Tom's Mad Blog
February 25th, 2010 | Posted in News
Cover art by Bill Janocha I received a pleasant surprise in my mailbox yesterday… the newest issue of Stay Tooned! Magazine in all it’s hot-off-the-press glory. I also got a lot of pre-approved credit card offers, but they were considerably less thrilling. Still, anything addressed to me (and I count “Current Resident” as being addressed to me) in the mailbox in the middle of a Minnesota winter is something. When your mail is delivered by dogsled even the junk mail is welcome. Stay Tooned! is far from junk mail, though… that is genuine “glad to see it” mail. Publisher John Read continues his string of… READ MORE
February 24th, 2010 | Posted in MAD Magazine
While Dick De Bartolo is not actually a monkey as depicted above (this was the only caricature I have drawn of him, hence the silly post title) he will no doubt be doing plenty of monkeying around on “Stu’s Show” today on Shokus Internet Radio. If you are not familiar with Shokus Internet Radio, it’s a… wait for it…. radio station on the internet. Stu Shokus has a live broadcast on Wednesdays, and callers and e-mailers can pose questions to his guests who are “top celebrities from the world of television, both in front of and behind the cameras”. Writer extraordinaire Mark Evanier is a… READ MORE
February 24th, 2010 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Last year I participated in a charity fundraiser called “National Doodle Day“, which auctions off drawings and sketches by a host of artists, authors, actors, directors and celebrities each year in May. The proceeds benefit Neurofibromatosis Inc., a “non-profit organization whose mission is to provide services to individuals with Neurofibromatosis (NB) and their families. NB is an unpredictable disease that cases tumors to form on your nerves, sometimes resulting in disfigurement, paralysis, deafness, blindness or cancer.”- From the Doodle Day website. I received my packet for my doodle contribution a week or two ago, and took the liberty to do my “sketch o’the week” directly… READ MORE
February 23rd, 2010 | Posted in News
The nominees for the National Cartoonists Society‘s highest honor, The Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year have been released to members for their vote. The nominees are: Stephen Pastis Dan Piraro Richard Thompson Stephen Pastis is the creator of the popular comic strip Pearls Before Swine. Dan Piraro is the mastermind behind the syndicated daily panel cartoon Bizarro, and Richard Thompson writes and draws the syndicated strip Cul de Sac. This is Pastis’s second time on this list, Piraro’s eighth and the first for Thompson. Nominees for the NCS divisional award categories will be announced sometime in March. READ MORE
February 23rd, 2010 | Posted in News
A new record for the sale of a comic book was set yesterday when a copy of Action Comics #1 sold for one million dollars. Today thousands of 80 year old men are cursing their dead mothers for throwing out the copy they owned in 1938… I’m still a little pissed about the Star Wars bubble gum card collection my mom tossed in 1980. The issue was sold through Metropolis Collectibles and the ComicConnect.com auction site. The seller was a guy who either paid a lot less for this comic when he bought it (the previous record of a sale of a comic book, also… READ MORE
February 22nd, 2010 | Posted in Freelancing
… with a sudden number of quick deadline jobs. One is using real, live paint! I’ll try and do some scans of various steps on that one just for fun… I don’t often get to haul out the brushes and paints these days. Here is my latest Marlin Co. workplace poster job, I posted the pencil roughs a few days ago: Click for a closer look… Here’s the caption/text that will appear under it: Living a healthy life so that you’ll stay at your peak years from now? Please keep yourself in gear with a healthy diet and as much exercise as your doctor allows.… READ MORE
February 21st, 2010 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Q: Love reading the blog and getting a little insight into how caricature and MAD Magazine works. One thing I’ve always wondered: when you’re working on a MAD movie or TV show parody, what do you get from the writer? Is it a script, with just words? Does it include sketches? Are you responsible for all the sight gags, or are some of them laid out for you? Who decides the panel layout and what happens in each panel? A: Everything starts with the writer, but there are a lot of hands involved in a MAD parody before the final results are printed in the… READ MORE
February 20th, 2010 | Posted in General
This is a new video promoting the International Society of Caricature Artists. I have been a member since 1997 and served as president for two years in 1999 and 2000. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1t3HPhCFqY[/youtube] I have written plenty of posts over the last few years extolling the virtues of the ISCA. If you do caricatures in any capacity in your work it is a very worthwhile organization to be a part of. READ MORE
