Big News!

Yeah, pretty big news. I’m an uncle…again. My sister had a baby. But I’m not going to tell you anything about this mystery baby until I get some pictures of him…her? Oh, what a cliffhanger! Just be rest assured that the baby is in fine health and has all 20 of its fingers and toes!

If only it had arms and legs…


In other big news, the new TAM cartoon is up! I wish that I could say that it’s funny. It’s not. But that’s okay. It’s a milestone in the world of TAM cartoons. Why, you ask? Well, because it’s the 50th one!

I can’t believe that I’ve done 50 unfunny cartoons! Of course I’ll have to do about 10,000 more unfunny cartoons to catch up with Family Circus. But let’s be fair to me, huh. My cartoons consist of 4 panels where as Bill Keane only draws one.

So really, my cartoon is four times less funny than his! I win!

I know, 50 cartoons, big deal. I only do two a week where as most cartoonists do five. But I went into this thing only planning to stick with it for about a month or two. I can’t believe that I’ve stuck with it for this long. It’s a real pain in the ass. I have a deep respect now for real cartoonists. They have to come up with a lot of ideas. Mostly, I just write mine about an hour before I start drawing them, and even at just two a week, I feel like I’ve got nothing.

With that said, let’s all bask in the genius that was Bill Watterson, shall we? It’s too bad that he has quit drawing Calvin and Hobbes. But it’s been a lot of years later and I’m still talking about his cartoon. I guess it’s good to go out “on top.”

The rumor I hear about ol’ Mr. Watterson is that he’s living on a ranch somewhere in the Midwest, quietly painting landscapes. But here’s the kicker, now I can’t remember my source, but evidentially he’s painted a few hundred of them – and thrown out every one! See, he was told by a professional painter once that the first 700 were just practice.

Maybe that’s what I’ll do? I’ll go out on top and become an eccentric recluse! I mean I’m already a recluse, now I just have to get eccentric. I’ll develop a fetish for toilette paper and dead cats!

Maybe not. It takes a lot of work to get “on top.” And besides, toilette paper and dead cat collecting is its own reward.

No, when I leave the world of cartooning, it’ll be considered “cutting my losses.”

I’m joking. I’m not trying to sound like I’m pathetically soliciting over here. I do think some of them are funny. And I’m pretty proud of myself for sticking to it.

Yeah me! I rock.


Fun Fact: Speaking of unfunny cartoons, here’s a tidbit from anecdotage.com.

”Shoe” creator Jeff MacNelly spent four years at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill without obtaining a degree. “Most kids took notes and doodled in the margins,” the cartoonist once explained. “I doodled and took notes in the margins.”

Man, with sharp wit like that it’s hard to believe that Shoe is so unfunny, huh?

One more thing for personal curiosity: Does Shoe remind anyone else of the old TV show Barney Miller? Or is it just me?