Tom's Mad Blog
September 6th, 2009 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: How do you envisage the future for caricature? Do you see it moving a lot more towards manipulating photographs or do you think there will always be a place for the conventional hand-drawn approach? A: One of the beautiful things about caricature is that it is a very personal thing. An artist’s caricature of a subject is his or her personal interpretation of that individual… every caricature has a little bit of the artist in it. It’s impossible to completely disassociate yourself from the caricature you draw, because without your personal observations and interpretations it’s not a caricature, it’s a portrait. Given that there… READ MORE
September 5th, 2009 | Posted in General
An alert e-mailer sent me this link to an online seller offering this “collector stamp sheet” from the Democratic Republic of Congo: … which is¬¨‚Ć a rip off of this VERY old park sample of Scully and Mulder from “The X-Files” that I had on my original website back in 1996: Actually I’ve known about these Congo stamps for years. They surfaced around 2000 or so and featured about half a dozen of my caricature samples, apparently taken from my website, as well as caricatures by a number of other artists. There was a small country in Russia that did the same thing. Apparently there… READ MORE
September 4th, 2009 | Posted in MAD Magazine
The deadline for early discounted registration for the International Society of Caricature Artists annual convention is coming up fast on Sept. 15th. There is a substantial discount for both ISCA members and the special non-member “MAD Seminar Only” option. On or Before September 15th: Members- $165 Member guests- $100 each Non- Member “Seminar Only”- $99 After September 15th: Members- $250 Member guests- $100 each Non- Member “Seminar Only”- $125 This will be a great event. It’s rare that this many MAD contributors get together to speak at the same time, and very rare to see so many of the “newer” members of the Usual Gang… READ MORE
September 3rd, 2009 | Posted in News
About a year ago I blogged about a pending lawsuit against Hallmark Cards courtesy of Paris Hilton citing a right of publicity/trademark claim over the Hallmark card pictured above. At the time I thought that is was going to be a slam dunk for Hilton, but then I was not so sure. In a stunning demonstration of the swift wheels of justice in the United States courts, a federal court of appeals decided Monday that Hilton can go ahead and pursue her lawsuit (link courtesy of The Daily Cartoonist). Wow, that only took a year. Actually there had been action on the case in the… READ MORE
September 2nd, 2009 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This week’s subject is a fellow caricaturist and ISCA member Rocky Sawyer who’s caricature I did for the International Society of Caricature Artists “Firing Squad”. The “Firing Squad” is a forum on the ISCA Message Board where members post pictures of themselves and then they are drawn by other members. A fun idea and it results in lots of caricatures in many different styles. I don’t get much time to participate but Rocky’s wife e-mailed me asking if I’d take a shot at her husband as it was his birthday, so I thought it would make an interesting sketch o’the week. The reference pic is… READ MORE
September 1st, 2009 | Posted in Tutorials
This series of “How to Draw Caricatures” tutorials are a just a small taste of a larger and much more in-depth book I wrote called The Mad Art of Caricature! The book is 175 full-color pages, lavishly illustrated and contains greatly expanded explanations of the concepts presented in these tutorials, as well and a great deal of additional material on caricaturing other facial features, posture, hands, expression and more, techniques on drawing from live models, doing caricature for freeplace illustration and for MAD Magazine. This is a must have book for anyone interested in caricature, cartooning or humorous illustration. You can order it online here.… READ MORE
August 31st, 2009 | Posted in News
I ran across this shocker on CNN this morning and thought I’d post a link. Seems there is an offer from Disney to buy Marvel Comics for 4 billion dollars, pending stockholder approval. This begs two interesting questions: first, what will happen with the Marvel movie production company? Marvel has been doing it right with Iron Man and other offerings lately. If Marvel movies become Disney movies, that does not bode well for the Marvel characters. Second, what happens in Orlando? Right now the Universal Studios theme park relies heavily on the Marvel characters as part of their Islands of Adventure park. If Disney now… READ MORE
August 31st, 2009 | Posted in General
I know I promised the “Nose” tutorial today and it’s almost done but due to a scheduling snafu at my parks I will instead be drawing live caricatures at Nickelodeon Universe today. Rest assured, the tutorial will be up and running early tomorrow. Oh… and I have had a request from a few people to post in advance when I will be drawing caricatures at one of my park locations. I will be drawing at Valleyfair here in Minnesota this Saturday, Sept. 5th from 12-8 at our location near the “Wild Thing” roller coaster. READ MORE
