Tom's Mad Blog
September 13th, 2020 | Posted in News
I am in Indianapolis this weekend teaching a caricature workshop. Yesterday I am in the middle of the opening presentation when one of my students gets up with his phone and plays us all a video from the live virtual National Cartoonists Society NCSFest, where I was awarded a “Silver Reuben” divisional award for “Magazine/Newspaper Illustration”. I got a nice round of applause from the class! It was a nice surprise. I had to do back to teaching the class, so I was not properly able to thank the NCS for this honor. There is nothing like being recognized by your peers. It made me… READ MORE
September 10th, 2020 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
These are a few drawings I did this back in 2014 for a company that provides all the artwork for the Palm restaurants around the country. If you’ve never been to a Palm, it’s a restaurant with the walls covered in cartoons, caricatures and illustrations depicting famous people from the area, patrons, etc. as well as general gags and humor. These gags were suggested to me, so don’t blame me for the cheesecake ones. I did them as concepts for possible inclusion on the walls of the redesigned Palm in L.A. I have no idea if any of them actually made the walls down there. READ MORE
September 9th, 2020 | Posted in Daily Coronacature
Here’s my take on Alan Rickman… I had to draw him as Snape. As always, the original is available in the Studio Store. READ MORE
September 8th, 2020 | Posted in News
I’ve been a member of the National Cartoonists Society since 1999, and served as president for 4 years from 2011 to 2015. Every year the NCS has its Reuben Award Weekend, where members get together for a few days to hang out, listen to panels and speakers, talk shop, eat and drink a lot, and enjoy the company of some of the greatest cartoonists (and people) on Planet Earth. Like most other things in 2020, the annual Reuben Awards Weekend, that was to take place in Kansas City the first weekend in June, had to be cancelled. Here’s some art by me for the original… READ MORE
September 7th, 2020 | Posted in MAD Magazine
I realized the other day I never did my usual listing of contents for MAD #15. The issue has been out for a month already, but here you go: Cover (Isabel Samaras) Snappy Answers to Super-Stupid Questions (Kerry Callen) Spy vs. Spy (Peter Kuper) ECCCH-Men* (Dick Debartolo, Sam Viviano, Colors: Nathan Kane) MAD #327, May 1994 With Great Power Comes Great Instability (Jon Adams) New Comic Book Superheroes Based on Real People* (Mike Snyder, Angelo Torres, Colors: Carrie Strachan) MAD #288, July 1989 More Powerful than a Locomotive* (Sergio Aragonés) MAD #172, Jan 1975 A “Comics” Scene We’d Like to See* (Don “Duck” Edwing, George Woodbridge, Colors: Nathan Kane) MAD #103, June 1966 Everyday Pet Peeves of Transformers* (Jacob Lambert, Tom Bunk) MAD #480,… READ MORE
September 6th, 2020 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I heard an interview with you on a podcast earlier this summer where you mentioned you and another MAD creator were planning on doing a Kickstarter project, but I haven’t heard anything more about it. Is that still happening? A: Yes. Longtime MAD writer Desmond Devlin and I have been working on a project all summer, and we are just putting the finishing touches on our Kickstarter campaign. I’ll start foreshadowing a launch planned for mid September soon…. actually with this mailbag answer! Look for some more hints over the next week, and a launch the week after that! We hope people will get… READ MORE
September 3rd, 2020 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
Back in 2007 I did this illustration of Sherlock Holmes for a series of audiobooks of the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories, read by David Ian Davies. They are still available on Audible.com. The likeness is loosely based on Basil Rathbone but not really… it is more my idea of what I think Holmes would look like. David also produced a sculpted pen based on my drawing, which I thought turned out pretty cool: READ MORE
September 2nd, 2020 | Posted in Daily Coronacature
Like the rest of the world I was shocked to hear of the passing of actor Chadwick Boseman at age 43 last week. While I thought he was great as King T’Challa in the MCU and as Jackie Robinson in “42”, I had no idea what a terrific human being he was as well until all the stories and tibutes to him started appearing. It’s sad that so often we don’t take the time to know and honor people for being as kind and generous and heroic as Chadwick was until we have lost them. RIP. Study notes on Chadwick Boseman: As always, we look… READ MORE
