Tom's Mad Blog
September 21st, 2007 | Posted in MAD Magazine
I nearly fell out of my chair watching this: The video above contains highlights (term used loosely) from a press conference by O.J. Simpson‘s lawyer the other day. Watch the guy on the right in the ballcap… see the oily lawyer squirm. You have to love it when some clown like this lawyer is trying to act like a big shot and puff up in front of the cameras, only to have someone demonstrate how utterly ridiculous and unimportant the whole circus is. The “high five” comment had me practically in tears from laughing. The bit with the cell phone also was a hoot. Anyone… READ MORE
September 20th, 2007 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
It absolutely never fails that if I take any kind of vacation whatsoever I will get at least two jobs the day I leave or find them waiting for me when I get back home. As it happens I have several things from last week to finish up today, plus these two new jobs and one very old job: MAD- Quick little two pager, no caricatures or likenesses which is odd for me. I like these different projects, though… nice break from all that caricaturing. As always, I can’t share more details but will post sneak peeks upon publication. Magazine Cover Job- I don’t get… READ MORE
September 19th, 2007 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
A few weeks ago I had a little after the season party at my place for all my Minnesota artists. A few of them found a couple of old sketchbooks in my studio and paged through them. This was one of the sketches in one of those books… probably around 10 years old or so. It was a study I did of MAD caricature legend Mort Drucker that I later did as an airbrush painting as a thank you to him for sponsoring me for membership in the NCS, among other things. I still like the sketch because it captured his posture and body type… READ MORE
September 18th, 2007 | Posted in General
No time to blog about the trip right now… too busy playing catch up. I took the picture above of this rainbow trout my father-in-law caught on Saturday. More pictures and stories later… READ MORE
September 17th, 2007 | Posted in General
This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a few months, but never got around to. After playing with the psudeo-caricature creator that is part of the Wii game console, I was again reminded of it… plus I ate at Burger King for lunch on Wednesday. Burger King did a tie in with the Simpsons movie this summer which included a very cool interactive website. When you visit, you can upload a photo of yourself and have their drooling aliens “Simpsonize” you. By analyzing the picture and asking you a few questions, out comes a basic Simpson’s character of you. You can then customize… READ MORE
September 16th, 2007 | Posted in Freelancing
Q: I’m curious how much money can a cartoonist or a digital artist could make? Could they make as much as 6 figures, or not that much? A: The short answer is there is no definitive answer. There is a limit to your income because there is a limit to the time you can spend working. The freelancer is only one person, and therefore can only produce so much work. The ways to make more money are: Get as much work as humanly possible to do Get more money for the volume of work you can produce Hire assistants to do some of the work… READ MORE
September 15th, 2007 | Posted in General
Some links and tidbits of interest from around the Internet- Auctions of MADness- “The Journal of MADness” was a fanzine about MAD published by longtime MAD fan John Hett. It was a very well done fanzine and featured some great interviews with MAD contributors. John has a few auctions on eBay right now of some of his MAD memorabilia, including some pretty unique and rare stuff. Among the items: Original Don Martin art for the cover of “MAD’s Maddest Artist Don Martin Bounces Back” (the Warner 1976 reprint), which was the book that started is all (by that I mean National Gorilla Suit Day). Bill… READ MORE
September 14th, 2007 | Posted in MAD Magazine
When I got a call from MAD assistant art director Ryan Flanders about the “MAD‘s 50 Worst Things About Advertising” job he was pretty enthusiastic about the concept of using as many MAD artists as possible in the project. It’s a pretty cool idea, but I can imagine it was a production nightmare… cartoonists are by nature a little unpredictable and it is probably hard enough to get one person’s artwork in on a single job, let alone over thirty! Fortunately these spots were small and very quick and easy to bang out… I think I did mine in about two hours total, including a… READ MORE
