Tom Bunk
Encyclopedia
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
ist known for adding multiple extraneous details to his posters, cartoons and illustrations created for both American and German publishers.
Born Tomas Maria Bunk in Split
Split (city)
Split is a Mediterranean city on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea, centered around the ancient Roman Palace of the Emperor Diocletian and its wide port bay. With a population of 178,192 citizens, and a metropolitan area numbering up to 467,899, Split is by far the largest Dalmatian city and...
, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, he studied stage design and fine art at the Academy of Arts in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, Germany. In 1973, he moved to Berlin, where he began rendering humorous subjects in oil paintings. After selling these paintings in three successful shows, he turned to cartooning and contributed to underground comics in 1976.
His cartoon creations appeared monthly in the satirical magazine Pardon, other European comic magazines and comic anthologies. After collecting his comics in three books, he moved to New York in 1983 and began drawing for Raw, the graphic story magazine edited and published by Françoise Mouly
Françoise Mouly
Françoise Mouly is a Paris-born French artist and designer best known for her work with RAW, a showcase publication for cutting edge comic art, and as art editor of The New Yorker, a position she has held since 1993...
and Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman is an American comics artist, editor, and advocate for the medium of comics, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book memoir, Maus. His works are published with his name in lowercase: art spiegelman.-Biography:Spiegelman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to Polish Jews...
. He drew Topps
Topps
The Topps Company, Inc., manufactures chewing gum, candy and collectibles. Based in New York, New York, Topps is best known as a leading producer of baseball cards, football cards, basketball cards, hockey cards and other sports and non-sports themed trading cards.-Company history:Topps itself was...
trading cards, including Wacky Packages
Wacky Packages
Wacky Packages are a series of trading cards and stickers featuring parodies of North American consumer products. The cards were produced by the Topps Company beginning in 1967, usually in a sticker format. The original series sold for two years, and the concept proved popular enough that it has...
and Garbage Pail Kids
Garbage Pail Kids
Garbage Pail Kids , "La Pandilla Basura" or "Basuritas" in Latin America, "Gang do Lixo" in Brazil, "Sgorbions" in Italy, "Les Crados" in France and "Die total kaputten Kids" in Germany) is a series of trading cards produced by the Topps Company, originally released in 1985 and designed to parody...
. In 1993, he became a regular Mad
Mad (magazine)
Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...
cartoonist, and his contributions have led some to regard him as the modern-day replacement at Mad for Will Elder
Will Elder
William Elder was an American illustrator and comic book artist who worked in numerous areas of commercial art, but is best known for a zany cartoon style that helped launch Harvey Kurtzman's Mad comic book in 1952....
.
He continues to do humorous and surreal oil paintings of strange situations and subjects, as he notes:
- In my paintings, I am interested in telling a story. I like the story to be open ended and enigmatic. It should have an internal truth, which the viewer will recognize in his/her own way. As elements in my storytelling, I use symbols and their arrangement. I like everyday objects to have a meaning beyond the obvious, a metaphysical meaning. When I paint I try to keep a balance between my intellect, my intuition and my somewhat humouristic approach. In this way I keep the painting always interesting and alive for me. This is also what I would like the painting to be for the viewer, a stimulating and entertaining puzzle.
His list of American clients also includes Burger King
Burger King
Burger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain...
, Byron Preiss
Byron Preiss
Byron Preiss was an American writer, editor, and publisher. He founded and served as president of Byron Preiss Visual Publications, and later of iBooks.-Early life and career:...
, Silly Productions, Springer International, It's About Time (in association with the American Institute of Physics, the National Science Foundation and the American Geological Institute) and Unicef. His clients in Germany: Carlsen Verlag, Ravensburger Verlag, Semmel Verlach, Volksverlag, Weissmann Verlag and in 2008 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, where he had a daily comic running (Ein Berliner in New York) In addition to doing book covers, he also has illustrated children's books, and since 1990, he contributes illustrations and posters for school science books for the "It's About Time" publisher.
For well over a decade, he has contributed to Quantum, a bimonthly science and mathematics magazine for students. These illustrations were exhibited in 2005 at the New York Hall of Science in Queens and collected in a book, Quantoons, published by the National Science Teachers Association in 2006. Arthur Eisenkraft, the co-author of Quantoons, commented:
- Tomas Bunk has provided an insight into the world of physics that only a Mad magazine and Garbage Pail Kids artist could do. His written explanations of the creative art process that accompanies each Quantoon adds a richness to the art appreciation. It is remarkable to see how an artist without any physics background can merge physics content with artistic vision and make physics personal.
Tom Bunk is also exhibiting his comics and Illustrations in Germany.In 2009 he took part in a comic show "Jahrhundert der Comics, die Zeitungs-Strip-Jahre" in Bielefeld and Rehmscheid and in 2010 in the Jewish Museum in Berlin, and he exhibited his Quantoons again in 2010 in Frankfurt/M.