General
September 28th, 2017 | Posted in General
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner passed away yesterday at age 91. I did this quick warm up caricature of him this morning just because. Say what you want about Hefner, but he was a champion of cartooning. He loved the artform and started out as a cartoonist himself. Playboy ran a lot of cartoons for most of its long run (until recently, in fact) and had many great cartoonist’s work within its pages over the years like Gahan Wilson, Jack Cole, Jules Feiffer, Bobby London, Shel Sliverstein, Dean Yeagle, Eldon Dedini and many others including Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder. Long before I became a member of… READ MORE
September 26th, 2017 | Posted in General
I totally forgot to post about this back in June, but Tom’s MAD Blog celebrated its 11th birthday this past summer. The first post having appeared on June 26th, 2006. Here’s my annual list of the website stats: Over 8.5 million page views Best day ever: 22,199 views 11,737 comments 3,984 total posts 526 Sunday Mailbag questions answered 552 Sketches o’the Week posted Thanks for visiting, reading, and supporting the blog! READ MORE
September 21st, 2017 | Posted in General
I do some work for superstar comedian/ventriloquist Jeff Dunham, mostly for his merchandise and various products. However sometime he asks me to do some designs for possible new characters from which he will develop a new puppet and character in his act. Some years ago I helped him design Achmed Jr., the “almost dead” son of Achmed the Dead Terrorist. I’ve done a few other designs for him, some of which may or may not ever be realized in his act. Recently Jeff debuted a new character, Seamus the Irish Baby, that is based on some concept designs I did. Now, Jeff creates and builds… READ MORE
September 12th, 2017 | Posted in General
MAD writer extraordinaire Des Devlin sent me this link to a story about how Condé Nast, publisher of a whole lot of stuff including The New Yorker, has been dropping the ball on one of the most successful commercial ventures in cartooning, The Cartoon Bank. The article is a great read since it provides a fascinating history of The Cartoon Bank and how it works, what it did to help hundreds of gag cartoonists to make a living, and how and why its current health has declined. Gag cartooning is one area of cartooning I have never done. I greatly admire the art form and… READ MORE
September 5th, 2017 | Posted in General
Next week is my last workshop of 2017, and I’m starting to think about possible locations for 2018. I am close to finalizing plans for a couple in the L.A. area in January, and I have already scheduled one in Switzerland in conjunction with a cartooning school neat Zurich in August. I am thinking seriously of doing one in Atlanta in February, but have nothing scheduled yet. Now’s your chance to let me know where you’d like me to come and do a workshop, as I am conducting an informal poll today. If I get a lot of responses with interest in a particular area… READ MORE
September 4th, 2017 | Posted in General
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August 29th, 2017 | Posted in General
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August 24th, 2017 | Posted in General
Glenn in happier times, with the artwork he did of the MAD Magazine speakers at the ISCA Con in Ohio in 2009. L to R: Me, Mark Fredrickson, Glenn, Sam Viviano, Hermann Mejia On Jan 1, 2016 a long-time friend and fellow caricaturist, Glenn Ferguson, was brutally attacked and stabbed in the head by a co-worker named Fredrick Torres. He suffered permanent damage after 3 inches of a pair of scissors pierced and lodged in his brain. After 20 months of legal weaseling, Torres finally went on trial yesterday. Here’s a couple of new stories. Glenn struggles daily with PTSD, impairment due to brain damage… READ MORE
