Tom's Mad Blog
January 27th, 2007 | Posted in General
Once a year The Lovely Anna and I take a vacation to Hawaii. We have a convenient timeshare on Maui that is like our home away from home. No kids… they stay home with a good friend of the family who moves in for a week. It’s our week away where we recharge our parental batteries and do some serious relaxing. As usual I had to pull some late nights to get all my jobs done before we leave. Mission accomplished. You’ll be able to read all about our gastronomic adventures on Maui on Anna’s blog: Anna’s Foodie Reviews. Other than tomorrow’s mailbag I do… READ MORE
January 26th, 2007 | Posted in General
Fellow caricaturist Ryan Biddle, who does caricatures in a resort at the Wisconsin Dells as well as personal commissions, murals and portraits, sent me these pictures from a trip he took to NYC some time ago. These are six of my older samples on the closer board… They redrew the body but the head is a Xerox Naughty, naughty! I recognize some of these also. There’s a Kruger, bottom left… Chris Rommel’s Julia Roberts I think this will be my last post on this subject, unless I see some in Timbuktu or some other far away place. It’s getting tiresome and it’s just the same… READ MORE
January 25th, 2007 | Posted in News
I’ve written several times about the Orphan Works legislation, and it’s implications on freelance illustrators. This post describes it best, but here it is in brief: The Orphan Works Act is a change to copyright law that allows any party (publishers, advertisers) to use a piece of intellectual property (a photo, illustration, cartoon, etc.) if the owner of the copyright of said piece of intellectual property cannot be identified or located. The law requires a ‘reasonable effort’ to search for the copyright owner, but does not define what a ‘reasonable search’ entails. The law also limits the money that can be recouped by the copyright… READ MORE
January 24th, 2007 | Posted in General
I’m still working hard on that MAD TV parody, but had to take a break Tuesday to wrap this poster job up: Now it’s back to working on the color for the parody. The splash spread alone is taking a lot longer than a normal splash, as it has a lot going on in it. As I mentioned I cannot post any sneak peeks at the art, but it will be in issue #476, on the stands in March. READ MORE
January 23rd, 2007 | Posted in General
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January 22nd, 2007 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
Our house is a three level home including a finished basement that, while not a ‘walkout’ does have full windows on two sides, the other side being built into the side of a small hill. My studio is one corner room, and the other corner with two windowed walls for years was the kid’s rec room AKA disaster area. Whenever I saw pictures on the news of some town torn up by a tornado I always did a double take, wondering at first how those pictures of our basement got on TV. The floor might not be seen for weeks on end. Four kids worth… READ MORE
January 21st, 2007 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: You’ve got the caricature/cartoon aesthetic nailed, but do you ever feel the need (personally or financially) to break out of that style and do something severely different? Are there many artists out there that specialize in several aesthetic styles? Benefits/risks? A: An interesting question, needing two answers. First, thanks for the compliment but I disagree that I have the caricature/cartoon aesthetic “nailed”. I see plenty of room for growth within what I currently do. My figure drawing skills have lots of room for improvement, as does my composition, caricatures and overall drawing. It’s still challenging for me to do this kind of work. The… READ MORE
January 20th, 2007 | Posted in MAD Magazine
These will only be once a month from now on, now that I’m caught up. Issue #473 had been out almost a month. This issue just hit news stands this week: MAD # 474 (Feb 07) Cover (Mark Fredrickson) The Fundalini Pages (Dick DeBartolo, Desmond Devlin, Todd Eisner, Jeff Kruse, Jacob Lambert, Glen Le Lievre, Adam Rust, Benjamin Shultz, Sam Sisco, Rick Tulka, PC Vey) Gap Celebrity Ads You May Have Missed – Kevin Federline, Donald Rumsfeld, Osama Bin Laden, OJ Simpson (Mark Fredrickson) War Cliches: Completing The Sentences (Jeff Kruse, Mort Drucker) A MAD Look At The Amazing Race (Sergio Aragones) MAD’s Inspirational Animal… READ MORE
