Mailbag
October 21st, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q:¬¨‚Ć I wanted my son to follow my love for art & music, but it seems his interest is more on computer games and some sports. Do you encourage or just wish one of your children would follow your footsteps as an illustrator regardless if they would make it as a career or not? A: I know your exact question is more specifically geared toward my feelings, and I’ll answer that at the end of this post, but this is an interesting general topic. Whenever I am in conversation with someone and they ask “Do you have any kids?”, they always (assuming they know what… READ MORE
October 14th, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: How do you feel when clients ask caricature artists to “water down” their exaggeration. I feel they do not understand why they hired an artist in the first place. I believe you said you were asked to tone down your caricatures at the Democratic National Convention gig you worked at. I guess they did not want to offend public figures being drawn. Has a client made you change a commissioned project to be less exaggerated? As an analogy I do not think someone would ask a chef to tone down their spices at a restaurant. Recently a downtown restaurant asked four muralists to paint… READ MORE
October 7th, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Are you going to get the new Modbook Pro that was just announced as being available soon? A: For those who don’t know what a Modbook is, it is a Mac laptop that has been converted into a tablet computer that has a pressure-sensitive screen using Wacom technology, so you have a totally portable digital drawing/painting solution. A company called Axiotron originally produced these Modbooks, using the old white MacBooks as the base computer. The company went under and disappeared without much explanation a year or two ago. Apparently the original inventor of the technology, or one of them, is now working with a… READ MORE
September 30th, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Do you think the printed version of MAD will eventually stop, and it will become digital only? A: That’s a question with two answers. Will the printed version of MAD ever stop? Yes, of course it will. Nothing lasts forever, and eventually MAD will cease publication. Hopefully not for a long time. Will it stop because the “digital revolution” will eventually kill all traditional printing? No, I don’t think so. I think magazines and especially books will continue to exist in printed form for a long time. The death of radio has been predicted since TV really got going in the 1950’s, but radio… READ MORE
September 16th, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Hello Tom. Big fan of your work in MAD. My question to you is that your work is easily recognizable. Have you ever felt you were too comfortable in your style and was ever tempted to radically tweak it? A: That depends on your definition of “style”. Some might define style as simply the visual look of someone’s art. That would mean that using a different style would be as simple as using different mediums, or changing the technique used for finishing. Personally, I think “style” is deeper than that. It’s the way an artist sees the world and interprets it through their drawing… READ MORE
September 9th, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: When drawing a MAD parody, are the artists assigned the project without any say in who appointed the job, or do you get to lobby to work on a specific task that you would love to take part in (i.e. the new Batman movie)? A: The artist has no say in what movie or TV show they get assigned. That is entirely up to the editorial staff. That’s not to say an artist can’t make a case for why they should be strongly considered for a particular movie or TV show, but it rarely makes any difference. When the Tim Burton remake of Planet… READ MORE
September 2nd, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Hi Tom, I enjoy your illustrations in Mad Magazine.¬¨‚Ć I was wanting to get a Sergio Aragones autograph.¬¨‚Ć How can I get one? A: Everybody want’s Sergio’s autograph! Or Mort Drucker‘s, or Sam Viviano‘s, or… It’s common courtesy among professionals not to give out their personal contact info, including mailing addresses. However MAD is very good at forwarding correspondence to individual artists. I sometimes get big envelopes from MAD which contains an unopened envelope or package from someone who wanted me to autograph something or to just write me a note. What is appropriate to send? That’s a good additional question as what you… READ MORE
August 26th, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I was wondering what kind of schedule you have for yourself when you are up against a really tight deadline such as the one you had when you drew the Bo¬¨‚Ć Obama book. How do you schedule tasks such as penciling, inking and coloring along with sleeping and other routines when it’s really tight time-wise? ` All deadlines end up becoming “really tight time-wise.” See this post from a few weeks ago regarding regular time management and general deadlines. Occasionally, either through poor time management, unforeseen circumstances, underestimating how long something will take to complete or taking on an emergency job under impossible conditions,… READ MORE
