Tom's Mad Blog
April 8th, 2016 | Posted in News
This two page splash of MAD’s “House of Cards” parody is up for auction… Just a reminder: the online auction to raise money for Glenn Ferguson, the caricature artist who was brutally attacked on New Year’s Day by a disgruntled former co-worker and severely injured, ends Sunday at 10 pm Eastern time. This auction is being organized by the International Society of Caricature Artists, an organization I was once president of. Glenn is doing well in his recovery but has a very long road ahead of him. He’s been home for a couple of months and is doing all his therapy and rehab on an… READ MORE
April 7th, 2016 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
I used to do fairly regular work for National Geographic Kids magazine (later National Geographic World), mainly spot illustrations but occasionally half or full pages as well. They were an interesting client to work for because they were real sticklers for historical and scientific accuracy when it came to the artwork. I would be given very specific references for things like the type of clothes or accessories someone from a certain place or time would be wearing. I’m not sure when I stopped getting calls from them but I have not done anything for National Geographic World for a few years now. This 2004 piece… READ MORE
April 6th, 2016 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Newsarama posted a sneak peek of the cover feature and cover art from MAD #539 recently. As you can see, MAD spoofs the “adult coloring book” craze with a 4 pager with art by Timothy Shamey and cover by… me! Yes, my first official issue cover. I did two covers for the now defunct MAD Kids, one for a “Superman” special issue and two of the most recent “Bookazines”, but this is first time I got to do the cover of the actual magazine. Covers are rare birds for several reasons. First, there are only six a year. Second, they are usually of the hyper-realistic… READ MORE
April 5th, 2016 | Posted in MAD Magazine
My pal and writer extraordinaire Mark Evanier recently wrote about Al Jaffee’s entry into the Guiness Book of World Records (and I was not surprised to find out that Mark was one of the experts consulted to verify Al’s record), and as often happens on Mark’s wonderful blog one thing led to another resulting in his taking a poll on what people consider the correct stylistic way to write “MAD” along with the “magazine” after it… what do you capitalize? What do you italicize? He lists four possibilities: MAD magazine MAD Magazine MAD magazine MAD Magazine Mark polled his readers, many of whom are editors,… READ MORE
April 5th, 2016 | Posted in News
For some reason the image of this on the auction site is really bad, so here’s a better look… There is an online auction of various caricature art going on RIGHT NOW to raise money for my friend and fellow caricaturist Glenn Ferguson, who was brutally attacked on New Year’s Day by a disgruntled former co-worker and severely injured. You can read all the details here, but the short version is that Glenn sustained significant brain damage and is in for a long and hard fight to regain his ability to do some of the things we take for granted every day, and especially his… READ MORE
April 4th, 2016 | Posted in Monday MADness
Television executives weren’t always the entertainment geniuses they are today, where they either endlessly mine comic books and graphic novels for ideas for shows, or just steal ideas from other shows ideas for ideas for shows… or pretend a completely scripted and carefully calculated program is an “unscripted reality show”. As recently as 2007, some TV executives actually thought it was a good idea to create a show based on characters from TV ads, specifically the Geico insurance “cavemen” (psst… it was NOT a good idea). Never one to restrain themselves from shooting fish in a barrel, MAD jumped on this dogpile with the feature… READ MORE
April 3rd, 2016 | Posted in Mailbag
A: Hi Tom! Two questions. First, what mandatory actions will inevitably take place that you feel in your gut will be guided by destiny to sky rocket the popularity of the printed MAD magazine on a path to go above and beyond the highest peak in readership from the 70s to three million readers once again making reading MAD cooler than listening to Led Zeppelin while having sex on a motorcycle that sits on top of a skateboard on fire with a cigarette in your mouth, just like it already is? I am probably not supposed to reveal this, but MAD does have a proposed… READ MORE
April 1st, 2016 | Posted in General
There is an empty lot up on a very busy intersection up near my house that until about a year ago had a BP gas and service station on it. That was razed and the lot still stands empty with no signs on it about what may be coming on the space. At 4 am this morning I put this sign up on the lot. It’s 4’x8′. The only clue it’s a prank is a small Alfred E Neuman face at the bottom right corner. Sadly it’s very windy today, so I have twice been up there to fix the sign. I took this photo… READ MORE
