Tom's Mad Blog
March 5th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Apparently if you ever aspired to be one of “The Usual Gang of Idiots” at MAD Magazine, being born in March raised your odds at bit. It seems like a lot of UGOI have birthdays this month, notably Al Jaffee who turns 100 on the 13th, Bill Gaines (March 1st), Ray Alma (March 4th), Sam Viviano (also March 13th), and Mort Drucker (March 22nd). I’m probably missing a few. Another longtime member of the Usual Gang’s birthday is this month… this day, in fact! Paul Coker Jr. turns 92 today. I’m told Jaffee always refers to him as, “that kid.” I’ve always felt that Paul… READ MORE
March 4th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
The Chicago Reader’s Jake Austen has a terrific article about new MAD Fold-In Fiend Johnny Sampson, which also serves as a pretty good snapshot of the state of the magazine today. Definitely worth a read. READ MORE
March 4th, 2021 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
A few days ago the official “Daily Coronacature” subject was SNL alum Leslie Jones, so I posted a caricature of her and Kyle Mooney I had done as part of an illustration of the full 2017 Saturday Night Live cast. A few people asked to see the full piece. Here it is. I did this as a personal commission for another member of the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, Bobby Moynihan. Bobby want it to give to the cast as an end of the season gift, since it was his last on the show. He told me which character each person should be drawn… READ MORE
March 3rd, 2021 | Posted in Daily Coronacature
Here’s my Gene Hackman caricature sketch for this week’s Wednesday edition of “The Daily Coronacature”. Original available in the Studio Store as usual. READ MORE
March 2nd, 2021 | Posted in News
Yesterday Comic-Con International made the not very surprising announcement that the 2021 San Diego Comic-Con was not going to take place in July as an in-person event, but will instead be held “virtually” as it was in 2020. So, that’s two years of SDCC wiped out by the pandemic. Here’s their official press release. Again, not surprising. These types of mega events that feature cavernous indoor convention centers packed shoulder to shoulder with shuffling, droplet spewing humanity are the very last things that will return. Forget about catching a virus, after a walk across the SDCC convention floor I come out the other side smeared… READ MORE
March 1st, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
We continue our Monday MADness chronological crawl through my work for MAD with a look at my 15th appearance in the magazine, and my first “Superhero” movie parody. This is a spoof of the first Tobey Maguire Spider-Man film, written by Dick DeBartolo and appearing in MAD #418, June 2002. I remember I inked a lot of this job while I was attending a National Caricaturists Network convention in Las Vegas in 2002. That splash page features a lot of cameos of people I know. From the far left, the guy in the blue shirt is my pal Jim Batts, the little girl with the… READ MORE
February 28th, 2021 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I’m thinking about opening a retail caricature business in my area because I’m unable to do live gigs that used to be my main source of income before the pandemic. Can you answer some questions about that for me? A: This email question went on to ask a lot of specifics about the retail caricature business, which having owned and operated caricature concessions for over 30 years in venues ranging from county fairs to major theme parks I have a fair amount of experience in. I’m going to paraphrase a lot of these questions, and generalize a lot of the answers since every situation… READ MORE
February 26th, 2021 | Posted in News
I am a longtime member of the National Cartoonists Society, a 75 year old organization of professional cartoonists that has boasted members like Rube Goldberg, Milton Caniff, Jeff MacNelly, Charles Schulz, Jack Davis, Sergio Aragonés, Walt Kelly, Mort Drucker, Alex Raymond… well, way too many of the greatest of the greatest to list here. It’s a wonderful organization full of terrific and super talented people. The NCS will be hosting a virtual “NCS Open House/Meet & Greet” tonight at 7:00pm EST via Zoom. Here’s their brief description about it: Join fellow cartoonists to learn about the NCS, hear from some of our current members, and… READ MORE
