Tom's Mad Blog
February 18th, 2022 | Posted in General
Recently I’ve gotten a few inquiries as to what happened to my blog, which used to be updated daily and is now only a few times a week. Back in October I announced I was switching my focus from a daily blog to a weekly newsletter. That newsletter is called “The Ink Stained Wretch” and is free to subscribe to. It features an exclusive first look at my “Sketch o’the Week” (I post that same sketch on my blog a week or so later), articles on freelancing, illustration, cartooning, caricature, news from me, etc. etc. It’s delivered directly to your inbox and you can opt… READ MORE
February 16th, 2022 | Posted in General
I don’t want my weekly sketches to become a “this famous person just died” exercise, but people that had some importance to me keep croaking. Just a few weeks ago we lost actor Howard Hesseman, who was most famous for his role as veteran radio DJ “Dr. Johnny Fever” in the classic sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati”. WKRP was one of my favorite TV comedies back in the day. It only lasted four seasons, but what a four seasons it was. Brilliant writing and some of the best characters and casting in TV history. Hesseman was one of the best parts of the show. I had to… READ MORE
February 14th, 2022 | Posted in MAD Magazine
It’s time for another stop on the glitzy Hollywood lifestyle that is definitely not like the tour of my work for MAD Magazine. This week we take a look at MAD‘s parody of the HBO series “Entourage”, appearing in MAD #476, April 2007, written by Arnie Kogen. Interestingly enough, I scanned all the final pencils for this job as opposed to my usual “roughs”. I am pretty sure this is because I was trying to spend less time on the roughs and doing more of the full drawing on the big boards to try and cut down my process time. This is the only “rough”… READ MORE
February 13th, 2022 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: What size do you work at for your MAD pages? There’s so much detail… I imagine you work much larger than the printed page size. A: Much bigger. Twice the size, in fact. Typically comic book artists work on 11 inch x 17 inch art boards with a “live” art area of about 10 x 15. With a comic book page print size of around 6.625 x 10.125 inches, most original art is done at about 148% enlargement, meaning the artist is working at a size about 148% bigger than what the art will print at. My MAD pages are done at 200% of print size,… READ MORE
February 9th, 2022 | Posted in Classic Rock Sketch Series
This week’s subject is recently deceased rock star Michael Lee Aday AKA Meat Loaf. Meat Loaf wasn’t just known for his music and acting… he’ll also go down in history for recording one of the longest and most overperformed karaoke songs of all time, “Paradise by the Dashboard Light”! Speaking of that song, I didn’t know until recently that the famous live video performance that was so ubiquitous on MTV back when MTV actually played music videos did not feature the woman who dueted with Meat Loaf on that song on the album “Bat Out of Hell”. That original performer was Ellen Foley. Foley was unable to tour… READ MORE
February 7th, 2022 | Posted in MAD Magazine
What embodies America’s obsession over professional sports more than this Sunday’s ultimate sports spectacle, the Super Bowl? Why, a bunch of former athletes, comedians, and talking heads sitting around on camera talking about sports, that’s what! In MAD #475, March 2007, I did the art for another installment of “MAD Deconstructs TV Talk Shows”, this time roasting “The Best damn Sports Show Period”, written by my CLAPTRAP cohort Desmond Devlin! This is another MAD job where most of my pencils and other process stuff have mysteriously disappeared, so I have almost none of that to share. I do remember two things about this job, however.… READ MORE
February 4th, 2022 | Posted in Freelancing
It’s been a while but I did the art for a new piece in the latest issue of the long running U.K. humor comic Viz!, but I have one in a recent issue. The feature is a mashup of the TV show “Mad Men” and the film series “Mad Max”. I love doing these features for Viz, few and far between as they are. They are challenging because the panels are REALLY SMALL, having to cram 15 or so panels per page with room for all the word balloons. Working small really forces me to think about how I am using solid black areas and to… READ MORE
February 2nd, 2022 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This week’s sketch is another in my “Classic Rock” series. Here’s my take on Irish singer/songwriter Van Morrison! Morrison’s look has changed so much from the 60’s to today, it was tough to decide what era to draw him from. I chose the 70’s, when he really established himself as a major star. Frankly I’m not sure I couldn’t pass this one off as Ludwig Van Beethoven if I just lost the mic. Maybe it’s just the crazy hair and ascot. They do both have “Van” in their names. . .coincidence? READ MORE
