Tom's Mad Blog
June 16th, 2009 | Posted in MAD Magazine
A lot of people ask me what MAD is planning on doing now that they are only publishing 4 times a year. Hopefully, here’s one answer. New, original content MAD books. Back in the 60’s and 70’s MAD published a lot of paperback books, many of which were the work of individual artist and writers like Don Martin, Sergio Aragon?¬©s, Al Jaffee, etc. These were also mostly original content, not reprints from the magazine. For most of the last two decades, MAD‘s book offerings have been reprinted classic MAD material packaged into themed collections like “MAD About the 60’s” or “MAD about Superheroes”. This book,… READ MORE
June 15th, 2009 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
Apple does a lot of things right. They build good computers. They design good software that is easy and intuitive to use. They (mostly) stand by their products and offer very good support, especially if you are willing to pay for their AppleCare extended warranties. AppleCare is expensive, but you get something for your money. Macs are expensive but you get a lot of computer for the money. Apple comes up with innovative products like the iPod and the iPhone. They pride themselves on having their fingers on the pulse of their customers. However, Apple is truly clueless when it comes to the video rentals… READ MORE
June 14th, 2009 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Concerning drawing live caricatures: What do you do if the subject’s key identifying characteristics may be something they are ashamed/embarrassed about? For example, a person whose eyes don’t point in the same direction, a lady with a long, “horse-like” face, people with extremely crooked teeth, people with an extremely pronounced underbite, people with more chins than they would prefer to have, and the list goes on. On one hand, these “unattractive” features might be needed to clinch the likeness. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. A: Good question. A lot of the answer involves that “sixth sense” I talked… READ MORE
June 13th, 2009 | Posted in General
Jiggity Jig. It’s a long travel day today back to Minnesota. It will take me several days to stop saying “si” whenever a question requires the answer “yes”. Again, a full report on my Colombia experience next week. READ MORE
June 12th, 2009 | Posted in News
Some of the crazy South American cartoonists I hung out with for a week in Cali Last night was the opening of my art exhibition at the Centro Columbo Americano in Cali, Colombia. The Colombo is an educational resource for Cali residents and visitors about Amercia’s culture, language and life. They teach English there, have exhibitions and shows featuring American arts and culture and organize events featuring the same in Cali. Last week they had a blues music festival featuring many international musicians including a few from the United States. They also act as a resource for Americans visiting Cali, and often are hosts to… READ MORE
June 11th, 2009 | Posted in Freelancing
I once again took the plunge and advertised in Serbin Communication’s “Directory of Illustration“. Above is my page that will be in the book coming out in November. Every year I say I am going to take my time and really design an eye-popping page, and very year I realize the night before the deadline that I need to throw something together. This year I staying with a heavy dose of the “colored line” technique I’ve been using lately. The background colors/dot pattern that mirror my site are terribly distracting and overpowering now that I look at it, but there it is. I’ve written a… READ MORE
June 10th, 2009 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This week’s sketch is a quick one of the new “Tonight Show” host Conan O’Brien. Not much too it, just a straightforward basic study. Conan has a face that is ripe for really going after with exaggeration… I want to do a better one at a later date. The straight on pose is boring. I have yet to see Conan on “The Tonight Show”, but that is hardly surprising as I have watched only¬¨‚Ć handful of minutes of that show since Johnny Carson left, and those were because I was brushing my teeth after the news and couldn’t reach the remote to either turn the… READ MORE
June 9th, 2009 | Posted in General
Here’s the second of numerous¬¨‚Ć video “sample”caricatures from a promo video I used at some of my retail caricature locations in the mid 90’s. This one is of Katey Sagal and Ed O’Neill AKA Peg and Al Bundy from the TV show “Married… with Children“. I likely originally drew this sample from memory one day at the theme park, considering I had been drawing the Bundys for NOW comics for several years at that time. I happen to have a scan of this sample as well, shown below, which I still use at the theme parks believe it or not. With it’s endless syndication, the… READ MORE
