Tom's Mad Blog
July 22nd, 2007 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: How do you figure up how much time a project will take so you know you can promise it by a certain time? By paper size? By number of people/objects? I really should start timing myself to see how long it takes to do each step of my projects before I even consider charging anybody for my time. A: If asked how long it will take to do a particular job, my answer is always the same: “It takes as long as you’ll give me.” Some jobs require a lot of complicated imagery like crowd scenes or lot’s of elaborate detail, and some are… READ MORE
July 21st, 2007 | Posted in General
Please excuse the following exercise in capitalism. It’s been well over a year now since my big website redesign, and one of the things I thought I’d try out with it was the “Studio Store“. This is where I would be unabashedly pimping my original MAD artwork both to try and pay for the site hosting and possibly a nice dinner or two for myself and The Lovely Anna, or if nothing else to keep the studio flat files from exploding with overflow. I’ve sold a few pieces but I don’t think I’ll be retiring anytime soon. Many thanks to those who e-mailed me with… READ MORE
July 20th, 2007 | Posted in News
As previously stated I am afraid I cannot make the San Diego Comic Con again this year. I’m a little depressed about that if for no other reason that it’s a blast to hang out with a bunch of talented cartoonists at the National Cartoonist Society‘s booth. Speaking of which, this year the charity part of the NCS, The NCS Foundation, will be holding a silent auction to raise funds for it’s various activities. The Foundation is a fairly new part of the NCS, and is actually it’s own 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (for legal reasons). It administers the formerly privately handled Milt Gross Fund, which… READ MORE
July 19th, 2007 | Posted in General
If you are looking for the blog archives, I have removed them from the sidebar on the right and onto a single page entitled “MAD Blog Archives” under the “Pages” section at the top of the same sidebar. The sidebar was getting too long with the archives, organized by month, under it’s own section. On the new archives page they are still organized by month and year, and there is a handy search box at the top of the page. READ MORE
July 19th, 2007 | Posted in General
2002’s “Harry Plodder and the Lamest of Sequels” Click for a closer look Unless you have been living under a rock, as the saying goes, you are probably aware that at midnight tomorrow night, the seventh and final book of J.K. Rowling‘s “Harry Potter” series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will go on sale across the world. An unprecedented 10 million plus copies of this book have been printed, and I have no doubt it will quickly sell out. Our family has two copies reserved already, and The Lovely Anna is considering getting one or two more when she goes to the bookstore with… READ MORE
July 18th, 2007 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
Finally wrapping up a long run of job on top of job. One small spot to do for MAD and then a few long promised gratis pieces, and then I can almost guarantee I’ll have gotten a few more calls and the board will be busy again. As a freelancer, that is a very good problem to have. Many clients would rather I do not post the finished work prior to publication, but some don’t mind so here are a couple of pieces from the last week: Click for a closer look This is a half page spot for one of the Scholastic magazines. This… READ MORE
July 17th, 2007 | Posted in General
I drew caricatures all day Sunday at Valleyfair, and was hoping to get a few new samples done for the display there. Each year I try to get a few new ones done, as there are a lot of repeat customers each year and having the same samples up all the time is boring. New samples make the booth fresher and we can get some timely ones up as well. Timely is good, but I personally like to draw celebrities that aren’t a “flash in the pan” nor ones tied to a current role that might end up being obsolete in a year or so.… READ MORE
July 16th, 2007 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Back in April I got a very unusual job from MAD. The client was actually Ballpark Franks (well, actually the Sara Lee Corporation), and they were about to launch a new ad campaign called “hunger”. This campaign was to feature TV and magazine ads with men who, upon seeing a Ballpark Frank hotdog, sprout a hairy and muscular arm from their stomachs which in turn seizes said hotdog for it’s own consumption. Ooooookay. Ballpark Franks and MAD were collaborating on a kind of mini-MAD insert, which was to go into a number of DC comic books as well as the newsstand versions of MAD (for… READ MORE
