Tom's Mad Blog
January 16th, 2007 | Posted in Freelancing
Way back in August I wrote about my very first freelance job and how it went horribly awry. I promised more nightmare stories in the future, but honestly there aren’t that many of them. Most jobs have a few challenges mixed in, and as a professional I have to roll with the punches at times to get the job done. Few have the hallmarks of a nightmare job. Most of the real problems that might arise result from the very beginning… meaning the art director of a project made the wrong choice in choosing a certain artist for their job. That doesn’t mean they got… READ MORE
January 15th, 2007 | Posted in General
The blog might be down a few times over the next week as it gets upgraded to the latest WordPress version. The downtime should be brief, but if you experience any trouble accessing the blog I apologize. It seems the older version had some security issues that may have contributed to a minor but annoying hack of the blog that happened last week. No data lost or anything, and the problem may not have anything to do with WordPress’s security… but better safe than sorry. I suspect the problem may have been with a computer we sold via Craigslist a week or so ago. It… READ MORE
January 14th, 2007 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: What do you think was your personal inspiration was that helped influence you to pursue this career? For example, Do you have any memories as a kid of being influenced and inspired by a particular source? Comics, shows, people? etc… A: That’s an easy one: Batman. I was fascinated by Batman from the age of 2. I managed to knock over our family TV set and blow out the tube at age 3 jumping around with a bath towel pinned around my neck watching reruns of the 60’s Batman TV show. I was Batman every year for Halloween until about age 10. I got… READ MORE
January 13th, 2007 | Posted in MAD Magazine
The other day I received the following e-mail from Mike Powers, a gentlemen I worked with on the Twin’s “Piranhas” shirt. Mike sent the following image to me and said in part: “I came across this old sign/photo that was my grandfathers, and since you’re a MAD artist, I thought you might find it interesting. I don’t know the origins of the photo, though I should say that it isn’t the original (simply a very old copy, probably from the 40s/50s era). It’s my assumption that this was the image used to create the original depiction of the Mad icon by Norman Mingo, but in… READ MORE
January 12th, 2007 | Posted in General
I’ve met some terrific artists through the National Caricaturists Network, and one of the best is a young man named Joe Bluhm. Joe is a tremendously talented illustrator who is one of the best caricaturists I’ve ever seen. He won the NCN’s highest honor, Caricaturist of the Year in his first year of competing and has been busy as a hard working NCN member, both as an officer and editor of their magazine Exaggerated Features, as well as getting his illustration career rolling. Joe recently moved from Orlando and the theme park caricature scene to New York City to work full time for the animation… READ MORE
January 11th, 2007 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
Tuesday at the MacWorld Expo, Steve Jobs announced the latest Apple products including a new Airport Extreme wireless networking solution using 802.11n, the Apple TV for wireless playback of iTunes content in your living room, and the hotly anticipated iPhone cellular telephone. I’m not that enthusiastic about Apple TV… I find it hard to believe you are going to get a true high definition quality picture from a downloaded file. Popping a disk into a drawer and pressing ‘play’ just doesn’t seem that much work to me to enjoy a movie, nor does the process of renting or buying said disk. I think true on-demand… READ MORE
January 10th, 2007 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Still haven’t seen Blood Diamond. I’ve heard mixed reviews. Here’s one of Leo DiCaprio: I spent a bit more time rendering this one than usual. I’m sorry there hasn’t been much art posted here lately. Mostly I’ve been working on MAD jobs. The powers that be at MAD pointed out to me the other day that even sketches and preliminary drawings done on projects for them are their copyrighted property (MAD is work for hire), and they preferred I did not post any work in advance of the publication of the material in the magazine. I totally understand and respect that, so I will not… READ MORE
January 9th, 2007 | Posted in General
Between the lovely Anna and three teenage daughters, our house is a little heavy in the estrogen department. It’s just myself and my 10 year old son Tommy to hold up grand man traditions like belching out loud, scratching our privates at will and trying to pretend we heard everything the women were saying when we were really watching TV and didn’t even realize they were even talking to us. No easy task but the boy and I do our best. It occurred to me recently that Tommy and I don’t get enough man time, especially in the winter when we can’t go outside and… READ MORE
