Tom's Mad Blog
September 17th, 2018 | Posted in Monday MADness
My illustrator’s copies of MAD’s new children’s book parody “Don’t Let the Penguin Drive the Batmobile” just arrived! The printed book turned out great. It’s a 9.25″ square hardcover. The book officially drops on October 16th, available at fine as well as sketchy bookstores everywhere. I will also have signed copies available in the Studio Store, as well as an option to get a sketch of the Penguin in the book. READ MORE
September 16th, 2018 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: How you save old work? Do you keep layered PSD files? Or do you merge layers to save space, knowing that you will never have to go back and edit them again? A: I used to archive everything on DVDs, with layered files and all. However I later found DVDs to be unreliable as several of them have become unreadable for some reason or another… I’ve lost a lot of old digital files as a result. For a while I would only save a flattened version of an illustration for space saving reasons as you cite. Nowadays with cloud data storage and spare hard… READ MORE
September 15th, 2018 | Posted in MAD Magazine
MAD has started posting sneak peeks of issue #4 on their Instragram, including this close up of a panel from the feature I worked on. It’s their “Halloween” issue, so many of the features will have a horror theme. I did the art on a six page parody that includes references to several classic horror films. It’s a departure from the typical MAD parody, a little like the “Xander and Kam’s Sneaky Previews” piece from MAD #2, with multiple films and TV shows being referenced. Can’t really say much more without giving it all away. MAD #4 hits newsstands Oct 17th. READ MORE
September 14th, 2018 | Posted in General
I am a member of an organization called the International Society of Caricature Artists (which, incidentally, I heartily recommend to anyone doing caricature professionally at any level). Right now there is a lively discussion going on on their members-only Facebook page about the trials and tribulations of what many call “cookie cutter caricature” and what I call “generic caricature”. I thought it would make a good topic for an article here. Briefly, “generic” caricature is when a caricature artist draws the same features over and over again on everyone, regardless of what that subject actually looks like, and is often seen in live caricature done… READ MORE
September 13th, 2018 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
Back in 2006 the Minnesota Twins pro baseball team hired me to design this “Little Piranha” character for them, including doing some illustrations for various T-Shirts and other merchandise. Why piranhas? Earlier that year White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen was being interviewed about a series with the Twins and called them “Little Piranhas” because while they didn’t kills you with big bites like a shark, they took all these little chomps out of you with their “small ball” style of playing and the next thing you know you are dead. It was a compliment… I think. Anyway the Twins loved that and they made a… READ MORE
September 12th, 2018 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Still working on deadlines… here’s a flashback “sketch” of Edward Norton from his (brief) role as Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk. This was actually done as an example for the wall at one of my theme caricature booths, so it is an example of my “live” caricature style. 4B pencil and freehand airbrush. READ MORE
September 11th, 2018 | Posted in General
Too much travel and not enough studio time. READ MORE
September 10th, 2018 | Posted in General
I was a guest at Rose City Comic Con this past weekend. One of the things I do at these shows are full color “sketch covers” done on one of the blank cover variants of MAD. Sadly it was not a very busy convention for us, but I did this sketch cover as a sample for the booth. Done using brush pens, copic parkers and a touch of colored pencil. READ MORE
