Tom's Mad Blog
April 4th, 2008 | Posted in Freelancing
As promised, here is the newspaper illustration I did last week for the Minneapolis Star Tribune: It’s the cover of a special baseball season preview section that ran on Sunday. The giant players are (left to right) Jim Thome, C.C. Sabathia and Miguel Cabrera. This is a JPEG of the illustration in situ on the digital layout, sent to me by the art director. Printing on newsprint is tricky. The paper is porous and soaks up the inks. There is a certain amount of “spread” to the ink as well, creating a fuzziness to the image. The colors need to be garish to compensate for… READ MORE
April 3rd, 2008 | Posted in News
The nominees for this year’s divisional Reuben awards have been announced: Book Illustration Nancy Beiman – “Prepare to Board” Sandra Boynton – “Blue Moo” Jay Stephens – “Robots!” TV Animation Sandra Equihua and Jorge Gutierrez – Creators – “El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera” Stephen Silver – Character Design – “Kim Possible” Richard Webber – Creator – “Purple and Brown” Greeting Card Gary McCoy Glenn McCoy Dave Mowder Newspaper Comic Strip Paul Gilligan ?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ” “Pooch Caf?¬©” Jim Meddick ?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ” “Monty” Richard Thompson ?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ” “Cul De Sac” Editorial Cartoon Gary Brookins Michael Ramirez Bill Schorr Magazine Illustration Daryll Collins John Klossner Tom Richmond Newspaper Illustration… READ MORE
April 2nd, 2008 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Couldn’t resist this quick study of the great Al Jaffee for this week’s “Sketch o’the Week”. READ MORE
April 1st, 2008 | Posted in News
Well, it was interesting while it lasted. We laughed, we cried…. etc…. Back in June of 2006 I started The MAD Blog thinking it would be a good outlet for my writing and a chance to share some of my experiences and insights into the world of cartooning, caricature and freelance illustration. I also hoped it would be a great exercise in creative thinking… trying to come up with worthwhile topics for posts, articles and the like. I knew it would be a challenge, and that it would take some of my time and energy every day. So far I have not failed to make… READ MORE
March 31st, 2008 | Posted in General
This is incredibly cool! The New York Times also has an interactive, flash-based archive of 23 of Al Jaffee‘s Fold-Ins from MAD from the 60’s to the present. The flash features provides a great digital “fold in” action, so you don’t have to try and fold your monitor… which is hard. Check it out here! READ MORE
March 31st, 2008 | Posted in General
The Pixie-ish Al Jaffee Al Jaffee is a wonder. If you are lucky enough to meet the man, you’ll see that at 87 he is as sharp as a razor, still has a mischievous twinkle in his eyes and is ever the consummate gentleman. I met Al only once, at MAD holiday party a few years ago when he was still a little wet behind the ears at only 84. I had the fairly newly published book MAD ART under my arm and intended to accost any and all MAD artists at the party and beg them to sign my book on their particular entries.… READ MORE
March 30th, 2008 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I was wondering what is a wash (in inking), and how do you do it? I know that it makes the ink turn grey, or maybe something like that. A: Washes are areas of gray created by watered down ink that you “wash” into an inked drawing to add values of gray and turn it into a more “inked painting”. Washes can be used either as flat areas of specific values or as a more painted grayscale set of values like a monochrome watercolor painting. Washes are more easily accomplished via the computer these days, and I often will use the computer to add… READ MORE
March 29th, 2008 | Posted in News
I’ve written a number of times about this scourge of evil that lobbyists are trying to push through the legislature. Basically it’s a law that allows publishers or whomever to use creative works without paying the creator if the creator cannot be located by the vaguely defined “reasonably diligent search”. That’s bad enough, when any copyright violator can claim the made a “reasonably diligent search” if busted by the original creator, but previous incarnations also limited the amount a creator could receive in a court case so that it would cost the user of the creative works little or no more to try and use… READ MORE
