Tom's Mad Blog
October 26th, 2007 | Posted in General
Back when I built my studio I constructed a homemade light table that was incorporated into a counter area. I made it out of a shop light I bought at Home Depot, the kind that hang from the ceiling and have 4 fluorescent lights in it. All I did was turn it upside down, place it in a frame I placed between counter areas, rigged a cord and wall plug and placed a piece of 1/4 inch plexiglass on top. That’s the light table to the right of Shakespeare It worked pretty well, actually. But I quickly realized that the flat nature of the light… READ MORE
October 25th, 2007 | Posted in General
Last night The Lovely Anna and I were privileged to be guests at the St. Paul premiere of “Good Ol’ Charles Schulz“, a Public Television documentary on the Peanuts creator produced locally for the PBS series “American Masters”. The wonderful Jeannie Schulz made sure we were invited… thanks Jeannie! The PBS studio ready for the screening We had a great time, and the event was well attended. They fed and watered us, had some people speak about the production and then screened about 30 minutes of the 90 minute program. It looks to be a great show. Some of the guests were old friends of… READ MORE
October 24th, 2007 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
A new study of one of my favorite authors, Stephen King. This is just a quick preliminary to a little side project I will be doing in the next few weeks… more details later. READ MORE
October 23rd, 2007 | Posted in General
Seems the wars in Middle Earth may finally be over… and long after Peter Jackson‘s brilliant Lord of the Rings films finally closed to black… again… and again… and again…. It’s been well publicized that Jackson and New Line Cinema have been feuding over audits and allegedly missing royalty payments. The fighting had led to Jackson being removed from the planned prequel film The Hobbit and other directors rumored to be attached like Sam Raimi. It seems things might me on the way to getting patched up, and Jackson may be back in the Shire again in charge of the prequel. By the way, the… READ MORE
October 22nd, 2007 | Posted in General
Time to pay the price for my time away from the studio. Two MAD jobs to wrap up this week and several other jobs after that. woof. READ MORE
October 21st, 2007 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: You mentioned a few weeks ago that you don’t mention your MAD work when you draw at the park. Has anyone recognized your signature or art style after you’ve drawn them at one of your locations? A: Yes, that happened once. The first job I ever did for MAD was called “MAD‘s Cable TV Betting Odds”, which consisted of several spot illustrations of shows from different networks and odds of this or that taking place with those shows. In one panel I did a caricature of Tom Green eating rats out of a take out container for the MTV channel. The job got put… READ MORE
October 20th, 2007 | Posted in General
Another Disneyworld vacation in the books. Over ten years ago I did a big job for a software company that produced parody and comedic CD-ROM titles and we spent the money I earned on a 2 bedroom timeshare in Orlando. Number One Son Thomas was just born, and since he was to be our last we were looking at a decade of having young kids and needing a place to go every year. That ended up being a smart decision… we’ve now visited Orlando ten years running, and while the focus of our days has changed we still enjoy our week of Disney magic. Of… READ MORE
October 19th, 2007 | Posted in General
I’m driving along a busy road one summer not too long ago on my way to somewhere in the southern suburbs of the Twin Cities, and roll up to a stop light. As I’m waiting, I look around and see a bus stop bench on the right hand side of the street. On it’s back is one of those advertisement signs they always have on those benches. This billboard was of two realtors advertising their services. I did a double take at this one… very prominently on it was a caricature of two people, presumably the realtors of whom the advertisement was the subject. I… READ MORE
