Tom's Mad Blog
June 20th, 2007 | Posted in General
I have been traveling a lot this spring to my different theme park operations, working with new artists far more than I have in the past few years due to a set of unusual circumstances. I both enjoy it and find it exhausting and frustrating, but always rewarding. I never fail to learn something myself, if nothing more than a better way of explaining some concept for new artists to grasp. Live caricaturing is a unique and challenging art form. Part cartooning, part illustration, part performance and part gestural drawing, it can seem complex and intimating to the rookie artist. In fact there are two… READ MORE
June 19th, 2007 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Back in February I posted a few video links to some animated Don Martin cartoons. In it I mentioned a MAD TV special from 1974(ish… that is in dispute) that never aired. As the story goes the TV genius who commissioned the show wasn’t very familiar with MAD, and he and the network were surprised by the tone and adult nature of the humor and did not air the completed show. I wrote the following: Speaking of MAD TV specials (not the sketch comedy show), apparently there exists a never aired, 30 minute MAD TV Special pilot from the mid 1970s. This special was supposedly… READ MORE
June 18th, 2007 | Posted in General
Alice and Roger Armstrong in 2000 On Thursday, June the 9th, the world of cartooning lost a talented and well loved artist named Roger Armstrong at the age of 89 to natural causes. Roger was so accomplished in so many areas it’s hard to make a list. He worked on comic books for Warner Brothers, Disney and others, did animation and illustration for Walter Lantz, worked on many syndicated comic strips including Little Lulu and Disney’s Scamp, and many other cartooning endeavors. That list in no way actually describes Roger’s body of work. He was also a world class watercolorist and art teacher, who’s work… READ MORE
June 17th, 2007 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Hi Tom, I was wondering what your thoughts were on Disney cartoonists? My daughter has a Disney coloring book. Man! The flow of the line work is amazing. Something as simple seeming as a finger or the flow of movement seems flawless. How much trail and error goes into developing such a look and how many people would be involved in deciding the look? Another question you might discuss is the copyright extension act that prevented Mickey and Minnie from entering public domain. Thanks for the blog. You’re the only reason many of us buy MAD. A: Thanks for the kind words. I don’t… READ MORE
June 16th, 2007 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Me by Rick Tulka The Lovely Anna and I have twice been lucky enough to visit Paris, and both times we have also been fortunate enough to get to spend some time with MAD Magazine artist Rick Tulka and his wife Brenda. You would be hard pressed to find two nicer people on the planet. Rick and Brenda have walked with us about Paris, shown us art exhibits, cathedrals, cafes and comic book shops (of course). They entertained us for dinner at their apartment on our first trip and we have met them at various Paris restaurants as well. Rick’s work has been a perfect… READ MORE
June 15th, 2007 | Posted in General
Number One Son Thomas and I did a Comic Book Day/movie night yesterday and finally got to see “Spider-Man 3”. Summer is so nuts for me I often find even big blockbuster films out of theaters before I finally get a spare few hours to go and see them. I did the above image as one of the “Wall Webbers” for MAD KIDS last month. Tobey Maguire is supposed to be looking like he just sneezed, and his boogers/webbing stretch across the page to a disgusted Kirsten Dunst. Little did I realize how appropriate the image of a weeping Maguire would be. He spent over… READ MORE
June 14th, 2007 | Posted in General
In October of 1990 The Lovley Anna and our baby girl Elizabeth moved back home to the Twin Cities in Minnesota from Atlanta, where I had been managing a caricature operation for Fasen Arts at Six Flags Atlanta. The next summer I opened up my own caricature concession operation at Valleyfair, a local theme park southwest of Minneapolis. This summer will be our 17th season at Valleyfair. The booth above was built in 1993 as our third location in the park. I worked there yesterday on an unseasonably sweltering day. Here are a few of the live ones I did. They aren’t really very good…… READ MORE
June 13th, 2007 | Posted in News
A few years ago Jeannie Schulz, widow of cartooning legend Charles Schulz, and the then curator of Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, CA, kindly invited me to speak there as part of a special show they were having. They were doing a “MAD About Peanuts” exhibit featuring original artwork from all the MAD Magazine parodies and goofs they had done of Peanuts over the years. There were a surprising number of them… Peanuts must have been well loved among the Usual Gang of Idiots as only that would garner such attention. I did a presentation in the auditorium and taught two workshops on caricature… READ MORE
