Tom's Mad Blog
July 9th, 2009 | Posted in General
Many times I have sang the praises of writer extraordinaire Mark Evanier‘s blog, an example of blogging at it’s entertaining and informative best. Mark recently wrote about a topic he occasionally touches on… the dreaded “working on spec” issue. Well, not exactly working on spec as that implies working on an actual project for a professional client. I’m talking about the jobs that come along from someone with a million dollar idea but a ten dollar bank account who only needs your work to complete the idea and to make the millions… whereupon you will then share in the riches. I’ve blogged about these issues… READ MORE
July 8th, 2009 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Click image for a closer look… Here’s a sketch I’ve been meaning to do for some time- Kate Gosselin and her little clan of money makers (Jon has abandoned them… well HER at any rate… in the caricature and in real life). The entire “Jon and Kate Plus 8” tabloid saga is so sickening that it’s become beyond sad. It’s the perfect example of how money and fame often changes people for the worse. I have no sympathy at all for the parents, as they have made their bed and at any time could have just stopped it all and gone back to focusing their… READ MORE
July 7th, 2009 | Posted in General
… I ran across this yesterday courtesy of the Wisenhiemer cartoonist’s forum: That’s right. This genius actually emailed the copyright owner of images he had stolen off said owner’s website, (using hotlinks and stealing his bandwidth no less) and threatened to SUE HIM unless he puts the images back up immediately. You can see more email fun and read the whole story here. Honestly, I hope this is just an urban legend and the link above is a gag. Yes, there really are people that ignorant and uneducated about the basics of copyright operating businesses out there, but more shocking is the example of the… READ MORE
July 6th, 2009 | Posted in General
As long as we are talking a lot this week about theme park caricatures, display samples, etc., here are three new samples I drew and painted while working at Valleyfair last week. Frequent readers of The MAD Blog will recognize these as past drawings from the “Sketch o’the Week”: Could not resist adding the lollypop… READ MORE
July 5th, 2009 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: This is a simple question that I started wondering about when I saw your photos of your operations in St Louis. I see you have examples of caricatures in your various shops. Are these examples of your work or the work of the artists that work in your shops? If these are the hired artist’s own examples then my question is mute. I ask this only because I remember you telling of other artists being caught using your work as their examples. This would seem to be the same thing except that you are granting permission for the usage of the drawings. The drawings… READ MORE
July 4th, 2009 | Posted in News
Director Ray Griggs tells me that the Super Capers DVD will be released on July 21st, and will be available mainly in online stores like Amazon, and the list of brick and mortar stores above READ MORE
July 4th, 2009 | Posted in News
I received an interesting recent e-mail from a gentleman named Jos?¬© Gonz?¬?lez aka “Pepe Badillo”, a cartoonist from Mexico. He wanted to tell me about the 41st anniversary of the first issue of Nausea, a “Mexican comic magazine inspired in MAD Magazine” that he and his friend, writer Emilio Esquivel, published for 12 issues from June 1968 to June 1970. Jos?¬© was one of only three artists working with Emilio producing the magazine, which he says doing was the fulfillment of a dream. An interior page from Nausea Magazine of a parody of the TV Shoe ‘Combat” I’d never heard of Nausea. I’ve heard of… READ MORE
July 3rd, 2009 | Posted in General
I spent a rare day yesterday drawing live caricatures at my Valleyfair concessions. Here’s some pictures of our three locations at the park and some of the live ones I did. READ MORE
