MAD Magazine
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
May 3rd, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
It’s another chapter in our ongoing saga of a look back at all my MAD work in chronological order. This week we have a peek at another movie parody, this time MAD‘s MADdest writer Dick Debartolo and I terminate “Terminator 3”. This spoof appeared in MAD #432, Aug 2003. This is a rare look at my final pencils for a splash page. It’s rare because I very seldom scan in the final pencils. When I post “pencils” here what you are really seeing are the “roughs”, or the initial sketched pages I scan and send to MAD for review. Those I do right on the… READ MORE
April 26th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
It’s yet another thrilling episode of the excruciatingly dull chronological crawl through my work in MAD, featuring my art for the two pager “A MAD Peek Behind the Scenes on the Set of The Hulk.” This piece was written by “MAD‘s MADdest Writer” Dick DeBartolo and “Slightly Disturbed MAD Editor” Greg Leitman. It appeared in MAD #431, July 2003. I did several of these “MAD Peek Behind the Scenes on the Set of…” features, and they were all pretty much the same overhead shot looking down on the set of a TV show or movie with caricatures of the cast as well as set workers,… READ MORE
April 19th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
It’s another installment of our ridiculous chronological crawl through my work in MAD! We return to the world of superhero movie spoofs with this parody of the film “X2”, written by my CLAPTRAP cohort Desmond Devlin and appearing in MAD #430, June 2003. The movie debuted in theaters on May 2, 2003, so we actually had the parody out BEFORE the film, since this issue was on news stand in mid April. Are we clairvoyant? Is Desmond a Time Lord? Did we use MAD Magazine’s tremendous clout in the world of entertainment to see an advanced release of the film? Nope, nope, and MAD has… READ MORE
April 16th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Mental Floss posted this video about the history of MAD magazine a couple weeks ago. I’ve been meaning to link to it but I keep forgetting. Today I remembered. While it’s only 15 minutes, the video does a pretty good job of covering the origins of MAD. They are also more accurate about the details than many longer stories from bigger sources. Certainly they deserve kudos for getting the history right concerning MAD’s switch to a magazine format. So many other media stories about MAD assumes they switched to avoid the Comics Code Authority because it happened around the same time, when that was just… READ MORE
April 13th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Hey everybody! I have some art in the latest issue of MAD Magazine!!! For realz! I just cancelled my application to replace the license plates on my car as these are current again for now: MAD #19 drops today and the above two pager contains some new art from me, written by Benjamin Le Clear. It’s still largely a reprint piece with the different Al Jaffee clairvoyant inventions, but new stuff is new stuff! BTW I hand lettered the title and the birthday wishes for Al in the bottom right, as art director Suzy Hutchinson wanted an old school look to go with Mr. Original… READ MORE
April 12th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
The next stop on our MADdeningly slow chronological slog through my MAD work is a look at my 21st piece in the magazine, “MAD Sizes Up the 2003 Oscars: Best Picture” from MAD #428, April 2003. The writing is credited to Greg Leitman, Barry Liebmann, David Shayne and Mike Snider. The Alfred “Oscar” statue is by Harry North, ESQ. MAD #428 had two other of these “”MAD Sizes Up the 2003 Oscars” features, all written by the same crew. “Best Actor” had art by Drew Friedman, and “Best Actress” had art by Rick Tulka. As it happens, we are finally reaching the point where I… READ MORE
April 9th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
The Usual Idiots at MAD posted this sneak peek from MAD #19 on their Instagram yesterday, so I thought I’d share it here. It’s from a NEW piece of art I did for that issue… a two pager wishing Al Jaffee a happy birthday and tying in to their “MAD Predicts the Future” issue theme. The issue drops next week Tuesday, so I will share more of the art then. And yes, that’s also a nod to Johnny Carson‘s “Carnac the Magnificent”. READ MORE
