Tom's Mad Blog
October 7th, 2024 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Welcome to another edition of Monday MADness, where we painstakingly slog through the work I did for MAD Magazine. This week we have a look at MAD‘s spoof of the film “Ready Player One”, written by my CLAPTRAP cohort Desmond Devlin and first appearing in MAD #3, Oct 2018. This splash page took a long time to work out. This movie is kind of a MAD parody in itself. Dozens of cameos of pop culture icons and gaming characters and vehicles appear throughout the film. It was almost impossible to one up that without going totally over the top like this. I took some major… READ MORE
October 3rd, 2024 | Posted in General
The reason I was drawing Mads Mikkelsen (see yesterday’s Sketch o’the Week) live in front of an audience was that I was a guest at the Art-Bubble Comic Arts Festival a few weekends ago in Aarhus, Denmark. There is a big difference between a European Comic Arts Festival and a United States Comic Arts Convention. The former is a more intimate, personal celebration of the art of comics and cartooning, and people who create them. The latter is a huge sea of humanity where the focus is mostly on commerce, cosplay, TV/movies and celebrity photo/autograph ops. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing comic-cons. Amid… READ MORE
October 2nd, 2024 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This week’s sketch is a little something different since I was about 4,300 miles from my studio when I did it and thus without a scanner to scan a pencil sketch. I did this sketch of Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen as part of a talk I did on MAD movie parodies and caricature entirely digitally using my portable Wacom Cintiq tablet and Photoshop. I drew it live in front of a studio audience! READ MORE
September 30th, 2024 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Here we go with another moronic edition of Monday MADness, where we look back at my work for MAD Magazine. We are no on the second issue of the “new” MAD that had recently relocated to Burbank, CA in early 2018 with new VP of Editorial Bill Morrison and art director Suzy Hutchinson. This job was another throwback to an earlier concept MAD had done a few times… a single feature that incorporated several mini movie parodies in a sequence narrated by a movie critic. This updated concept was a play on social media/YouTube “content creators” who theater hop between films doing reviews without paying… READ MORE
September 25th, 2024 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
In a rare break from tradition, the original of this sketch is still available in the Studio Store! This week’s “Famous Movie Moment” features Hollywood’s most famous chin, the late Kirk Douglas from the “I am Spartacus” scene from the 1960 movie of the same name. Well, actually this is not from THAST scene, but is just Kirk in the role. The film was directed by a young Stanley Kubrick, who took over after original director Anthony Mann was fired only a few weeks into the shoot. Douglas’s production company was producing the film, so they brought Kubrick on board after Douglas’s work with Kubrick… READ MORE
September 19th, 2024 | Posted in General
I’m a guest at the Art-Bubble Comic Arts Festival this weekend in Aarhus, Denmark! I’ll be teaching a children’s workshop on drawing caricatures, doing a presentation about MAD movie parodies, signing stuff and eating hot dogs. If you happen to be hanging around Aarhus this weekend stop on by! READ MORE
September 18th, 2024 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Admit it… you know this one was coming one when the passing of the great James Earl Jones last Monday at the age of 93. Jones of course had an incredible career on both stage and screen, but will probably be best known as the voices of Darth Vader in the “Star Wars” movies and Mufasa in “The Lion King”, which doesn’t credit him properly for the many other memorable performances he did over a long career. Personally, I remember him scaring the crap out of me as “Thulsa Doom” in the original 1982 “Conan the Barbarian” movie opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was evil but… READ MORE
September 12th, 2024 | Posted in News
I just added another workshop date to the 2025 lineup… Los Angeles, CA! As usual, only 12 spots are available so don’t procrastinate on booking your spot lest it sell out on you. Get all the info and register here. READ MORE
