Tom's Mad Blog
February 8th, 2016 | Posted in MAD Magazine
1981 MAD Cover by Sam Viviano! I came across this January interview with longtime MAD artist and current MAD VP of Art and Design (over 16 years as art director) Sam Viviano over at PrintMag.com. It’s a look at the nuts and bolts (mostly nuts) of the design and production of everyone’s favorite satirical humor magazine, as well as Sam’s history with the magazine… well a very truncated version of it anyway. Here’s an excerpt: In 1980, Viviano received a call from MAD editor Al Feldstein, who was searching for a replacement for longtime cover artist Norman Mingo, who had passed away a few months… READ MORE
February 7th, 2016 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I noticed when you’re drawing (live) caricatures, you flick your hand/wrist out after drawing tighter lines. What does this do to the look of the artwork? A: I tried to find a video that might show what you are talking about. This one from about 10o years ago of me doing a demo of a Bruce Willis caricature has some of that: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3RGzdywZ3E[/youtube] If you watch the drawing part of this video, you will see that between lines I shake my hand back and forth (you’d see a lot more of it if this was a continuous video as opposed to a collection of… READ MORE
February 5th, 2016 | Posted in General
If you are a member of the National Cartoonists Society, you’ll have seen this caricature I did of new President Bill Morrison from his latest column in the The Cartoon!st. Actually, come to think of it, if there was one thing I learned from spending four years serving as president it was that NOBODY reads the president’s column. So, this will be new to you as well! It’s a little preview of what’s to come at the Reuben Awards Weekend this year in Memphis… Anyway, Bill took over for me in May at the last Reubens, and is doing a great job as president. The… READ MORE
February 4th, 2016 | Posted in General
Last week I received a message from super-star comic book artist Tony Moore (The Walking Dead) asking me if I had ever heard of a guy named Scott Roush. Tony is running his own comics convention and was contacted by this person who claimed to be representing hundreds of comic book artists/cartoonists for appearances at conventions, offering to bring in anyone on his extensive list. Apparently I was on this list. That was news to me. Just yesterday another super-star comic book artist, my good pal Doug Mahnke, sent me a note with a link to an article on BleedingCool about this Roush character called… READ MORE
February 3rd, 2016 | Posted in Classic Rock Sketch Series
I’m getting back to my “Classic Rock” sketch series with a 1970’s era Neil Young. Something a little different this week… this is drawn in archival marker pen. As always the original is available in the Studio Store. READ MORE
February 2nd, 2016 | Posted in News
I’ve been asked quite frequently about how my friend and fellow caricature artist Glenn Ferguson is doing with his recovery. In case you missed the story, Glenn is an award winning caricaturist and a leading artist at the caricature art concession in Universal Studios, Florida. On Jan 1st a disgruntled co-worker whose contract had been terminated the day before came back to Universal Studios property and attacked Glenn with a pair of scissors. Glenn suffered serious brain damage from the attack, and his immediate survival was in doubt. Thankfully, after over 5 hours of surgery, Glenn survived and began a long, arduous road to recovery.… READ MORE
February 1st, 2016 | Posted in Monday MADness
MAD has had a number of different series of reprint collections over the years, Super-Specials, MAD XL, MAD Color Classics, MAD Classics, etc. The last few years they have been doing “Bookazines“, which are perfect bound Special Collectors Editions usually centered around some theme or whatnot. These have have original covers, and I did the cover art for the newest one that will be on news stands, bookstores, and comic book shops, this week: “MAD Presents Oscar Winners (and Losers!)”!! Final art above, here’s how it looks in print: These specials are printed on nice, heavy, glossy stock, so while everything is a reprint the… READ MORE
January 31st, 2016 | Posted in General
Q: I have a friend who has written a comic book script for some already established DC/Marvel characters. He would like to get it published, but doesn’t know how. Should he call the company’s front desk and ask, or get in touch with an editor via e-mail or website? I haven’t come across this situation specifically for comics, and am trying to point him in the right direction. A: I’m not well versed in the writing side of things, but my advice would be to snail-mail the script to the offices of the publisher as listed in a given comic’s masthead, and to the attention… READ MORE
