Tom's Mad Blog
January 7th, 2008 | Posted in General
Underground Atlanta Caricatures Circa 2000 I’m back from Atlanta where I just closed up my long time caricature stand at Underground Atlanta, a downtown retail/tourist complex. As I had mentioned, it was really sad because it was my very first business endeavor and it had been through a lot over the last 18 plus years. Back in 1989 The Lovely Anna and I, freshly married and she just pregnant, moved to Atlanta from St. Paul, Minnesota because I took a job with Fasen Arts Inc, as manager of their new caricature operation at Six Flags Atlanta. I was 23, just graduated from art school and… READ MORE
January 6th, 2008 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Your work is a total rip off of Mort Ducker’s style. How do you sleep at night?- Anonymous A: Other than when my wife pokes me when I snore too loudly, I sleep just fine, thanks. I usually don’t post anonymous questions or comments, but I thought his one would be worth answering. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard that, but am confident in saying that my work isn’t a rip off of Mort Drucker‘s, and anybody who thinks so isn’t looking really looking. Mort will always be identified with caricatures in MAD, and anyone doing traditional ink line, cartoon caricature likenesses in… READ MORE
January 5th, 2008 | Posted in General
I had a nice, long blog post ready for today about dealing with deadbeat clients, but I have limited internet access here in Atlanta and can’t upload the article. It will have to wait until Monday. Sorry about that, folks. The mailbag question for tomorrow is controversial, however… so maybe that will make up for it. READ MORE
January 4th, 2008 | Posted in General
Deadlines conquered. Now I am off to Atlanta, Georgia on a very sad errand. After nearly 19 years I am closing up my caricature concession stand at the downtown retail complex Underground Atlanta. I’ll blog about it next week, but it was the first business I ever opened and I am sorry to see it die. …gotta catch a plane. Sorry, no time for a real blog post today. READ MORE
January 3rd, 2008 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Alfred E. Neuman is one of the most recognized pop culture icons in the world. Go figure, but it’s true. MAD didn’t invent him, he’s actually been around since the 1800’s, appearing in ads for children’s dentistry and other products. Maria Reidelbach‘s book “Completely MAD: A History of the Comic Book and Magazine” has a whole chapter on the origin of Alfred, but the bottom line is that nobody really knows for certain when the grinning gap-toothed idiot really first appeared in pop culture. As the story goes, original MAD editor Harvey Kurtzman had seen images of the “What- Me Worry? kid” from old ads… READ MORE
January 2nd, 2008 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
WIP sketch of recently deceased former talk show host Merv Griffin. This one was from a few months back, just after he passed away from a picture in one of the entertainment magazines. Obviously I never finished it so I never posted it here, but I thought it might be of interest to see an unfinished sketch or two every once and a while. You can see things like explorations of form and shape with the sketchier lines, and how the small suggestion of shadows and just the beginning of the rendering still produces a strong likeness if the initial drawing is strong. A good… READ MORE
January 1st, 2008 | Posted in General
I revised this image from last year, and here’s the same message: Don’t start 2008 on the wrong foot. As my grandma used to say, “It’s a brand new, shiny year, and it’s going to be better than ever!”… of course grandma was a few cards short of a full deck, but her heart was in the right place. Happy New Year! READ MORE
December 31st, 2007 | Posted in News
Still crazy busy with a deadline for MAD, so today I am just going to post this reminder again about my guest speaker appearance and inking workshop March 2-5th in St. Louis. Today is the last day you can register at a discounted rate for the St. Louis NCN Minicon. You can still register tomorrow and later, but it’ll be more dough and they do have limited capacity. This will be a lot of fun and full of opportunities to learn with all the seminars and workshops going on. I hope to see you there. READ MORE
