Tom's Mad Blog
August 7th, 2007 | Posted in General
Since I’m on the subject of audiobooks and iPods… One of my pet peeves with the iPod and iTunes was the way it handled imported audiobook files. I’m talking about the ones you import from your own audiobook CDs, not the downloaded ones. Audiobooks downloaded from iTunes or from Audible are recognized and treated differently than regular music files. The are automatically placed in their own section entitled “Audiobooks” in both iTunes and the iPod, and the files are “bookmarkable”. With regular songs if you pause while listening to one song and go to another, when you go back to that first song you start… READ MORE
August 6th, 2007 | Posted in General
As an avid reader who has almost no time to read, I was overjoyed to discover audiobooks were something I could listen to at certain times when working on projects in the studio. I’ve said before that I can’t listen to an audiobook I have not already read, because the necessity of concentrating on what I am working on means I have to tune in and out of what I am listening to… and with books I have already read I can do that without having to rewind because I missed something. Actually I enjoy revisiting old favorites every few years anyway, so audiobooks let… READ MORE
August 5th, 2007 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: What kind of pencil does your company use, I got a picture drawn in St. Louis, and I like the clean strokes on my caricatures? A: I get asked about not only the pencil but all our materials a lot, so here is the breakdown of everything we use to draw and paint live, airbrush caricatures at the theme parks: I use two different kinds of pencils. Both are “clutch” type leadholders, meaning that they have a claw-like end that grasps the lead. The main one is the Caran D’Ache Fixpencil 3, which is a 3mm leadholder. Most leadholders are 2mm, and the thicker… READ MORE
August 4th, 2007 | Posted in General
Ugh…. READ MORE
August 3rd, 2007 | Posted in General
Last Sunday I answered a mailbag question about customers sometimes getting angry about their caricature when drawing live. I mentioned that, when I was just starting out as a caricaturist, there was a prevailing attitude among the artists I worked with that the customers didn’t understand ‘real caricature’ and that if a drawing got rejected it was dismissed as a result of the customer’s ignorance rather than any fault of the artist. The customers didn’t understand how the 2 foot nose that was drawn on their face was “true caricature”. Not to put too fine a point on it, we were arrogant and thought our… READ MORE
August 2nd, 2007 | Posted in News
My inbox and phone have been buzzing since last night’s Minneapolis bridge collapse disaster checking to see if we are all right. Yes, I was slaving away on my latest MAD job when the accident happened, and none of my family or friends were on it at the time (so far as I know right now). I have been over that bridge many times and can hardly believe it just fell into the river. So far seven dead and that would be getting off easy by the looks of it. It’s odd how your life can just be chugging along as usual and suddenly something… READ MORE
August 1st, 2007 | Posted in General
We might be seeing this horror a bit this week…. now back to work…. READ MORE
July 31st, 2007 | Posted in News
A bit of news through the National Cartoonists Society: The ToonSeum Gallery at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh In October 2007, the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh will open the ToonSeum Gallery, a space dedicated to rotating exhibits of cartoon art featuring the genres of comic book, comic strip, illustration, editorial and animation. The gallery will kick off with an exhibit titled “From Illustration to Animation: Picture Books Come Alive Through the Art of Animation” and feature production art from classics such as “Lord of the Rings,” “Charlotte’s Web,” “Raggedy Ann” and “Horton Hears a Who.” Upcoming exhibits include “Drawn in Black and White: The Portrayal… READ MORE
