Tom's Mad Blog
October 5th, 2008 | Posted in Mailbag
A: I have a question (and I don’t think I’ve seen it answered yet!)! Has there ever been a face that no matter how many pictures, video or resources you look at, you just can’t get a grip on it? Myself, I specialize in a variety of anime stylizations, but there’s this one face (Nathan Fillion to be specific) that no matter what I try – anime, traditional caricature, or realism – I can’t quite get it! I’ve been able to create some drawings that people recognize without me having to give clues, but it’s not quite satisfying ME. If you do have one of… READ MORE
October 4th, 2008 | Posted in News
Did I say I’d be at the Minnesota FallCon today?? Thanks to a late flight back from Germany I missed my connection to Minnesota and ended up stuck here in Washington D.C. for the night. I am flying out this morning but of course my flight is already delayed an hour. Figures. If they would have delayed last night’s flight by even 20 minutes I would have made it. As a result I won’t be making it to FallCon today after all. I’ll be there tomorrow, though. Check back on Monday and Tuesday for a complete report of the NCS trip to D.C. and Lansdstahl,… READ MORE
October 3rd, 2008 | Posted in General
Today is travel day back to Minnesota from Germany. In fact as this is posted I should be somewhere over the Atlantic on the way back home. On Monday and Tuesday I will post a complete report of the trip. It was amazing. In the meantime I will be spending this weekend, jet lag and all, set up at the Minnesota FallCon comic book convention taking place at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds both on Saturday and Sunday. I’m not much for appearing at comic book conventions. They are always fun, but MAD is one of those “sort of” parts of the industry. It’s “sort of”… READ MORE
October 2nd, 2008 | Posted in General
I’ve written many times about my practice of listening to audiobooks when in the studio, and especially books by one of my favorite authors Stephen King. As I’ve said before, King’s combination of great storytelling, rich and engaging characters and dialog, plentiful humor and supernatural/strange subject matter makes for the best kind of audiobooks. I’ve been perplexed for years about the lack of certain King audiobooks on either CD or download. Back in the days before iPods and even easily portable CD players I used to check out cassette versions of King’s books and listen to them when working. That was a serious pain in… READ MORE
October 1st, 2008 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
I had high hopes of doing a sketch here in Germany and then uploading it to the blog and having that serve as the “Sketch o’the Week”. However Landstuhl is a small town and finding a place with a scanner that would serve is proving too convoluted a process, so I am going to cheat this week and post a couple of old sketches for the “Supercapers” job I did this summer that I happened to have on my MacBook Pro. Oliver Muirhead and Tommy “Tiny” Lister Clint Howard These pencils were inked and colored and used in the semi-animated credits of the movie. I… READ MORE
September 30th, 2008 | Posted in MAD Magazine
In the 80’s MAD publisher William M. Gaines and the editorial staff cited twelve pieces of cover artwork from the magazine that they considered the epitome of what MAD was all about.. it’s “heart and soul”. They represented the essential philosophy, type of humor and satirical outlook that MAD had established as it thumbed it’s nose at the world and all those who took it, and themselves, too seriously. He called these classic pieces of art the “Soul of MAD“. Over the years there have been several MAD art auctions by Christie’s and Sothebys that featured a lot of classic MAD art, but the “Soul… READ MORE
September 29th, 2008 | Posted in News
A few weeks ago I mentioned a special USO and NCS sponsored trip I would be taking where several cartoonists would be visiting U.S. military hospitals in Germany to spend some time with wounded soldiers and medical staff. I am currently in Washington D.C., where today our little group of cartoonist will be visiting the Walter Reed Medical Center and the Bathesda Naval Base to see staff and recovering war veterans. Tonight we will fly out of Washington-Dulles to Heathrow in London, with just a short layover (sorry Steve Hearn, I am airport-bound there) before we are off to Frankfurt and from there to Landstuhl.… READ MORE
September 28th, 2008 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: How do you respond when doing a caricature and you present a preliminary sketch, the client says, “His (Her, My, whatever) nose (ears, chin, whatever) isn’t that big?” In a live party situation, where the drawing presented is a done deal and the host is paying by the hour, I respond with, “Now it is!” But in a studio, commission situation my first impulse is always to ask, “Do you know what a caricature is?” I almost always try in the initial conversation to determine if they know the difference between a portrait and a caricature. Even then I sometime get that irritating question.… READ MORE
