Tom's Mad Blog
April 13th, 2007 | Posted in MAD Magazine
MAD art director Sam Viviano warned me that a cover job would be a little different, and he was not kidding. Often when doing feature stuff the editors give the artists a lot of leeway to have fun and add something to the proceedings. They are still very specific about certain things and definitely demand changes when needed, but covers are very different. These are highly scrutinized and the process is reviewed at each step much more closely and with more specific control than the typical inside job. That is no surprise… the cover is the face of the magazine and it’s importance cannot be… READ MORE
April 12th, 2007 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Also in comic shops right now and on newsstands on the 18th: MAD KIDS # 7 (May 2007) Cover (Tom Richmond) Alfred’s Brain Drool (Various) Wacky Wall Webbers (Tom Richmond) One Friday Morning (Don Martin) Kid’s Inventions…(Brent Engstrom) A Shore Thing (Felipe Galindo) What School Bus Drivers are Doing While You are in Class (Teresa Burns Parkhurst) The Continuing Adventures of Willy Nilly (Nate Neal, Jacob Chabot) MAD KIDS Chat Room: Tobey MaGuire (Vic Arkoff, Jack Syracuse) A MAD KIDS Look at Supermarkets (Sergio Aragones) Fairy Tale Scenes We’d Like to See (Don Martin) Game On! (Patrick MerrellCharlie Kadau, Charles Akins) Spider-Man Funnies (Don Martin)… READ MORE
April 11th, 2007 | Posted in MAD Magazine
In comic book shops today and on newsstands on Tuesday, April 18th: MAD # 477 (May 2007) Cover (Mark Frederickson) The Fundalini Pages (Charles Akins, Doug Bratton, John Caldwell, Paul Coker, Dick DeBartolo, Jeff Kruse, Scott Maiko, Frank Santopadre, Jack Syracuse, Rick Tulka) The Biggest Lardass (Desmond Devlin, Tom Bunk) MAD’s Teacher Translation Guide (Jacob Lambert, Jose Garibaldi) Unabridged Corporate Slogans (Part II) (Jacob Lambert) A MAD Look at Airport Security (Sergio Aragones) How Global Warming is Affecting Various People (J. Prete, Drew Friedman) 7 Periods Closer to Death (Ted Rall) Monroe and… The New Kid (Anthony Barbieri, Tom Fowler) Spy vs. Spy (Peter Kuper)… READ MORE
April 10th, 2007 | Posted in General
A quick sketch of James Gandlofini as “Tony Soprano”. I used a small reference showing him grinning as you seldom see illustrations of him like that. He has this creepy, snaggletooth grin… I caught “The Sopranos” Sunday night after the holiday weekend. I had to refresh my memory about what happened last season as it seems about 5 years since it was last on (actually about 2 years). That is way too long to expect viewers to stay interested, but the excellence of this show makes it frustrating but forgivable. I’ll watch the rest of the episodes but I’m glad to see this series come… READ MORE
April 9th, 2007 | Posted in News
The Wonderful Wizard of ID- Johnny Hart, the cartoonist behind the long time and popular comic strips B.C. and The Wizard of ID, passed away on Saturday apparently from complications after a stroke. I never met Mr. Hart but he was a member of the National Cartoonist Society and the target of many gags at events about the later religious themes in his work. I always enjoyed the dry and irreverent humor of his strips, which seemed a lot more sarcastic than the straight gags of many of his contemporaries. Drawings from Beyond the Grave– This bizarre item, which I got from Drawn!, claims that… READ MORE
April 8th, 2007 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I have some larger size artwork (like 18″x24″) to scan and I have not been able to find a home scanner that can scan this size. I have taken some stuff to Staples to scan on their large machine but it gets kind of expensive. Can you tell me if you have an easy way to scan large artwork? (I assume you scan your large pages for MAD??) A: A full MAD spread is 21″ x 32.25″ at 200% print size, so I have this problem a lot. I have a Microtek 9600XL 12 x 17 scanner, which is as big as they get… READ MORE
April 7th, 2007 | Posted in General
I was raking through the flat files the other day and came across a tearsheet from my very first magazine illustration job. I’ve still got the original around here somewhere as well. It occurred to me the manner in which I got this job was exactly in line with David Levine‘s advice about relationships being a key to freelance success. Yikes. Everything’s lumpy… This was circa 1991. I had been doing comic book pencils for NOW Comics for a year or two, and had freshly moved back to Minnesota from Atlanta when I received a phone call from Kyle Peterson, a friend of mine from… READ MORE
April 6th, 2007 | Posted in General
A golden oldie from the flat files… Since I had that brutal deadline this week, Wednesday night was the first time I was able to go to a Minnesota Twins game during the season opening series at the Metrodome. The Lovely Anna took daughter Gabrielle (13) on Monday and son Thomas (10) on Tuesday, while I took daughter Victoria (14) to witness a sweep of the Baltimore Orioles to open the year. Daughter Elizabeth (17) doesn’t give a hoot about the Twins, but I forgive her because of the whole autism thing. I love baseball. Even though in the last few years it’s been tarnished… READ MORE
