Category: Uncategorized

Had a great time at MoCCA yesterday… many thanks to those who came by to say hi, and even drop a few bucks on a sketch to help the museum.  Here's a picture I found on the web of myself and the immensely talented Dan (Bizarro) Piraro at our sketching table.

The highlight for me was the panel on Humbug, the 1950s comic book / magazine that's just been lavishly reprinted by Fantagraphics.  Two of the five core players (and co-owners), Arnold Roth and Al Jaffee spoke, and they were in fine form, absolutely cracking up the audience from start to finish.  They don't make 'em like that anymore.

New books?  Among them, Brendan Burford has a new Syncopated anthology out…

And Brian McFadden just released this beaut last Tuesday.  His comic strip Big Fat Whale is hilarious…

Great to see lots of friends there, unfortunately for too short a time, including cartooning power couple Mikhaela Reid and Masheka Wood, from whom I got a great minicomic, "So You've Been Laid Off."

On this Saturday, June 6, from 1pm to 2pm, I'll be at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival doing sketches to raise money for the Museum.

I'll also bring a copy of my first book, titled simply "Tom the Dancing Bug," which I'll sell to (and sketch in for) the highest bidder during that time (bidding starts at $20).  This book is long out of print, and has become quite expensive.

So stop by, say hello, buy a sketch (I'll draw anything you want, subject to the parameters of good taste and propriety), and/or put in a bid on the book.

Hope to see you there!

MoCCA Art Fest
69th Regiment Armory
68 Lexington Avenue, between 25th and 26th Streets
June 6th and 7th, 11am-6pm
$10 per day
$15 per weekend
MoCCA Members: $10 per weekend

This week’s comic:

I think this is the only time a comic came out of a blog post; after writing this post of a few days ago, I thought there may be a comic in my take on this Jon & Kate Plus Eight thing, and wrote this up.

I think I treaded a very fine line here, and I truly hope I didn’t cross it.  I wanted the comic to humorously point out how this show, which had become very popular with children (and was marketed to them), had unexpectedly taken a dark turn.  When you’ve got a reality children’s show, reality can take it to places inappropriate for children.

But I worry that I crossed the line into making fun of this family’s actual circumstances, which of course isn’t funny at all.  I remain willfully ignorant of the specific allegations and accusations between Kate and Jon, so my extrapolations on marital and family difficulties are intended to be generic.  And I intentionally didn’t depict any specific kids, but rather just drew a brood of eight kids of roughly the correct ages.  So I hope I made choices that made my goal clear.

This week’s comic:

I think this is the only time a comic came out of a blog post; after writing this post of a few days ago, I thought there may be a comic in my take on this Jon & Kate Plus Eight thing, and wrote this up.

I think I treaded a very fine line here, and I truly hope I didn’t cross it.  I wanted the comic to humorously point out how this show, which had become very popular with children (and was marketed to them), had unexpectedly taken a dark turn.  When you’ve got a reality children’s show, reality can take it to places inappropriate for children.

But I worry that I crossed the line into making fun of this family’s actual circumstances, which of course isn’t funny at all.  I remain willfully ignorant of the specific allegations and accusations between Kate and Jon, so my extrapolations on marital and family difficulties are intended to be generic.  And I intentionally didn’t depict any specific kids, but rather just drew a brood of eight kids of roughly the correct ages.  So I hope I made choices that made my goal clear.

This weekend, in New York City:  The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art's annual Art Fest.  I'll be there at a certain time (TBA), signing and sketching to raise funds for the museum.  More info posted here later.

LUCKY DUCKY

Isn't it great that taxpayers fund these new baseball stadiums, which are designed to ensure that there is no affordable seating?

August Pollack's done some research, and found this pretty funny pattern in the editorial cartoons of Mike Lester.

August writes:

In this week’s thrilling installment, Doug discovers THE ONLY WHOLLY MORAL FOOD.

David Cross in The NY Post's gossip page, for making out at a bar with his twenty-something girlfriend?  Gawker.com referencing this by calling him a name that this family blog can only translate as "often amorous"?