For some reason, I’ve been doing a lot of caricature gigs lately. More than I have in a while. Sunday was particularly busy, as I had both a morning and afternoon event to do. Still, it keeps me busy and keeps me paid, so that’s all to the good.

The second Sunday event was for Lake Erie College, a frequent client. I love high school and college gigs in general because it’s just so cool to talk to people deciding what to do with their life. As someone who’s always known what he would do, the whole process of figuring things out and what other people decide what to do is just endlessly fascinating.

These photos were taken by the multi-talented Bob Zyromski, late of the YMCA and as always an ace photographer. (You should hire him to photograph something for you, too. Give him a shout here.) He was out taking pictures, and they are pretty cool, aside from my ugly mug. It’s interesting to see what I look like when I draw, too. I didn’t realize that I looked so intense.

With all of these photos, you can click and embiggen!

Man, waking up at 4:00am will mess you the frak up.

I felt like I was in a haze all day, even after I slept for an hour after the show. I managed to pump out a couple more parts of the Scene cover I’m doing. I even finished it this morning (and by morning, I mean something like seven or eight, not four) assuming my art director gives me the big okay. Part of said cover is even shown here. I’ll post another image or two, probably, before I show the full cover on Wednesday when it prints.

Anyway, Good Morning Cleveland was great. I was surprisingly conscious for that early in the morning. Everybody there, from Todd the producer to Paul and Kim and Susanne and Patty to everyone else were fantastic. And a big shout out to Kimmy, who I went to Lake Catholic with and brought me to their attention to be on the show. You can see a slideshow of those caricatures here. I think most of them came out pretty well, and I was lucky enough to get the subjects to sit down for me. Last time I was on the show (it can’t be seven years ago, can it?), I had to look across the studio to try to get a glimpse of them. There’s probably one of the set I did yesterday that I’d do differently, but I won’t out it here.

I think I even came across well in the interview, although I must admit that I’ve not had the intestinal fortitude to pull it up on the TiVo yet. I’ll probably burn it to disc and never look at it again. I really have a hard time watching myself on TV.

But don’t let that stop you if you’re the producer of another morning show and want to bring me out to your studio. Good Morning Dallas… Good Morning Poughkeepsie… whatever. It’s all about the self-promotion.

Yesterday I did five hours (or as I call it, The Nickle) of caricatures at a COSE event in Little Italy here in Cleveland. It was one of those near-perfect events. I never had a line, per se, but I did have a steady stream of subjects. At most, there were two or three kids lined-up behind me.

COSE does some great work, and depending on how some things shake down, I may wind up joining. And Little Italy is one of my favorite parts of Cleveland, and for a while had my favorite restaurant in town (which, sadly, has since closed to be replaced by fine place… it’s just not the same, though).

I even ran into some people I haven’t seen in years there. It’s amazing how that happens.

I’ve said before that it’s important to recognize when things go right and yesterday went really right.

Well, except for the light sunburn I got being outside and drawing for five hours. But I can deal with that.

I’m sure it’ll come as no surprise, but the Mystery Game Board piece was done for Scene Magazine, in the issue that comes out today.

They’re running a feature on Cleveland’s screwed up politics, and wanted a CandyLand type game board with several Cleveland incidents on it. So, everything from the sink hole to the Ameritrust Building, to the County Commissioners, to National City Bank’s troubles are illustrated.

Scene Magazine supplied me with a PDF of the finished version, which you can see by clickin’ and embiggenin’.

I’m thrilled with the way this one came out. I think it’s a great piece.

The Big Project is done and approved by my art director. I’m not going to post any more art until it prints sometime next week, and then I’ll show a lot more of it. I just want to allow the client to debut it.

It was a lot of fun to work on this one. A lot of stuff to draw, a lot of techniques to figure out, and a lot of things to make fit. This is definitely going on my next promo postcard.

It’s getting close to leave for Pub Quiz, where my team, the fearsome Team Eleven, should do some serious damage. We’re like the New York Yankees but not evil.

I finished inking the Mystery Piece. It took longer than I thought. I’ll be coloring it tomorrow. Whoa, that’s a lotta drawing and inking there.

If, four years ago, you would have asked me what my favorite TV show would be, there’s no way I would have said Battlestar Galactica. I like sci-fi, and was looking forward to the miniseries, but Galactica, really?

The mini-series had that languid mini-series pacing and that turned me off a little bit. I wasn’t sold on Starbuck being female, and there were other things that left me cool to the project. Still, there were two scenes that stand out that were so cool that I knew I’d give it a chance if it became a series. One was that, in a scene where the Colonial anthem needed to be played, that anthem was the original series theme song. That was a nice nod to the fans of the original show. The other was in the first couple of minutes, the Cylon now known as Number Six was examining a little baby and, in doing so, snapped it’s neck. It’s not that I’m in favor of infantcide, but it’s a brave storytelling choice, and one that really established the Cylons as a cold, calculating threat.

Then the first episode aired, and I was blown away. There was something about doing one hour instead of two that tightened everything. And it’s never looked back since.

Battlestar Galactica is just a perfectly executed piece of entertainment. Actors, writers, special effects all work so seamlessly that there’s no weak link. It’s one of the few shows that have inspired blind trust in me. If Ronald Moore and David Eick said "For the next season, we’re going to do BSG as a three-camera sitcom, shot on tape with a laugh track, and bring in Norman Fell as Cylon Number One" I’d have to say "Okay, I’ll check it out." That’s the kind of trust they’ve engendered.

The last season of Battlestar starts this Friday. It had dropped of my radar (or DRAIS as we BSG peeps would say) thanks to Sci-Fi’s odd "whenever we feel like it" scheduling. But it’s back now, and I’m going to enjoy every last minute of it. And, with Galactica on my mind, I’ve done an illo of the sexy Cylon, Number Six.

Wow, five years. I hadn’t redesigned the main Thomz website in five years. In art terms, that’s an eternity. So, I figured it was time to slap on a fresh coat of paint.

The first thing you might notice is that the site is much more blog-driven. I use the great WordPress engine to run my main weblog, and I’ve folded some of that in. So, when I post something on my blog that has to do with my caricature work, that post will appear on my caricature page on the main site, too. It’ll serve to generate new content with very little work, and I’m all about that.

It also means that some of the pages have one generic post on them right now, but that will change soon. And I’m making this post appear in all the newer pages, too.

The portfolios have been changed around, too, so there’s new content there. The calendar has been updated in all locations to go to my iCal page. So, if you’re looking to book me for an event, you can find my schedule there. The phenomenally successful Commissions page has been linked to the main site, which it wasn’t earlier. The Con Reports section, which hadn’t been changed in four years, now grabs the blog feed as well.

Also gone is the little Thom Zahler cartoon from the main page. I didn’t want him to overstay his welcome, but the main viewer on the home page is swappable, so maybe he, or some of his cartoon brothers, will reappear some time. The idea is to show a representation of what I do, but also have a plank I can swap out, maybe even make rotate again, so I can highlight a particular project or event on the main page. And, the shape of said plank lets me have a lot more freedom to do so. That’s a little inside baseball, but I thought I’d share.

So, sit and stay a spell. Walk around these digital corridors and see what there is to see. And let me know how you like it.

This is the first caricature post.