Richmond Illustration Inc.

Tom's Mad Blog

Sketch O’The Week

July 25th, 2007 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week

Damn! I forgot the “Sketch O’the Week” last Wednesday. Sorry. Here’s a small and quick study of Lucille Ball for a possible black and white park sample. READ MORE

Right now I am trying to work ahead in anticipation of a short trip to NYC this weekend with The Lovely Anna and the kids (sans The Animated Elizabeth, she hates anywhere but her house and her videos). After getting assigned a short deadline piece for MAD yesterday, there is not a lot of time for blogging, so here is one of those cheap posts about some websites to visit: Freelance Switch- The Daily Cartoonist, which is itself a must visit concerning news about the world of cartooning, had a great link the other day to a blog called Freelance Switch. It’s billed as “a… READ MORE

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- A Review

July 23rd, 2007 | Posted in General

NOTE- This review contains NO spoilers. No specific plot points are revealed, so read with confidence that the fun will not be ruined. Well, It’s over. Ten years, seven books, 3,694 pages. Five feature fives (two more to come), billions in sales of books, merchandise, etc. Millions stood for hours in line to buy their copy of the final tome at 12:01 on Saturday the 21st of July. Easily the most popular, best selling fiction book series in history. Over. The tale is told. That’s a lot of hype to live up to for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book… READ MORE

Sunday Mailbag

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

Shameless Huckstering Dept.

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

San Diego Con Auction for Worthy Cause

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

Small Blog Note…

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

Almost Harry Potter Day

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