Tom's Mad Blog
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
September 30th, 2024 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Here we go with another moronic edition of Monday MADness, where we look back at my work for MAD Magazine. We are no on the second issue of the “new” MAD that had recently relocated to Burbank, CA in early 2018 with new VP of Editorial Bill Morrison and art director Suzy Hutchinson. This job was another throwback to an earlier concept MAD had done a few times… a single feature that incorporated several mini movie parodies in a sequence narrated by a movie critic. This updated concept was a play on social media/YouTube “content creators” who theater hop between films doing reviews without paying… READ MORE
September 25th, 2024 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
In a rare break from tradition, the original of this sketch is still available in the Studio Store! This week’s “Famous Movie Moment” features Hollywood’s most famous chin, the late Kirk Douglas from the “I am Spartacus” scene from the 1960 movie of the same name. Well, actually this is not from THAST scene, but is just Kirk in the role. The film was directed by a young Stanley Kubrick, who took over after original director Anthony Mann was fired only a few weeks into the shoot. Douglas’s production company was producing the film, so they brought Kubrick on board after Douglas’s work with Kubrick… READ MORE
