Tom's Mad Blog
August 17th, 2010 | Posted in General
I’ve been doing a lot of work over the last two years for filmmaker Ray Griggs, including illustrations, animations and a promotional comic book for his superhero spoof movie Super Capers, storyboards, the movie poster and animated character design for his latest film project “I Want Your Money” and illustration for iPhone and iPad apps like Bobble Rep. In the process Ray has become a good friend… he is a comic book geek at heart. Case in point: Ray has an office on the Warner Bros. studio property in California, and recently got a permit to have a golf cart on the lot. Rather than… READ MORE
August 16th, 2010 | Posted in Freelancing
Nobody like this guy, but…. Some time ago I wrote a blog post about the importance of meeting deadlines as a freelancer. Just the other day my pal freelance writer extraordinaire Mark Evanier posted some excellent advice about deadlines and how not taking them seriously is extremely detrimental to one’s freelance career. Go read that post by Mark. I’ll wait….. I could not agree more. Deadlines are not always absolute, and many art directors (read: SMART) build in room for late delivery of work. However some do not, and every job is unique. The bottom line is that failure to deliver your work at the… READ MORE
August 15th, 2010 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: When you’re drawing, do you usually have anything on in the background (music, TV, movies)? A: That’s a question that has a lot of different answers from a lot of different artists, which I find fascinating. Everyone seems to have their own idea of what kind of environment they need to focus their concentration, creativity and work flow. I know a lot of artists that have the TV going in the background playing either some specific station or DVDs of movies. That is one thing I cannot do… any visual distractions really mess up my ability to focus on my work. It seems to… READ MORE
August 13th, 2010 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
The future?…. Here’s a link to an recent CNN article on how the iPad is boosting the appeal of digital comics. I absolutely agree that the iPad and it’s descendants will be the new format for publishing, including comics and magazines. I can see a virtual news stand in the future full of individual issues and subscriptions for magazines, comics, comic books and newspapers… delivered without user effort to your mobile tablet device in a format that is easy and natural to browse, read and enjoy. However I don’t see the iPad being that device, but some other piece of hardware that doesn’t force the… READ MORE
August 12th, 2010 | Posted in Freelancing
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68BEuofLl7A[/youtube] This is a teaser trailer for “I Want Your Money”, a politically conservative film by Ray Griggs that I did a whole bunch of animation character design for. You’ll see a few seconds of some of the animated segments. Unfortunately Ray had a lot of trouble with the animation companies that did the CGI and frankly the final results leave a lot to be desired. I think the modeling and basic characters look fine, but the talking animation part is rough. Here’s one of the segments in full: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBXQhs6kwYc[/youtube] Just an added note- I have nothing to do with the message of this film…… READ MORE
August 11th, 2010 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
Had to work at Valleyfair today, and it was so %$#$@ hot and humid I didn’t want to work in my sketchbook. So, here’s an airbrushed color sample of my “Flo” caricature sketch of a week or so ago… READ MORE
August 10th, 2010 | Posted in Freelancing
I do a few illustrations a year for Penthouse, which I have no qualms about doing so long as I am not asked to do anything pornographic. This is something they understand and only give me a call when they need a humorous illustration for an article that isn’t too “blue”. They are really great to work with. The September issue has a full page illustration I did for a humorous article about why guys have “sex on the brain” i.e. it’s all some guys think about. Initially the art director wanted me to do an image of a guy with his brain coming out… READ MORE
August 9th, 2010 | Posted in MAD Magazine
I’ve gotten so many e-mails from people asking for help identifying the one or two pundits they can’t figure out in the above panel that I thought I’d just put together a “key” to all of them… so here ya go: Click for a closer look… Lawrence O’Donnell Monica Crowley Bernie Goldberg Jonathan Alter Joe Scarborough Ann Coulter Rudy Juliani Frank Luntz Fred Barnes Frank Rich Rich Lowry Steve McMahon Fareed Zakaria Joan Walsh Thomas Friedman Dana Perino Margaret Carlson Howard Dean Maureen Dowd Eugene Robinson Richard Wolffe Oliver North Newt Gingrich James Carville Pat Buchanan Sanjay Gupta Robert Reich Karl Rove Donna Brazile Paul… READ MORE
