Tom’s MADness!
November 11th, 2024 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Here we go with another stumble down the icy path that was my work for MAD Magazine. This week we revisit the first (and only) entry of a great feature idea for the freshly rebooted MAD, “Movies MAD Missed!” Her’s MAD’s spoof of “A Christmas Story” written by my CLAPTRAP co-conspirator Desmond Devlin and first appearing in MAD #5, Feb 2019. Wait, isn’t this movie almost 40 years old? MAD just got around to doing a parody in 2019? As Ralphie’s dad might say… What the $%#@&*©#$@!??!. Here’s the story of how this came about. Back when Bill Morrison was about to take over as… READ MORE
October 28th, 2024 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Here we go with another edition of Monday MADness, where we continue our shambling lurch down the Trail of Terrible that was my work for MAD Magazine. I timed this post for Halloween week for obvious reasons. This week we look back at “Sven Golly… It’s Svengoolie!”, written by Ian Boothby and first appearing in MAD #4, Dec 2018. This is an interesting feature because it’s not technically a parody of the “Svengoolie” TV show. They use his actual name instead of a spoof version like “Svengoofy”, so it can’t be a parody. Instead it’s played like an actual episode of the show, the gag… READ MORE
October 21st, 2024 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Back in 2016 MAD started producing a series of parodies of children’s books starting with Goodnight Batcave (spoofing the beloved Margaret Wise Brown/Clement Hurd classic Goodnight Moon) written by MAD editor Dave Croatto with art by me. We followed that in 2017 with Superman and and the Miserable, Rotten, No Fun, Really Bad Day, also written by Dave with art by me, and in 2018 with Don’t Let the Penguin Drive the Batmobile, this time penned by another MAD editor, Jacob Lambert, and again with art by yours truly. I talked about that one last week. Shortly after MAD moved to Burbank in early 2018, we actually pitched another kids book parody to DC, this one entitled Where the Wonder Things Are, spoofing another… READ MORE
October 14th, 2024 | Posted in MAD Magazine
This week we take a brief detour from the bumpy, pothole-filled washboard of a road that is our chronological journey through my work at MAD to have a look at the third and the last book project I did for MAD. First there was Goodnight Batcave, then there was Superman and the Miserable, Rotten, No Fun, Really Bad Day. MAD wrapped up it’s shameful desecration of everyone’s childhood memories with this third volume in their kid’s book parody series. It was released almost exactly six years ago today. MAD editor Dave Croatto wrote the first two, but MAD associate editor Jacob Lambert did the dishonors with the writing this… READ MORE
October 7th, 2024 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Welcome to another edition of Monday MADness, where we painstakingly slog through the work I did for MAD Magazine. This week we have a look at MAD‘s spoof of the film “Ready Player One”, written by my CLAPTRAP cohort Desmond Devlin and first appearing in MAD #3, Oct 2018. This splash page took a long time to work out. This movie is kind of a MAD parody in itself. Dozens of cameos of pop culture icons and gaming characters and vehicles appear throughout the film. It was almost impossible to one up that without going totally over the top like this. I took some major… READ MORE
September 30th, 2024 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Here we go with another moronic edition of Monday MADness, where we look back at my work for MAD Magazine. We are no on the second issue of the “new” MAD that had recently relocated to Burbank, CA in early 2018 with new VP of Editorial Bill Morrison and art director Suzy Hutchinson. This job was another throwback to an earlier concept MAD had done a few times… a single feature that incorporated several mini movie parodies in a sequence narrated by a movie critic. This updated concept was a play on social media/YouTube “content creators” who theater hop between films doing reviews without paying… READ MORE
August 26th, 2024 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Welcome to another edition of Monday MADness, where we continue or seemingly endless trek through the dreck that was my work for MAD Magazine! Do not despair! Sadly, this dreck trek is far from endless, and we are starting to near the end. But first, we revisit the first issue of the MAD Magazine “reboot”, which was the first issue produced entirely by the new Burbank based staff and which featured not one but two full length spoofs with art by me. We took a look at the first one last week, a parody of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” that appeared near the front of… READ MORE
August 19th, 2024 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Well kids, we are now in to the last days of MAD on our excruciatingly long journey through my work with the magazine. At this point in our timeline (early 2018) the New York version of MAD has packed up their veeblefetzers and rode off into the sunset, and the Burbank staff has fired up their poiuyts and started over with a brand new MAD #1. I did the art for not one but TWO full length parodies, one of a movie and one of a TV show (with a little throwback fun thrown in). The first feature that I did that appeared in MAD… READ MORE
