Tom's Mad Blog
October 17th, 2024 | Posted in General
I’m at New York Comic Con this weekend! If you can’t make it to the con, you can still get any of the comic con exclusive stuff I am doing in NYC here at my “Virtual Artist’s Alley Table”. The virtual table will be open through 5 PM CDT Sunday Oct 20th. I’ll be selling all the commissions I usually only offer at comic-cons, at the same prices I charge at comic-cons. I only do these twice a year, so now is your chance… and guaranteed deleivery in time for Christmas! What kinds of things do I ONLY do at conventions? My “live caricature” style… READ MORE
October 16th, 2024 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This sketch is still available in the Studio Store! I don’t know if this qualifies as a “famous movie moment”, but it’s one of my favorites. “Airplane” was released in 1980, and quickly became the gold standard for spoof movies. Leslie Nielsen also found his calling as one of the great camp actors of all time. He’d go on to start in the “Naked Gun” series, “Spy Hard”, a few of the “Scary Movie” films and, of course, “Dracula: Dead and Loving it” where he teamed up with another great parody film master, Mel Brooks. I loved his take on Dracula so much, I had… READ MORE
October 14th, 2024 | Posted in MAD Magazine
This week we take a brief detour from the bumpy, pothole-filled washboard of a road that is our chronological journey through my work at MAD to have a look at the third and the last book project I did for MAD. First there was Goodnight Batcave, then there was Superman and the Miserable, Rotten, No Fun, Really Bad Day. MAD wrapped up it’s shameful desecration of everyone’s childhood memories with this third volume in their kid’s book parody series. It was released almost exactly six years ago today. MAD editor Dave Croatto wrote the first two, but MAD associate editor Jacob Lambert did the dishonors with the writing this… READ MORE
October 12th, 2024 | Posted in News
Come find me at NYCC next weekend! I’ll be there all hours of the Artists’ Alley area, but on Saturday from 1pm-4pm CLAPTRAP writer Desmond Devlin will be appearing at my booth, where we will answer questions about the book or MAD, and both sign copies of CLAPTRAP for cover price! READ MORE
October 9th, 2024 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Here we go with a sketch of yet another acting legend who has recently left us, and this one was a real witch. And a countess. And a nun. And an Oscar Winner (twice). And an Emmy winner (four times). Three Golden Globes. Five BAFTAS. A Tony. In other words, a true acting legend. She had an incredible career well before the Harry Potter films and “Downton Abbey” cemented her legacy in blockbuster films and high profile TV shows. Farewell, Dame Maggie. As always, Premium Subscribers to my Substack are able to watch me do my weekly sketch in real time, while I bather on… READ MORE
October 7th, 2024 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Welcome to another edition of Monday MADness, where we painstakingly slog through the work I did for MAD Magazine. This week we have a look at MAD‘s spoof of the film “Ready Player One”, written by my CLAPTRAP cohort Desmond Devlin and first appearing in MAD #3, Oct 2018. This splash page took a long time to work out. This movie is kind of a MAD parody in itself. Dozens of cameos of pop culture icons and gaming characters and vehicles appear throughout the film. It was almost impossible to one up that without going totally over the top like this. I took some major… READ MORE
October 3rd, 2024 | Posted in General
The reason I was drawing Mads Mikkelsen (see yesterday’s Sketch o’the Week) live in front of an audience was that I was a guest at the Art-Bubble Comic Arts Festival a few weekends ago in Aarhus, Denmark. There is a big difference between a European Comic Arts Festival and a United States Comic Arts Convention. The former is a more intimate, personal celebration of the art of comics and cartooning, and people who create them. The latter is a huge sea of humanity where the focus is mostly on commerce, cosplay, TV/movies and celebrity photo/autograph ops. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing comic-cons. Amid… READ MORE
October 2nd, 2024 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This week’s sketch is a little something different since I was about 4,300 miles from my studio when I did it and thus without a scanner to scan a pencil sketch. I did this sketch of Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen as part of a talk I did on MAD movie parodies and caricature entirely digitally using my portable Wacom Cintiq tablet and Photoshop. I drew it live in front of a studio audience! READ MORE
