Tom's Mad Blog
March 7th, 2007 | Posted in General
After a few hours of some revisions on that MAD Kids job yesterday and the usual catch up stuff, I was finally able to reward myself by watching Monday’s episode of “Heroes” in glorious HD. That show is ridiculously good, and it just keeps getting better. I keep thinking that if someone told me there would be a comic book hero style ensemble prime time TV show on a major network that would be this good and this popular, I’d have said they were crazy. Yet here it is, a testament to great writing and casting making the unbelievable believable. SPOILERS AHEAD! The story keeps… READ MORE
March 6th, 2007 | Posted in General
Whew. It’s almost midnight on Monday and I’ve been about 5 days straight with very little sleep trying to wrap up multiple projects that all came due at once. The biggest was the MAD Kids job, which was actually two jobs and since both were quite different from my usual MAD work they ended up taking far more time than I had anticipated. Working “without a safety net” can be stressful, and sometimes results in hours being wasted when some experiment to achieve a certain effect ends up not working and you have to backtrack, trying something else. On the other hand, those kinds of… READ MORE
March 5th, 2007 | Posted in General
Twice in three days….. READ MORE
March 4th, 2007 | Posted in Freelancing
Q: My question is about keeping all business matters straight. Do you recommend any software in particular such as Quicken or the myriad Microsoft Office apps? A: The business aspect of being a freelance illustrator is sometimes intimidating for artists because… well…. they’re ARTISTS. Whether you buy into the left brain/right brain theory or not, it’s often the case that the creative mind has difficulty with analytical things like organization, record keeping, invoicing, etc. It’s really not difficult at all, and there are lots of things that can help out. Some are computer programs and some are not. In addition to the freelance business, I… READ MORE
March 3rd, 2007 | Posted in General
Several deadlines due Monday… Busy, busy, busy! READ MORE
March 2nd, 2007 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
Really, I’m not that frustrated over the number of spam e-mails I get these days. No, I actually enjoy spending precious minutes of my day going through several hundred messages in my spam filter folder, checking to make sure there isn’t a legitimate e-mail amid the many stock tips and cheap viagra offers… okay, maybe I am that frustrated about it. I used to dream about winning the lottery, Salma Hayek or finding a mint copy of Action #1 pressed in an old book I bought at a garage sale, but now I dream about meeting someone who is responsible for any number of the… READ MORE
March 1st, 2007 | Posted in General
I read this CNN article yesterday which talks about the changing of a TV show’s direction of focus to try and “fix” it with respect to ratings and viewership. They talk about several shows that are getting that kind of makeover to try and salvage their ratings. In passing they mention that LOST has seen a dramtic drop in ratings since coming back on the air compared to last season and last fall’s ratings. The article quotes a veteran TV producer saying ABC needs to add a stronger lead in show for LOST and concentrate on lead character storylines. Another TV expert feels LOST is… READ MORE
March 1st, 2007 | Posted in News
Back before I got my first assignment for MAD I did a few jobs for longtime MAD knockoff Cracked Magazine, as I recounted a bit in this blog post. Over a year ago the rights to Cracked were bought by a group of investors, and there ensued a total makeover by a newly assembled team of contributors (several from the Harvard Lampoon) that lead to the debut of the new Cracked in August of 2006. Looks like Cracked Magazine‘s big comeback lasted a whole three issues. Read an open letter from Jay Pinkerton concerning Cracked’s ceasing publication (via theapiary.org) I didn’t care much one way… READ MORE
