Tom’s MADness!
January 17th, 2022 | Posted in MAD Magazine
It’s Monday! You know what that means… time for another revolting episode of our long and winding stroll down the road that is my work for MAD magazine. MAD #471, Nov 2006 marked the second time I had multiple pieces in the same issue, and the first time I contributed anything to “The Fundalini Pages”. Back in 2004 MAD added a feature in the front of the magazine called “The Fundalini Pages”. It appeared immediately after the “Letters and Tomatoes” section and consisted of usually four to six pages of short form features like comic strips, single panel gag cartoons, all text pieces, photo gags,… READ MORE
January 10th, 2022 | Posted in MAD Magazine
It’s Monday, and that means another tasty episode from our ongoing menu of my work for MAD Magazine. For this main course, all I can say is if you can’t stand the %$#&@ heat then get out of my %$#!*& kitchen! It’s back to “reality” TV with MAD’s parody of the foul-mouthed Gordon Ramsey and his chef competition show “Hell’s Kitchen”. This spoof was written by MAD’s MADdest Writer Dick DeBartolo and appeared in MAD #470, October 2006. I can’t remember if the deadline on this one was really short, but these “roughs” are about as rough as they ever got for me. I had… READ MORE
January 3rd, 2022 | Posted in MAD Magazine
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s the Superman sequel the WB wants to forget ever happened! Too late! MAD did a spoof of “Superman Returns” in MAD #468, August 2006, written by MAD‘s MADdest Writer Dick DeBartolo, so it’s immortalized… just like “Bunny Lake is Missing”! I thought it was odd having Spider-Man narrate the first part of the parody, but it actually worked really well because the gag about his being a hipper and more relevant movie superhero aside, it allowed for an “outside looking in” explanation of the convoluted plot and how the movie attempted to be a direct sequel to 1980’s… READ MORE
December 20th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Rev those engines, race fans! It’s monday, and that means it’s time for another agonizingly slow lap around my work for MAD Magazine. This week we are shifting gears with what was my first all-digital piece for the magazine, “Rejected Characters from Cars”, written by Jacob Lambert and first appearing in MAD #467, July 2006. When I say “all digital” I just mean the finished art. I still did the pencil sketches with actual pencils on actual paper, but after scanning the roughs I did do any physical inking on bristol board like I usually do. I wbt right on top of the pencils with… READ MORE
December 13th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
It’s time for another off-key Monday edition of Tom’s MADness! This time we drop the mic with a return to the world of “reality” TV and another cringe-worthy performance with “You Can Write the Next American Idol Single”, written by my CLAPTRAP partner Desmond Devlin and appearing in MAD #466, June 2006. This was also my 50th appearance in the magazine. I have to admit I don’t like these kinds of reality competition shows, and have never watched more than a few episodes of any of them. It’s not that I think they are bad shows, I just find them uninteresting and boring. My wife… READ MORE
December 6th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Yeehaw! It’s Monday, and that means it’s time for another stop on the dusty trail that is my work for MAD Magazine. Today we have a look at MAD‘s spoof of the multiple Oscar winning film “Brokeback Mountain”, written by Arnie Kogen and appearing in MAD #465, May 2006. I thought MAD doing a spoof of this film was a real surprise for a couple of reasons. First, because of the lag between when a movie is in theaters and when the MAD parody appears in print, and given how short a time most movies spend playing in theaters nowadays, MAD mostly stuck with big… READ MORE
November 29th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Pay attention, class! We are taking a quick recess from our chronological review of my work in MAD magazine to have a lesson on some stuff I did for its all-too-brief sister publication, MAD KIDS. In late 2005, MAD started publishing a second magazine aimed at the grade school “Nickelodeon” market called MAD KIDS. It featured some reprinted content from the MAD archives that was often softed up for younger readers, but also had a lot of new content as well as puzzles and games. There were younger, kid versions of Alfred and Spy vs. Spy, and in general the humor was aimed at the… READ MORE
November 22nd, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Attention, class! Stop with the spitballs and paper airplanes, ya momsers! It’s Monday and time for another history lesson on the worst of MAD Magazine with a look at “35 Scholarly Reasons Why School Sucks!”, written by Jacob Lambert and drawn by me and the terrific Peter Bagge! I thought it was a cool concept with this feature to split the art duties between myself and Peter. He had just started having art in MAD about a year earlier, but was already very well known for his comic book Hate and other work. I did not see any of Peter’s art on this until I… READ MORE
