Tom's Mad Blog
September 11th, 2009 | Posted in Freelancing
Today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune has a special pull-out section entitled “2009 Vikings Season Preview” that features two full page illustrations I did of Brett Favre and company. One is on the front of the section and one on the back, each is meant as a “cover” but obviously with different possible messages. The job was to illustrate two extreme scenarios of the outcome of the “Brett Favre” experiment at quarterback. They wanted not only to convey Favre as a savior in one and as a failure in the other, but also to show how you can flip the section over to see the opposite possibility.… READ MORE
September 10th, 2009 | Posted in News
As I have mentioned previously I’ll be doing a speaking presentation at 7:30 tonight at the 40 Club and Convention Center in Aitkin, MN in conjunction with the “What’s So Funny? A Celebration of Cartooning!” art show at the nearby Jaques Art Center. My talk will feature a slideshow presentation of a bunch of samples of my work, a step-by-step of a typical MAD Magazine movie parody job and a few other surprises, as well as a Q&A at the end. The entry fee is a donation to the local food shelf or one to the Art Center. I’ll also be signing autographs after the… READ MORE
September 9th, 2009 | Posted in Classic Rock Sketch Series
In honor of the release of a ton of remastered Beatles albums on CD and the video game “The Beatles: Rock Band” this week’s sketch subject is the late John Lennon. Lennon is probably the most elusive of the Fab Four to try and caricature. His look changed a lot over the years, and different angles of his face seemed to reveal different and sometimes opposing observations. Was his face long and thin, or did it have a lot of roundness and baby fat to it? His nose is long and bony, but did not dominate his face. Was his chin prominent or understated? I’m… READ MORE
September 8th, 2009 | Posted in General
Today is my favorite holiday of the year. This is a holiday that you will find on no official calendar, but it’s one all seasonal theme park caricaturists adore. Read that last link if you don’t understand… you need to spend at least one entire summer sweating out on the midway drawing endless lines of snot nosed kids, vain teenagers, drunk couples and surly art critics in order to get it fully. As a theme park concession owner, that goes double for me. Yesterday I was ultimately responsible for 12 art concession locations in three states with a combined work force of about 60 artists.… READ MORE
September 7th, 2009 | Posted in General
If I had to credit one thing for being the reason for my getting interested in comics, cartooning etc. as a kid it would have to be the 60’s Batman TV show. It was in early reruns when I was a little kid, my having been born in 1966 the year it was first on prime-time television. Like so many kids of that era, I spent a lot of time running around the neighborhood with an old bath towel pinned around my neck and a cardboard batarang in my hand… The difference is I still run around the neighborhood occasionally with a cape and a… READ MORE
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
