Tom's Mad Blog
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
September 27th, 2008 | Posted in News
Used with permission If you ever needed any solid proof that politicians in this country are a bunch of sleazy, special interest catering con artists, here you go: Yesterday, with the country in the most dire economic crisis in almost 100 years and a 700 billion dollar bailout or some other form of action desperately needing to be hammered out and put into action, the U.S. Senate passed the Orphan Works Act via a process known as “hotlining”. I guess the economy can just wait. “Hotlining” is a shady practice that was originally designed for quickly passing noncontroversial bills or simple motions, but has been… READ MORE
September 26th, 2008 | Posted in General
I was hoping to avoid an appearance of the Demon, but several jobs that need to be finished prior to my leaving for Germany on Sunday are keeping me hopping. Sorry about that… READ MORE
September 25th, 2008 | Posted in News
One of the cool things that happened last weekend at ToonFest in Marceline was the appearance of John Read with a handful of advance copies of the second issue his magazine Stay Tooned! The issue looks great, including the fantastic cover seen above by Joe Staton. Contents include: Profiles of Mike Peters, Tom Bancroft, Joe Staton, Mason Mastroianni and Bill Day Interviews with Jules Feiffer, Berke Brethed and Ben Towle. Pictures from the 2008 NCS Reuben awards Several articles by the likes of Jack Cassidy, Corey Pandolph and Norm Feuti Regular features galore including R.C. Harvey‘s “Funnies Farrago” and my “MAD Mailbag” As with the… READ MORE
September 24th, 2008 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Not nearly as ambitious as last week’s sketch, but here’s a study of another TV actor: Michael C. Hall, star of Showtime’s Dexter. I’ve never seen the show, but I hear it’s pretty good. Watching TV is one thing I just don’t have the time for… except for a few choice shows and whenever I am required to study a show for a MAD job. READ MORE
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
