Tom's Mad Blog
March 14th, 2021 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: What was your very first freelance job? A: My first truly professional freelance job, meaning for an actual company and not a personal commission or a live caricature, I did while still a student in art college, and it nicely opened my eyes to the realities of art direction and working with difficult clients. During my third year of college at the then named “School of Associated Arts” in St. Paul, MN., I was approached by the head of the design department about doing a job for him. It was fairly well known throughout the small school (my graduating class: 40 students) that I… READ MORE
March 13th, 2021 | Posted in General
The words “legendary” and “genius” get thrown around an awful lot these days, but if there is anyone in the world of cartooning to whom these words truly apply it would be the great Al Jaffee, who turns 100 years old today. MAD Magazine has had many artists work for them whose level of talent and skill have been off the charts: Jack Davis, Mort Drucker, Wally Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, Sergio Aragonés, Don Martin… the list keeps on going and going. Some were incredible visual artists like Drucker, Wood, Elder, and Davis, some were unique combinations of written and visual humor like Kurtzman, Sergio,… READ MORE
March 12th, 2021 | Posted in General
I’m starting to offer a few of my prints as high-end giclees, including this never-before-offered print of my “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” MAD cover prop. Up until now I’ve only offered a print of the MAD #9 version of this cover, by that I mean the actual cover of MAD #9 including the 2019 cover date, copy, etc. This new giclee print is how the art appeared onscreen in the actual film, with slight faux vintage edging, the 1961 date, issue number, and pricing. This is also a larger print, with the art being 14″ x 18″ (as opposed to 11″ x 14″)… READ MORE
March 11th, 2021 | Posted in General
Some of the things people have asked me to write as a personal inscription on a book or print purchased from my Studio Store: “To Steve- Thanks for saving my life in the war.” “For Chris- We’ll always have that one time at Comic-Con…” “To my birthday girl Sam, I love you and am so proud of you!” “Dave, You’ll never be as good as me but don’t give up trying!” “To my best friend Amy!” “To Darrin- The greatest caricaturist to ever set pen to paper.“ “John- Fuck off, mate!“ Obviously these and many other similar ones necessitate my emailing the customer and telling… READ MORE
March 10th, 2021 | Posted in Classic Rock Sketch Series
Here’s my sketch of music legend Bo Diddley. Original available in the Studio Store as usual. Incidentally next Wednesday is March 17th, and will mark the one year anniversary of “The Daily Coronacature”!It’s hard to beleive, but I started it on March 17th, 2020. I will pick the subject that day, but that will be the last day I do that. It’s been a fun run but it’s time for me to step back completely. I’ll still be doing my “Sketch o’the Week” every Wednesday, but I will no longer be concerned about making sure the subject isn’t one that’s already been picked as a… READ MORE
March 9th, 2021 | Posted in News
Work on Desmond Devlin and my book of MAD style movie parodies, CLAPTRAP, proceeds apace! Des is working on scripts while I have the art for several parodies in various stages of completion, from production layouts to rough sketches to pencils and inks, and finally full color finals. Along with full splash pages we will occasionally post finished panels or WIP images as sneak peeks. Here’s one now! This is the first story panel of our parody of “The Shawshank Redemption”, the splash page of which was shared earlier… Our spoof is 8 pages of sidesplitting hilarity, but you’ll have to wait until the book comes out to… READ MORE
March 8th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
We continue our Monday MADness chronological crawl through my work for MAD with a look at my 16th appearance in the magazine. This was another “sports” (specifically baseball) related piece written by Scott Lieberman for MAD #421, Sept 2002. It’s also the third (and last) feature I did in black and white for the magazine until the “retro” spoof I did of “Bounty Law” from “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” just a few years ago. I have to say I am embarrassed by that first panel. This might have been done 20 years ago and racial stereotyping was something no one was very conscious… READ MORE
March 7th, 2021 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I have been reading your book, “The Mad Art of Caricature” and find it very helpful and encouraging. I have two questions. When starting, what are the basic tools I should acquire? I know paper is often mentioned as being most important component, so do you have any recommendations in that regard? Was this covered in the book or did I miss something? (ok…guess technically that was 3 questions) A: Thanks for the kind words about my book. It is coming up on the 10 year anniversary of its publication, and I am still amazed at the steady interest in it. I suspect I… READ MORE
