Tom's Mad Blog
September 29th, 2007 | Posted in General
Virtually every year The Lovely Anna and I go to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, a weekends-only fair in August and September set up like a renaissance village complete with buildings, actors in character, shows, costuming and a ton of food and drink. Our first “Ren Fest” together was 20 years ago, right after we’d become engaged. We’ve only missed a handful of years since. It’s a lot more fun to go in costume than just in jeans and a t-shirt. A lot of people really get dressed up and some play their part as well as any of the ‘professional’ actors on the grounds in… READ MORE
September 28th, 2007 | Posted in General
I am a terrible impressionist. I can only do impressions of other people doing impressions… like your standard Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sean Connery, etc. They aren’t very good. However I have found that many caricaturists are actually pretty good mimics. It might have to do with some kind of empathy with their subjects. ..who knows? One such caricaturist is a young man from Hawaii who occasionally comments on this blog, Piotr Walczuk. He’s a fellow member of the National Caricaturists Network, and his talent for voices is amazing. I’ve been meaning to posts some links to his website for a while now, and now he’s got… READ MORE
September 27th, 2007 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
Here are a few of the projects I’ve wrapped up in the last week or so… at least the ones that are okay to share at this time: Workplace Poster: This one ended up being a lot tougher to do than expected, as the client wanted the main car on it’s own layer so he could do an animation of the image as well as a static poster. that meant I had to draw the cars parked behind the main car, as well as complete the front and back end of the main car. I also had the foreground cars on their own layer so… READ MORE
September 26th, 2007 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
“The Bourne Ultimatum” actor Matt Damon… I wanted to have some fun with the body and hands with this one. READ MORE
September 25th, 2007 | Posted in General
When I was a kid the start of the fall TV season was a big deal. We marked the calendar and gathered around the living room to watch our returning favorite shows and new shows that looked interesting. I remember seeing the season premiers of “The Incredible Hulk”, “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “The Wonderful World of Disney”, and my parents never missed “Dallas”, “M*A*S*H*” or “Dynasty”. Personally I was more excited over the start of the fall lineup of Saturday morning cartoons and shows… “Shazam/Isis Power Hour”, anyone? Like most things in the 21st century, it’s all different now. TiVo and the DVR especially… READ MORE
September 24th, 2007 | Posted in General
Very busy trying to get caught up before taking a little trip to celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary (which was yesterday) this weekend to the Sonoma wine country… READ MORE
September 23rd, 2007 | Posted in Mailbag
Uh oh! Looks like the mailbag is empty! only the second time in well over a year… When I get some fresh questions concerning cartooning, illustration, freelancing, MAD Magazine or other similar subjects I’ll be happy to answer them as best I can. E-mail me your questions and I’ll try and answer them here! READ MORE
September 22nd, 2007 | Posted in General
It’s been a while since I posted about my workout routines. Briefly, about 5 years ago I got motivated by some shocking pictures of a fat, middle aged guy with my face and got back into the gym for the first time in many years. I’ve been working out ever since with a personal trainer, currently Ryan Branson who operates out of a studio gym in Burnsville, MN. I do a constantly changing periodization program that switches from endurance to hypertrophy (mass building) to strength and power. This summer I spent mostly in a high endurance/cardio program designed to give me a break from building… READ MORE
