Tom's Mad Blog
February 21st, 2021 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I’ve read that your work for MAD is owned by MAD and they can reprint it anytime they want with no further payment to you. Is that typical, or do you have a different arrangement for other freelance jobs? A: When I do an illustration for a client, who owns the copyrights of that image depends on the agreement I have with that client. Sometimes they own the copyright in perpetuity, sometimes they are only getting the copyright for a single use with limitations such as time, market, etc. It’s important to make sure the copyright arrangement is clearly spelled out IN WRITING and… READ MORE
February 19th, 2021 | Posted in Freelancing
Here’s something different I’ve been doing for a client lately- watercolor caricatures of executives as gifts for promotions/retirements/etc. These are all physical ink/watercolors. They give me a list of things each person is “known for” and I do an illustration incorporating those things as gags or whatever. Having to haul out the old watercolors is what prompted me to take a refresher workshop from a former college instructor of mine who lives in the area. All of these were done prior to that afternoon. I’m looking forward to seeing the difference in my technique if/when I do more of these. These guys all like wine,… READ MORE
February 18th, 2021 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
I did this spot illustration for Scholastic back in 2007. I can’t remember what the feature was or what it was about, but it’s the four stars of “High School Musical”, Corbin Bleu, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale and Zac Efron. READ MORE
February 17th, 2021 | Posted in Classic Rock Sketch Series
Here’s my sketch of the immortal Tina Turner, which I guess is not just for “The Daily Coronacature” or a “Sketch o’the Week”, but part of my “Classic Rock” series also… a three-fer! Original sketch is available in the Studio Store as usual. This drawing is a good example of how a subject’s “physicality” can be an important part of their caricature. Tina of course has the massive hair, squinty eyes, big cheeks, etc, but she’s as much known for her dancing/poses and long legs when she performs. In fact, she has wide hips and kind of a thick waist that makes her torso seem… READ MORE
February 16th, 2021 | Posted in General
This week’s CLAPTRAP update is a video “behind the scenes” look at the creation of Des and my splash page for our parody of “Goodfellas” that we shared a few weeks ago. Enjoy: READ MORE
February 15th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
My next assignment for MAD appeared in issue #416, May 2002. It was a return to a sports-themed feature called “Their Team…& Your Team…” written by John Prete. I started for MAD at almost exactly the time it switched to a color format. In fact a big part of why I started getting work from them was that they were planning the switch to color and I did my own digital coloring. In the 20 years I did work for the magazine, I only ever did four jobs in black and white. This was one of them. This was, however, the first black and white… READ MORE
February 14th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Q: This question is prompted by your recent Care Bears post … I haven’t seen you talk in your blog before about pitching your own ideas to MAD. Did you do this often, and did many get picked up? A: Actually that may have been my first and last pitch for a completely independent piece for MAD. I do not remember ever doing that before or since. It never really occurred to me to even try pitching my own features or gag ideas to them, because I was usually very busy doing the art for features they assigned to me that others wrote. I regularly… READ MORE
February 13th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
I got this question via DM recently: Hi Tom, are issues #9 and #10 the last official MAD Magazine issues before things changed? MAD has undergone a LOT of changes in the last 3 years, and there has been a lot of confusion about things because their parent company hasn’t been very clear about what is happening, and certainly not about WHY things are happening. In response to this I put together a little timeline of the what and whens of recent changes to MAD: October 2013– DC Comics announces they are closing their New York offices and moving them to the Warner Bros complex in Burbank, CA. MAD‘s… READ MORE
