Tom's Mad Blog
August 17th, 2006 | Posted in General
I walked into my local comic shop yesterday and what did I find? I mean besides comics featuring women with impossibly big breasts and men with impossibly big thighs… a brand new issue of Cracked Magazine. I knew it was coming, they’d been threatening to publish it for about a year since it was bought by a group of investors. The first issue was supposed to be out in January. This is August, but what the heck! Here’s a news article about it’s return. I’ll get to my thoughts on the new issue in a minute. First I thought I’d tell the story of my… READ MORE
August 16th, 2006 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
Just finished the Scholastic job tonight, and must proceed on both the MAD jobs and a poster job over the next few days. Here’s the final of the largest of the Scholastic spot illustrations (there were 8 in all): After I get the pencils done on the MAD job, I will be inking and coloring the poster job. I’ll have my wife Anna take pictures as I ink, and will do a detailed tutorial on inking with dip pens and brushes with them. Look for that in a few days… READ MORE
August 15th, 2006 | Posted in General
A few years ago a colleague of mine who does party caricatures in southern California was contacted by comedian Jay Leno about an ad the artist had in the local Yellow Pages. The artist had used a caricature he had done of Leno as part of his ad, and Leno took exception to that. According to the artist, Leno was quite nice about it, but made it plain he did not want to see his image used for advertising this artist’s services. Leno did not sue, but he did ask for the artist to stop using his image, and if he did not a lawsuit… READ MORE
August 14th, 2006 | Posted in General
Literally. I have spent the last several days in Colorado and Wyoming trout fishing. No, I am not what you might consider an outdoorsman, but I did do a fair share of fishing as a kid. It’s hard not to when you grow up on the banks of the Mississippi River and in a state where you can throw a rock in any direction and hit a lake. The “Sunday Mailbag” post was post-dated and posted before I left, so that was cheating. I haven’t really posted since Thursday. I flew out Friday to Denver to meet my uncle, cousin and especially my grandfather for… READ MORE
August 13th, 2006 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Do you do any of the writing for your parodies in MAD? A: No and yes. How’s that for an ambiguous answer? There are many forms of writing, but in the traditional sense, meaning do I contribute to the actual script and/or dialogue of a parody I am doing the art for the answer is no. I get a script from MAD with all the dialogue and each panel already written and set. The writer of the parody submits the script to MAD, and he/she is the one who gets the credit (or blame) for the jokes, gags and satire of the piece. The… READ MORE
August 10th, 2006 | Posted in General
Looks like I am going to be pretty busy today, and likley can’t post anything. I am planning on doing a tutorial on inking with one of the projects I’ve got going in the next week, so look for that soon. READ MORE
August 10th, 2006 | Posted in General
A few days ago I altered the options for comments on the blog in an attempt to curb some of the spam that was ending up in the moderation queue, but it appears that the blog software just started nuking all comments whether you were trying to convince me you could make me rich with stock tips, had several million you wanted me to help you transfer from your dead uncle the Nigeria general’s estate, wanted to sell me a pill to make my penis larger or were making legitimate comments. I moderate all comments anyway, but I was trying to eliminate constant deleting of… READ MORE
August 9th, 2006 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Things are piling up on the drawing board once again. Part of the problem with freelancing is that you never know when the next phone call will be your last for a while. As a result, you tend to take on more work than is good for you, for fear of a possible dry spell just around the corner. I’ve been very lucky in that I seem to get steady work, and it’s a very rare time when I have nothing on the drawing board at all. Here’s what’s on the board right now: Marlin Company workplace poster- another image illustrating a teamwork message… this… READ MORE
