Tom's Mad Blog
July 3rd, 2025 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Here’s the last of our “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” series, the lone American of the troupe Terry Gilliam! Gilliam was born right here in Minneapolis, Minnesota, so we get to claim him as “one of us”, although he and his family moved to Los Angeles when he was 12 in 1952. You don’t survive twelve winters in Minnesota without it being frozen into your DNA. There is a huge MAD Magazine connection with Gilliam and his eventual work with Monty Python. Gilliam started out as an animator and strip cartoonist, and was heavily influenced by the early Harvey Kurtzman MADmagazines. Gilliam would eventually work with… READ MORE
June 30th, 2025 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Here we go with another of the stumbling steps on the path that was my work for MAD Magazine. This week is another oddball sort of assignment that, frankly, I still have no idea what the joke was really supposed to be. It was written by Grant Reed, and appeared in MAD #13, June 2020. I guess it’s supposed to be a spoof of an ad for the “Trinity Broadcasting Network”, which is a large religious TV network, incorporating Kanye West‘s self-deified new name “Yeezus” and comparing the huckstering ways of the Kardashians and the church network, which solicits donations on its web site in… READ MORE
June 25th, 2025 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
THE BISHOP!! And now for something not so completely different… another in our series of sketches of the members of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus!” This week’s subject is the late, great Terry Jones. Terry was kind of an under appreciated member of the troupe in my opinion, at least in the sense that he wasn’t as much of a household name as John Cleese, Eric Idle, or Michael Palin. He did a lot more of his work behind the camera as a writer and director. He was instrumental in creating the structure of the “Flying Circus” TV show, where sketches would transition into one another… READ MORE
June 22nd, 2025 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Welcome to the beginning of the end. MAD #12 (April 2020) was released shortly before the pandemic hit, but COVID had little to do with what was happening at MAD. This was the first issue that showed what MAD was going to be like going forward… issues built around a theme with features related to that theme curated from the archives. This issue’s theme was TV. Of the 56 pages in the magazine, only 13 featured all new material, not including the cover and the letters/table of contents pages. There were also a handful of pages that were colorized versions of previously B&W only art.… READ MORE
June 19th, 2025 | Posted in General
Every few years I collect my the drawings from my ‘Sketch o’the Week” feature into a book, and it’s time for yet another release. “Volume 6” is at the printer as we… uh… read, and is now available for presale in The Studio Store. This is the biggest volume yet, with 84 pages of goofy caricatures from the last 20 months or so. The books should land by mid-July, and all pre-orders will ship forthwith! I’ll have copies at San Diego Comic Con as well. READ MORE
June 18th, 2025 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
We’re back with a new “Sketch o’the Week”, and another Python! A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat, eh? Or so says “Arthur Nudge” as portrayed by Eric Idle from classic Monty Python sketch “Candid Photography” (or as the rest of the world knows it, “Wink Wink Nudge Nudge.”) I had a tough time decided what character to draw Eric Idle as. He has so many that are key parts of Python lore… The “Door-to-Door Joke Salesman”? The “Dead Collector” from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”? The “Amorous Marriage Counselor?” How about “Sir Robin The Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot?” I decided on his… READ MORE
June 16th, 2025 | Posted in General
A few weeks ago I was interviewed for the “Cartoon Everything” podcast with Chris “Meesimo” Meesey and Kelly Light. The episode just dropped today! You can watch it on YouTube or down below. I’ve known Chris for a very long time. He was just a kid when he came to work for me as a caricature artist for the operation I had at the time at Six Flags St. Louis, probably in 1995 or so. He’s since become an accomplished caricaturist, illustrator and comic book artist. I’d never met Kelly but she was a delight to talk with and her work is terrific. Anyway it… READ MORE
June 2nd, 2025 | Posted in General
My workshop in NYC is sold out, so if you were procrastinating on pulling the trigger you are out of luck! Or maybe not… You can get on the waitlist for any sold out workshop in case of a cancellation. There’s never any cost to be on a waitlist for any of my workshops, and no obligation to take a spot if one becomes open and is offered to you. If we have a spot open up we contact the first person on the waitlist and offer that spot to them. If they decline to take it we offer the spot to the next person… READ MORE
