Tom's Mad Blog
August 21st, 2006 | Posted in Tutorials
When I first got serious about cartooning for a career, one of the things I was most concerned about was inking. That seemed to me like a skill and art that would take a really long time to master, and worse yet there seemed to be no good sources of learning the art of inking out there. I found one book I still heartily recommend, called The Art of Comic Book Inking by Gary Martin, which is to date the best book on the subject. There used to be a great website on inking with input from many great inkers but I think it’s defunct.… READ MORE
August 20th, 2006 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: What is the weirdest/strangest/craziest live caricature(s) that you’ve had to draw? A: This question comes from Trevour Meyer, a live caricaturist from North Dakota. He relayed this story of his weirdest live drawing: I just drew one this past weekend down in Austin- a young Hispanic lady, CRYING!??ᬨ‚Ć She didn’t speak very much English, but her group of friends asked me if I could draw her ‘beautiful,’ but with tears going down her face.??ᬨ‚Ć Fair enough, I said.??ᬨ‚Ć But then she began to produce REAL tears as I started the drawing. And she had the most sad look on her face the whole time.… READ MORE
August 19th, 2006 | Posted in MAD Magazine
One of the two pieces I’ve got for MAD right now will be my first contribution to the “Fundalini Pages”. This is a new(er) feature in MAD that I really think is a nice addition to the magazine. It’s usually 3 pages right at the beginning, and contains gag strips, single panel jokes, list gags and other short content that together make a quick-hit kind of humor section. It’s great in that it caters somewhat to the short attention span of the age 10-16 section of the audience, and gets a lot of different artists and writers into the issue with contributions that are good… READ MORE
August 18th, 2006 | Posted in News
The Great Neck Art Center is having an exhibit of original cartoon artwork at their gallery from August 12- October 1, 2006. I have two pieces in the show, the original splash pages from the “Batman Begins” and “Medium” parodies. The show features some great art by some terrific cartoonists. To name just a few: Sy Barry (The Phantom), Mort Drucker (Mad Magazine), Hy Eisman (Popeye), Stan Goldberg (Archie), Bunny Hoest(TheLockhorns), Arnie Levin (The New Yorker), Mike Lynch (Wall Street Journal), Don Orehek (Playboy), Rina Piccolo (Tina’s Groove) and many more. Check out this link to see some pictures of the show on cartoonist Mike… READ MORE
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
