Tom's Mad Blog
September 23rd, 2008 | Posted in General
Today marks 20 years since The Lovely Anna and I were married in St. Paul, Minnesota on a beautiful Friday autumn evening. I remember it being one of the best days of my life… surrounded by family and friends… embarking on a new chapter in life with a woman I still find hard to believe agreed to marry a poor art student with little going for him and less in the way of promising prospects of a career. I was devilishly handsome, however. Actually she says I made her laugh, and that’s how I hooked her. “An ARTIST?!?” her friends said to each other. “Poor… READ MORE
September 22nd, 2008 | Posted in News
A small, quiet, rural town in the middle of Missouri is not the place one might expect to find a group of well known syndicated comic strip cartoonists (and one lowly MAD artist) gathered for a speaking engagement, but that’s just what happens every year around this time in Marceline, MO. Well, the lowly MAD artist doesn’t show up every year, but there is always a number of cartooning luminaries that speak, participate and in share their time and talents with attendees of the Walt Disney Hometown Toonfest. Marceline might be the kind of sleepy little town that you ordinarily barely slow down through on… READ MORE
September 21st, 2008 | Posted in General
Q: Regarding your posted porta-pottie-pic from (yesterday), who’s the bust sculpture of on the left? Okay.¬¨‚Ć It’s a simple question that may not be worthy of a Sunday mailbag, but one never knows how long the story may be that goes with the bust! A: This is exactly the kind of question to answer on a day I am driving all the way back to Minnesota from Marceline, so thanks! That bust is something I got about 4 or 5 years ago from a small entrepreneur that was making them for a time. It’s hard to find them now, as I do not think anyone… READ MORE
September 20th, 2008 | Posted in General
I’m always looking for ways to maximize the time spent in the studio and eliminate any distractions. I have a fridge, place to receive take out delivery, etc. I think I may have just added the final piece to the puzzle… READ MORE
September 19th, 2008 | Posted in General
I’d been meaning to write a post about this subject for some time, and after getting this link from the LCS: Illustration News Portal blog that links back to a previous article of mine, I thought I’d finally get around to it. The LCS post features the following YouTube video, an excerpt of an interview with Sci-Fi writing legend Harlan Ellison, which sums the matter up colorfully but succinctly. As a warning, it’s VERY colorful at times, so if cursing and f-bombs bother you know you’ve been warned: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE[/youtube] Harlan is an outspoken guy, and isn’t know for being subtle. He might come off a… READ MORE
September 18th, 2008 | Posted in General
I’m leaving this morning on the long drive down to Marceline, Missouri to attend the annual Walt Disney Hometown Toonfest, where as I mentioned before I will be emceeing the speaker events and speaking myself. It’s about a 7 hour drive through beautiful northern Iowa (insert snare drum rimshot here), land of windmills, plains and… uh… more windmills. Along the way there will doubtless be at least one stop at a “Kum and Go“, which seem to be at every highway exit ramp in Iowa. Until I actually stopped at one I had thought it was a drive through brothel. I was further confused by… READ MORE
September 17th, 2008 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Here’s one I’ve been meaning to draw for a while now… some faces are just made to be caricatured. Hugh Laurie, star of the TV show “House“. READ MORE
September 16th, 2008 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
For the first time in I cannot remember how long, I have no paying work on the board. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Oh, I have a few long promised personal projects to get to, but nothing with a deadline or a paycheck on the other end. Ah well… Here’s a poster job I wrapped up recently. Pencil sketch, inks and color: Initial pencil sketch Final Inks Notice that Santa has changed a bit between the sketch and the final. It was decided Santa needed to look less like he was responding “so what?” to being reminded of his garbage duties and look more sheepish and apologetic.… READ MORE
