Tom's Mad Blog
May 18th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Former president Barack Obama and his family’s Portuguese water dog Bo passed away last week. They got the dog as a puppy shortly after they moved into the White House. I am reluctantly reminded of the first book I ever illustrated for the MAD gang, Bo Confidential: The Secret Files of America’s First Dog. Bo moved into the White House on April 14th of 2009, and he got a LOT of media attention. Naturally the folks at MAD thought that was ridiculous, so they quickly wrote a short book and it was rushed to press… and I mean RUSHED. I got the assignment in late April of… READ MORE
May 17th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
I’m sure you are on the edge of your seat for yet another fascinating episode from our weekly chronological crawl through my work for MAD Magazine. This week’s episode features a spoof of the TLC home improvement show “Trading Spaces”, written by MAD‘s Maddest writer Dick Debartolo, and appearing in MAD #435, November 2003. This was the first of what would be four home improvement/HGTV “reality” show parodies I would draw for MAD, and I believe they did a couple of others drawn by other artists. This always made me scratch my head a bit. There were many really popular TV series that MAD never… READ MORE
May 16th, 2021 | Posted in General
Q: Do you think that going to college for art after high school is necessary or super important? I’ve had some people tell me yes and others say no, but I was curious of what the opinion of someone who has been in the art industry for years would have to say. I would like to go into a career in illustration, whether that be comics, magazines, covers, books, etc. I was planning on applying to college this year in order to go this coming fall, but due to Covid, I decided it would be a better idea to hold off a year and just… READ MORE
May 14th, 2021 | Posted in General
Here’s another of my “Virtual Artist’s Alley” commissions. Having just finished a big corporate job that took nearly 4 weeks to complete, I had to put everything on hold for almost a month. However, I am spending the next few days wrapping up the last few of these I have to do. If you are waiting for one, they should all be shipped by Monday! Then, it’s back to CLAPTRAP. READ MORE
May 13th, 2021 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
These were a couple of movie props I did for the 2009 film “Super Capers”, featuring the main antagonist character played by Michael Rooker. I did a bunch of work for this movie, including caricatures of all the main actors which were sort of animated for the opening credits, and some illustrations for a flashback sequence that was similarly half animated. These were supposed to be giant oil paintings that hung in the villain’s lair. He was a kind of evil Bruce Wayne, so these were supposed to show him as a daring adventurer, but obviously as caricatures and with gags. READ MORE
May 12th, 2021 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
I’m back to doing a “Sketch o’the Week” on Wednesdays. This week’s sketch is pulling double duty as my SotW and as an other example of a sketch that anyone who backs Des and my book CLAPTRAP at the “Schmendrick” level will get drawn in their copy. The standalone original sketch of this is available in the Studio Store. READ MORE
May 11th, 2021 | Posted in Stuff from my Studio
Not everything in the studio is Batman related! In a corner resides the mystical sword Excalibur! I tell anyone who asks me about the sword that I won in playing blackjack… which is sort of true. Back in the early 90’s I took a trip out to Las Vegas just for fun to draw caricatures for a weekend at the Excalibur Hotel and Casino on the Strip. At the time, the Excalibur was a pretty new place. The caricature concessions were owned by my former boss Steve Fasen, several friends of mine were working there, and it was a really busy place to draw. So,… READ MORE
May 10th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
It’s another riveting episode of Tom’s Chronological MAD Career! This week’s installment is a look at another sports feature entitled “Without Sports…”, written by the late Barry Liebmann, and appearing in MAD #434, Oct 2003. This was one of only two pieces I worked on with Barry, the other in 2012. Barry sadly passed away in 2017 at the way too early age of 63. This piece is memorable for me for two reasons. First, I had a lot of fun including MAD patriarch Bill Gaines as “God” in the upper right corner. I am pretty sure doing that was my idea, but I don’t… READ MORE
