A MAD Sneak Peek: #481

August 17th, 2007 | Posted in MAD Magazine

I did the “Celebrity Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards” job (written BTW by cartoonist and former Cracked artist Michael Arnold in his first appearance in MAD) in a typical time frame, but the Paris Hilton job was a last second, brutal deadline job. As such the ‘rough’ is as rough as you can get. Here’s some images and the rough of that piece:

hilton_rough.jpg

parisrelease.jpg
Click for a closer look

parisrelease_close.jpg
Close up of Paris

Lots of word balloons with the “things shouted out” were to cover the crowd, but I didn’t know exactly where they would be placed so much of the crowd will not be visible in the printed version. You will notice Paris’ body was turned to move to the right rather than the left. It’s always better to have action move from left to right in a splash panel as it move the viewer’s eye in the right direction. I was trying to be too clever by suggesting a runway-like strut to the right with the forward foot in the original sketch. The corrected version works better.

Here are a few of the “Celebrity Yu-Gi-Oh Cards”. They are cleverly written by Mike, and only use celebrities who’s names work with the format (i.e. Yu-Gi-O’Reilly, Yu-Gi-O.J., etc). I “inked” these with markers trying to get the flatter feel of the actual card art, with mixed results:

you-gi-oj.jpg

yu-gi-oneal.jpg

yu-gi-orielly.jpg

Comments

  1. Matt. says:

    Amzing! I expecially approve of your Bill o’ Reilly one!

    What was your tight deadline for this one?

  2. quikdraw4 says:

    Awesome job Tom! Really loved the crowd scene with Paris.
    Tom- when you do those MAD crowd scenes adding the extra’s with the celebrities- have you used people you meet (your mailman,barber,your kids sport coaches,neighbor etc.) as those extra’s in the crowd?
    I would think it would be fun to tell/hint to those people “hey check out the new MAD I added you in a scene.”
    I know when I draw a cartoon for a website or paper I’ve often done that.
    Kinda makes them feel like an instant celebrity for the day.

    BTW great likeness of Bill O’Reilly!

  3. cedricstudio says:

    Nice work on the Paris Hilton thing, especially given the tight deadline. Crowd scenes can be downright painful to draw, but it looks like you had a lot of fun with it.

  4. SteveH says:

    This shows exactly why your at the top of your game Tom. Truely wonderful work that inspires so many of us! This week I have had the School of Rock splash page, professionally framed and the guy freaked out when I took it in to his framing studio! He LOVES MAD and your work! I shall get some pictures of his studio soon and email them to you. Keep making me drool as I simply can’t get enough!

  5. DShultz says:

    Beautiful stuff, Tom. Not only did you nail the caricatures, but they’re hilarious by themselves… especially the O’Reilly one. Thanks for the preview!

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