Tom's Mad Blog
November 20th, 2024 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Brad Pitt makes his second appearance in our “Famous Movie Moments” series as Tyler Durden from the 1999 film “Fight Club”. This sketch is all about exaggerating body posture and physicality. In sharing last week’s sketch of Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty from “Blade Runner”, I mentioned that film was the one I absolutely insisted we include in CLAPTRAP. “Fight Club” was the other one I really wanted to do, but it just missed the cut. It’s one of those movies that actually would be tricky to spoof, because it is already a satire of consumerism and toxic masculinity. But, figuring that stuff out that… READ MORE
November 18th, 2024 | Posted in General
Monday AGAIN?? Here we go with yet another step on the crooked path of mediocrity that was my work for MAD Magazine. This week we look back at a kinda-sorta movie parody (but not really) from MAD #6, written by Ian Boothby. This piece was done right as “Mary Poppins Returns” starring Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda was released. It’s not a parody of the movie but an original story using the characters. That does not count as an actual movie parody of course. It’s a political feature. I happen to have full scans of the final inks of this splash because I had the… READ MORE
November 13th, 2024 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
When Desmond Devlin and I decided to do CLAPTRAP Des made a list of significant films that MAD never did a parody of for one reason or another. There was one movie I knew would be on that list, and it was the one movie I insisted we include in the book- Ridley Scott‘s 1982 sci-fi masterpiece “Blade Runner”. Actually I did not have to work very hard to convince Des to do it, the movie was high on his list as well. Why didn’t MAD spoof “Blade Runner”? No one knows for sure but it’s likely because the movie didn’t do all that well… READ MORE
November 11th, 2024 | Posted in News
My pals (and fellow former presidents of the National Cartoonists Society) Steve McGarry and Rick Stromoski have collected their short lived but insanely funny syndicated comic strip “Mullets” into a single volume book. Here’s the elevator pitch: Mullets by Steve McGarry and Rick Stromoski with special guest Luke McGarry They say write about what you know … so Steve McGarry and Rick Stromoski created a comic strip about two idiots. Meet Kevin and Scab, two mulleted morons employed at Mildew’s Hardware Store by Kevin’s long-suffering dad, Kenneth. There’s Britney, the Goddess of Register Three and the object of Scab’s unrequited love, and Old George, who… READ MORE
November 11th, 2024 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Here we go with another stumble down the icy path that was my work for MAD Magazine. This week we revisit the first (and only) entry of a great feature idea for the freshly rebooted MAD, “Movies MAD Missed!” Her’s MAD’s spoof of “A Christmas Story” written by my CLAPTRAP co-conspirator Desmond Devlin and first appearing in MAD #5, Feb 2019. Wait, isn’t this movie almost 40 years old? MAD just got around to doing a parody in 2019? As Ralphie’s dad might say… What the $%#@&*©#$@!??!. Here’s the story of how this came about. Back when Bill Morrison was about to take over as… READ MORE
November 6th, 2024 | Posted in General
About a month ago (October 3rd to be exact), would have been the 100th birthday of the legendary creator of MAD, cartoonist, writer and editor Harvey Kurtzman. So I decided to take a breather from the “Famous Movie Moments” series and draw Harvey. Just to do something different I did this one using brush pens! READ MORE
October 31st, 2024 | Posted in News
Just added to the 2025 workshop lineup: Las Vegas, NV! With a limit of 12 students, these workshops almost always sell out, so don’t wait around to book your spot! READ MORE
October 30th, 2024 | Posted in General
This original is still available in the Studio Store! Jamie Lee Curtis came by her “Scream Queen” moniker honestly. Her role in John Carpenter‘s 1978 “Halloween” began a whole new genre of scream queens/slasher films, but it was already “in her blood” you could say… and not the blood she left in the hallway in the movie! Her mother was Janet Leigh, one of the stars of Alfred Hitchcock‘s horror classic “Psycho”, and one of the original scream queens. READ MORE
