This week’s CLAPTRAP update is a video “behind the scenes” look at the creation of Des and my splash page for our parody of “Goodfellas” that we shared a few weeks ago. Enjoy: READ MORE
My next assignment for MAD appeared in issue #416, May 2002. It was a return to a sports-themed feature called “Their Team…& Your Team…” written by John Prete. I started for MAD at almost exactly the time it switched to a color format. In fact a big part of why I started getting work from them was that they were planning the switch to color and I did my own digital coloring. In the 20 years I did work for the magazine, I only ever did four jobs in black and white. This was one of them. This was, however, the first black and white… READ MORE
Q: This question is prompted by your recent Care Bears post … I haven’t seen you talk in your blog before about pitching your own ideas to MAD. Did you do this often, and did many get picked up? A: Actually that may have been my first and last pitch for a completely independent piece for MAD. I do not remember ever doing that before or since. It never really occurred to me to even try pitching my own features or gag ideas to them, because I was usually very busy doing the art for features they assigned to me that others wrote. I regularly… READ MORE
I got this question via DM recently: Hi Tom, are issues #9 and #10 the last official MAD Magazine issues before things changed? MAD has undergone a LOT of changes in the last 3 years, and there has been a lot of confusion about things because their parent company hasn’t been very clear about what is happening, and certainly not about WHY things are happening. In response to this I put together a little timeline of the what and whens of recent changes to MAD: October 2013– DC Comics announces they are closing their New York offices and moving them to the Warner Bros complex in Burbank, CA. MAD‘s… READ MORE
Yesterday my pal and writer extraordinaire Mark Evanier shared the not exactly unexpected news that the Wondercon 2021 comic convention will not take place as a live three day event in Anaheim CA as previously scheduled March 26-28th, but will be a two day virtual event instead on Friday and Saturday, March 26 and 27, 2021. Again, not exactly a shocker, but I believe this will be the first major comic book convention that has seen its in-person event cancelled TWICE since the pandemic began. I fear it won’t be the last. I would have attended Wondercon as I usually do, so I am planning… READ MORE
I did this back in 2016 after “Superman v Batman” Dawn of Justice” came out… just for fun. It was a satirical commentary on how director Zack Snyder can take all the fun and joy out of virtually anything. I pitched it to MAD for the Fundalini Pages but they didn’t go for it, so I just posted in online. Here it is again about 5 years later, with an update! READ MORE
Here’s my caricature of Jeff Bridges for today’s “The Daily Coronacature”. Original available in the Studio Store. This is another example of the type of sketch you’ll be getting in your pre-order copy of CLAPTRAP if you are a “Schmendrick” level backer and choose “The Big Lebowski” as the parody you want a character sketch from. You get to choose any of the 12 movies we are spoofing in the book as where you want the sketch to come from. I will have at least one character from each to choose from, in some cases two. Only 14 of these “Schmendrick” sketch editions remain! READ MORE
Former MAD art director and longtime MAD artist Sam Viviano announced his “The Jaffee Project” last week, which is a little something he’s graciously put together to celebrate the great Al Jaffee‘s upcoming 100th birthday on March 13th. Given the pandemic, we can’t very well do this the way we’d like, with a Times Square parade, so Sam thought some ingenuity was required. Sam’s idea was to give everyone a place to send their birthday wishes to Al, and then Sam will put them together and schlep them over to Al’s place. I have a feeling Sam may need to rent a Uhaul from the… READ MORE
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