Tom's Mad Blog
January 30th, 2010 | Posted in General
Many years ago, immediately following my graduating from college and my marriage to The Lovely Anna, I moved from Minnesota to Georgia to be the manager of a caricature art concession at Six Flags Atlanta. I worked with a lot of different caricature artists during my two years at that Six Flags, but I’d be hard pressed to think of one more gifted than Eddie Pittman. Eddie started with the company I was managing for, Fasen Arts, in my second (and last) year as their Six Flags Atlanta manager, and eventually he worked for me at Underground Atlanta for several years before moving on to… READ MORE
January 29th, 2010 | Posted in General
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Uzvhok6N4 Here’s a little video from our recent visit to Cuba, courtesy of Lex Fajardo, creator of Kid Beowulf, artist/director at the Schulz Studios and one of our group of traveling cartoonists. It’s a short clip of me and one of the Palante! cartoonists drawing one another. Follow this link to read Lex’s thoughts on the trip. You can also listen to another cartoonist from our trip, MythTickle‘s Justin Thompson, talk about the experience on the latest episode of the podcast Comics: Coast to Coast. READ MORE
January 28th, 2010 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
Just in case you have been frozen solid and living under a rock- yesterday the eagerly awaited Apple branded tablet device, the iPad, finally was unveiled… to a lot of fanfare and a fair share of catcalls. It has been anticipated as a bold new step for the way people use technology in their daily lives. Will it live up to the hype? I think it has a chance to, but right now there is just not enough software written to take advantage of the hardware. Personally I think once there is a wide selection of software out there that is native to the iPad… READ MORE
January 27th, 2010 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Sometime today Apple will be releasing their new tablet gizmo, which will either revolutionize the entire world as we know it… or it won’t. Either way our subject for the Sketch o’the Week, Apple ???berCEO Steve Jobs, will doubtless be doing the unveiling… or he won’t. READ MORE
January 26th, 2010 | Posted in MAD Magazine
This collection of MAD‘s superhero-related spoofs picks up where the first volume left off. It is officially in bookstores now and, of course, available from Amazon. Most of the content in the first volume was classic MAD spoofs from as early as MAD #4’s “Superduperman” on through “Smellville” from MAD #415. Great stuff, but I was depressed as the book came out¬¨‚Ć just after I started doing some superhero movie spoofs and so I missed out on being in it. I definitely made up for it with Volume 2. My “Spider-Sham” parody from #418 opens the book, and other parodies and pieces of mine include… READ MORE
January 25th, 2010 | Posted in General
To say the last nine months of my life were filled with a lot of travel would be an understatement of epic proportions. Since April of 2009 I have gone on personal trips to New York, Orlando and London, England and professional trips to Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Washington D.C., Sandusky OH and New Jersey here in the U.S. as well as to Colombia, Germany, Kuwait, Iraq and Australia abroad. Whew. After officially signing on to be a speaker at the Stanley Awards in Sydney I was thinking that I wouldn’t be taking any more major trips for a looong time. However some things are just… READ MORE
January 24th, 2010 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: My question is what advice would you give to someone who would like to branch out more into the world of freelance illustration and cartooning? I have many years in the world of theme park caricatures and hope to eventually branch out more, or at least supplement my income a little bit on the side.. 🙂 A: I get this one a lot from other theme park artists I know and have worked with. Drawing live caricatures is challenging and a good way to earn a modest or even very good living (if you find the right situation) but it gets old to see… READ MORE
January 23rd, 2010 | Posted in News
The National Cartoonists Society Foundation, the charitable “arm” of the NCS, is sponsoring an auction of original cartoon art to benefit the family of an animator who’s son is in a coma as a result of a horrific car accident back in August. The effort is called “Help the Hodges“, and it’s being organized by current NCSF board member Chad Frye. Here’s their story: On August 22, 2009 Matthew Hodge, the 17-year-old son of former Disney story artist and Big Idea productions director Tim Hodge, was in a serious auto accident. A train struck his car at 50mph as he was crossing the tracks. While… READ MORE
