Tom's Mad Blog
November 25th, 2007 | Posted in Mailbag
Q; I am an artist who also has a son who is interested in becoming an artist for a living. Do you have any advice on how to teach him the skills necessary to pursue this career? A: I don’t know how young your son is, but with kids the most important thing is just to encourage them to keep exploring their art and artistic interests. Pablo Picasso once said: “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.“ I believe that wholeheartedly. Children see and interpret the world through eyes unclouded by preconceptions eventually forced on them… READ MORE
November 24th, 2007 | Posted in General
Rather than post the Dreaded Deadline Demon today since I am swamped with Monday deadlines, I’m posting a suitably lame list of links to MAD related articles, sites and other general wastes of time and drains on American productivity. Fa fa fa. Han Shot First Dept.- There is a nice feature about the MAD parodies of the Star Wars films over on starwars.com, including an article with Mort Drucker and a Q&A with writer Dick Debartolo. Mort was the artist on all the film parodies except the original Star Wars (Harry North did that one, but Mort later did the “musical version”) and the last… READ MORE
November 23rd, 2007 | Posted in Wall of Shame
It’s been a while since I’ve posted something from my Wall of Shame, so I thought it was high time I featured another cool item off the wall. This one is a caricature I did as a theme park sample some years ago of comedy legend Bill Cosby. For those newer readers, the Wall of Shame is an area just outside my studio where The Lovely Anna has framed prints of various pieces I’ve done that, through MAD, good fortune or just dumb luck I’ve had signed by the subjects I’ve caricatured. You can see my other Wall of Shame piece and stories about obtaining… READ MORE
November 22nd, 2007 | Posted in General
I hope everybody is enjoying a day of eating too much among the company of family and friends. READ MORE
November 21st, 2007 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
I did this quick ink sketch yesterday as part of a header graphic for a column I’m kind of doing in a new cartoonist’s magazine called Stay Tooned!, published by John Read. I say “kind of doing” because John will be picking and choosing some of my Sunday Mailbag questions and answers for the column, and I will edit and possibly expand them for his magazine. John describes it as a “paean to the practitioners of cartooning”. I envision it as having shades of Hogan’s Alley and Cartoonist’s Profile, except his standards for contributors must be exceptionally low if I’m involved. Still, R.C. Harvey will… READ MORE
November 20th, 2007 | Posted in General
A number of the blogs I visit regularly are supported by advertising, where their content is littered with ads screaming “click me”! There’s nothing wrong with that of course, but it is distracting from their content. Others do not have advertising but do give readers an opportunity to “tip” them by donating some money to support their efforts. Favorite blogs News From Me by Mark Evanier and Cedric Hohnstadt‘s Cedric’s Blog-a-Rama do this as do many others. The “Tip Jar” concept seems a little crass but combined with the right blog and content I think it’s perfectly reasonable. The blog in question needs to be… READ MORE
November 19th, 2007 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
As usual several projects going right now including another MAD job, a poster job, an ad job for a car storage company, another ad job for a mortgage company and a few personal projects. Another job from last month is finally hitting the stands and I can share the art and process with you. This one was odd as I had to do the final artwork while on the road in Orlando, so I ended up at my good friend illustrator and caricaturist Keelan Parham‘s studio and usurped his Cintiq and computer for an entire Sunday while The Lovely Anna and my kids went to… READ MORE
November 18th, 2007 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Have you ever considered creating a comic strip to submit for syndication, since this is a more stable job for a cartoonist than it is to freelance? Have you ever submitted cartoons to magazines or to a syndicate and if so where? A: I have never submitted any gag cartoons for either syndication or for magazines. That is something very different from what i do, and it’s never been something I have tried to pursue nor that I feel I could do effectively… just not my bag. As for the syndicated strip, I actually have been kicking an idea around for that for some… READ MORE
