Tom's Mad Blog
November 8th, 2007 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
All these jobs from last month are seeing print, so here’s another I can now share. This one was an odd job as it started out way back in June, then got shelved, changed subject matter and finally went to final. The client was Contingencies Magazine, a publication for the insurance and financial industry. The original concept back in the early summer was to do a cover showing primary candidates from both parties fighting over health care issues. The client wanted a few concept sketches, so I did the obligatory “race” concept and one where the candidates were doctors surrounding a patient and trying to… READ MORE
November 7th, 2007 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This week’s sketch is of bizarre film maker David Lynch. His “Blue Velvet” is still one of the weirdest films I’ve ever seen. The other day I caught a portion of his 1984 version of “Dune“. I’d forgotten how visually stunning that movie was… and how terrible the rest was. It does have it’s moments, but overall it was not a good adaption. READ MORE
November 6th, 2007 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
Right now I have several jobs on the board including another MAD job, an ad project, another poster illustration and two other ongoing projects. Last month was incredibly busy and so this month I will be able to begin sharing some of the jobs I did as they start to see print. This one is printed and shipping, and is a good example of how a job can evolve during it’s process. The job was for Scholastic, and originally was a 1/2 page spot illustration to accompany a story about the presidential primary race. It was a different kind of job for me as it… READ MORE
November 5th, 2007 | Posted in News
I’m back from our annual National Cartoonist Society North Central Chapter meeting, this year held in beautiful downtown Kansas City. It was the usual fun time, and the group of speakers were particulary interesting as they were not chapter members this time around. I arrived later on Friday night after a 7 hour drive, but was met at the hotel bar by fellow caricaturists Len Hernandez and his wife, Mike Worley and Stacy, who’s last name I apologize but did not catch. It is always fun to hang out and chat with those who have spent their time int he live caricature trenches. We were… READ MORE
November 4th, 2007 | Posted in Freelancing
Q: Are you ever distracted working out of your home, and have you ever considered getting a studio outside your house? A: Having a studio in my home is both good and bad. It’s good in that I do not have to drive anywhere, the studio is always close and ready to go, and I do not have to miss family things like the baby’s first step or my kids getting home from school, etc. It’s bad in that I am never really away from the office… work is always calling to me from the other side of the door, distractions abound from the telephone… READ MORE
November 3rd, 2007 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
I’ve written here before about the format war that is slowly heating up between Blu-Ray and HD DVD. Briefly these are two competing formats of next generation DVD, which both use blue laser technology to enable far higher storage capacity on a single disc, allowing them to contain high definition content. Each can hold a full movie in high def, which is 6 times the resolution of a regular DVD and takes advantage of that shiny new HDTV so many people now have. While each player also plays regular DVDs, neither works with the other flavor of HD format. Blu-ray is backed principally by Sony,… READ MORE
November 2nd, 2007 | Posted in News
While I am on the subject of the NCS, it’s a good time again to remind everybody about the scholarships in cartooning that the National Cartoonist Society’s NCS Foundation have available. I am on the Foundation board and involved in both the scholarship and financial committees. These scholarships are exciting as they are some of only a few dedicated to cartooning… a very rare resource for young cartoonists. Again, the scholarships are not tied to a single school or even to an art major. They are about encouraging young artists to pursue careers in cartooning, be they animators, comic book artists, editorial cartoonists, strip cartoonists…… READ MORE
November 1st, 2007 | Posted in News
Every year my “local” chapter of the National Cartoonists Society, the North Central Chapter, has a meeting/conference chock full of guest speakers and general cartoonist’s shenanigans. This year our chapter chairman is Oliver Christiansen, better known as wacky Hallmark card super artist Revilo, and the chapter meeting is taking place in his hometown of Kansas City this Saturday, November 3rd. As such, I will be traveling to KC tomorrow to take part in the festivities. I say “local” chapter with quotes because out chapter is anything but local. There are so many cartoonists in the upper east coast area that there are no less than… READ MORE
