Tom's Mad Blog
July 6th, 2022 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Mother? It’s another classic horror icon subject for this week’s sketch… Anthony Perkins in his role as Norman Bates from the Alfred Hitchcock 1960 masterpiece “Psycho”! There are a lot of interesting facts about this film, here’s I few I learned about when researching the movie for the parody Desmond Devlin and I are doing in our CLAPTRAP book: Despite Hitchcock’s fame and the commercial success of his previous films, Paramount did not want to back “Psycho”, considering it to be a “sleazy horror movie”. As a result, Hitchcock had a shoestring budget to work with and was deferred a lot of the rights to the film. That’s why he shot it… READ MORE
July 4th, 2022 | Posted in MAD Magazine
It’s Monday again, and that means it’s time for yet another exciting episode of our relentless crawl through my work at MAD magazine. This week we have a look at what might have been the smallest piece I ever had in the magazine. This was a spot feature that was part of “The Fundalini Pages”, which was a multiple page feature at the front of every issue from #438 to to the last NYC issue #550. The Fundalini Pages contained short features, multiple ones to a page, that were sometimes illustrated (like this one) and sometimes just copy. I only ever did two pieces for… READ MORE
June 29th, 2022 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
There have been a lot actors who have become iconic in the horror film world, but you would be hard pressed to name one who is more synonymous with the genre than the great Boris Karloff. His last film appearance was over fifty years ago, but he’s still the King of Horror, and he scared the hell out of audiences in the days where you couldn’t show blood or gore onscreen. READ MORE
June 27th, 2022 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Holy back from vacation, Batman! It’s the same bat-time on the same bat-channel as we return to our crusade of vengeance that is my work for MAD magazine. In this week’s episode we have a look at yet another super hero movie parody. This time it’s MAD‘s spoof of “The Dark Knight”, written by my CLAPTRAP cohort Desmond Devlin and first appearing in MAD #495, Aug 2008. It’s no secret I am a big fan of Batman, so getting to do the art for the spoofs of the Christopher Nolan films was a treat for me. This parody also happens to include one of my… READ MORE
June 22nd, 2022 | Posted in General
No “Sketch o’the Week” this week because I am on a for real, actual vacation! However I am a guest this week on the “3 Point Perspective” podcast with illustrators Jake Parker and Will Terry this week. It’s a very different kind of discussion because they were most interested in the world of live caricature, so we talk a lot about that and only touch on MAD and other aspects of caricature illustration. The link will take you to a landing page with access to the YouTube or audio only versions of the podcast. Thanks Jake and Will for having me on the show! READ MORE
June 15th, 2022 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Here’s another subject I received multiple suggestions to draw as part of my “horror icons” series… Peter Cushing! The Hammer horror films of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s are beloved by horror film aficionados, and Cushing starred in many of them, playing many roles like Van Helsing and Dr. Frankenstein. Incidentally as I continue with my little horror film series of sketches, I’m going to try and draw the subjects in character from one of their more famous films or shows, even if that means drawing them in some form of makeup. I’m still going to avoid doing crazy prosthetics, but it’s more interesting to add the… READ MORE
June 13th, 2022 | Posted in MAD Magazine
It’s MAD Marvel Monday! Time for another look at my work for MAD magazine, this time we check out the parody of the first of the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” films… “Ironic, Man”, written by my CLAPTRAP chohort Desmond Devlin and first appearing in MAD #492, August 2008! Ecch-selsior! I remember that this one got done in record time… mainly because of the timing of the movie and the issue of MAD they wanted to include it in. Unusually, I got the call that this parody was coming just before the movie came out. Desmond did the script over the opening weekend and I was drawing it… READ MORE
June 9th, 2022 | Posted in News
After a two year absence thanks to the pandemic, the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Awards are back in 2022 with a stellar lineup of speakers and guests… and you do NOT need to be an NCS member to attend most of the program. Visit this link for all the details! READ MORE
