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Any idea when your caricature book will be finished and made available to all us who can’t wait to get a copy? A: Unfortunately work on the book has ground to a screeching halt in the last 6 months as I have been increasingly busy with work, including on the MAD cartoon. I am determined to have it done in time for the San Diego Comic Con next July, so we’ll shoot for that time as a release date. There, now I’ve set MY OWN DEADLINE. I’ll try not to blow it. A lot will depend on if a book publisher decides to pick… READ MORE
September 9th, 2010 | Posted in News
Remember that debacle back in November when Apple rejected the U.S. Congress app featuring caricatures I had drawn based on it being “defamatory to public figures”? Surprising public backlash got Apple to reconsider, and Apple kept making the same mistake with apps from Daryl Cagle, Mark Fiore and others. Well, it looks like Apple finally decided to get more specific about the rules and how they apply to satire and humor. From the Daily Cartoonist: Apple has relaxed some of their requirements for its App Store apps. The clause regarding defamatory or offensive material is still in the guidelines, but they’ve explicitly made it clear… READ MORE
September 8th, 2010 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Super busy right now, but here is a quick profile study of “House” star Hugh Laurie done with a brush pen and some digital gray washes… This guy has got a great face to caricature. READ MORE
September 7th, 2010 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Last night’s debut of the new animated MAD show on the Cartoon Network was certainly fun. Working on the show has been a real experience so far, and I am looking forward to continuing to work on future episodes… although as I understand it my role has been reduced to doing work for about every other episode. I have spent a lot of time during the first 5 I have worked on trying to figure out how to adjust my work to better fit in with what the animators need in order to produce the segments based on my art. The main challenge has been… READ MORE
