Tom's Mad Blog
August 30th, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This sketch of Ernest Borgnine, Tim Conway and Joe Flynn from “McHale’s Navy” got a new life a couple of weeks ago when the author of an upcoming book about the history of that show emailed me and asked about using the art on the book’s cover. I did not think a pencil sketch was appropriate for a book cover, so we settled on a price for use of the image and for me to add gray washes to the drawing so it had more of a finished look. This will be on the cover of a “McHale’s Navy” book coming out sometime later this year. READ MORE
August 28th, 2023 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Hooyah! It’s Monday, and that means it’s time for another off-target look back at my work for MAD Magazine. This week we shoot and miss with another MAD movie parody, this time of the film “American Sniper”, written by David Shayne and first appearing in MAD #533, June 2015. This was the issue of MAD that was guest edited by “Weird Al” Yankovic, so it was mandatory to include a cameo of Al in every feature. In this case David actually wrote him into the final panel, delivering the last line of the parody. The concept of this parody was to feature two opposing political… READ MORE
August 21st, 2023 | Posted in MAD Magazine
It’s Monday! Time for another moronic look back at my work for MAD! This episode features a lost Hobbit movie parody… Well not really lost but not published in an actual issue of MAD either. While MAD did parodies of all three of “The Hobbit” films only two ended up in the magazine. The third was done as an original piece for a special “Loot Crate” edition of MAD. Written by Desmond Devlin, only Loot Crate subscribers (and collectors on eBay) got a copy of this 6 page spoof. Loot Crate, if you are not familiar, is a grab bag (okay… grab BOX) program where you receive a box full of… READ MORE
August 16th, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
For once no big names from the pop culture/entertainment world bit the dust this week, and we can get back to our TV sitcom series! We are currently doing 1970’s era shows, and this week’s sketch features Freddie Prinze and Jack Albertson from “Chico and the Man”. This show was groundbreaking in that is was the first U.S. TV series set in a latino neighborhood. With the success of “Sanford and Son”, NBC wanted to create another show centered in a minority community, this time a Mexican-American area of Los Angeles. Supposedly the show’s concept was heavily based on some of the skits from the comedy team Cheech and Chong.… READ MORE
August 14th, 2023 | Posted in MAD Magazine
After several weeks of never being in town to post one of these, we are back to our terribly tedious but thorough timeline trudge through my work at MAD Magazine. We are now entering 2015, and here’s another spoof of what was then the new frontier… streaming service television! This was another Netflix show, “House of Cards”, which depicted the world of heinous, criminal and corrupt politicians in Washington D.C… ah, 2015! How innocent we all were back then thinking this sort of thing was fiction. This appeared in MAD #532, April 2015. Not much to say about this job except the show featured a… READ MORE
August 11th, 2023 | Posted in General
I just completed one of my workshops last weekend in Denver. We had a great group and a lot of fun drawing together for two days! Class artwork above. I just announced one final workshop for 2023, this one taking place Dec 2-3 in Las Vegas. You can register for a spot here. The Lovely Anna is having knee surgery in early 2024, so there will be a pause on my workshops from then until probably the late spring or early summer. I MIGHT be able to get one squeezed in in early January before Anna goes under the knife. We’ll see. People ask me… READ MORE
August 9th, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated! “Laverne and Shirley” was a huge hit as a spin off from the show “Happy Days”. Here’s my sketch of stars Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams. The show was a favorite in the Richmond household and my parents and siblings and I used to watch it on Tuesday nights right after “Happy Days”. How ingrained into our pop culture psyche was this show? The hard drives on my wife’s computer are named “Laverne” and “Shirley”, and her backup drive is “The Big Ragoo”. Our daughter’s hard drives are named “Lenny” and “Squiggy”. I haven’t seen an episode in probably thirty years, but it made… READ MORE
August 2nd, 2023 | Posted in General
Everybody and their brother has posted a drawing of Paul Reubens AKA “Pee Wee Herman” since the news of his passing, but I could not do anyone else for the “Sketch o’the Week” this week. RIP. READ MORE
