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Kim, Willie and Andrew

10 With Tom
10 questions in 10 minutes

kim-willie-andrew — Kim Zolciak-Biermann (Photo: BravoTV), Willie Geist (photo: NBC) Andrew Farago (Photo: Amy Osborne)

I’ve been pumping out a bunch of 10 With Tom’s for the Huffington Post, so rather than post them all separately here, I’ll link to the Huff Post instead.

I recently interviewed Andrew Farago, who has one of the coolest careers as the curator of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. You can see that interview at the Huffington Post here.

Willie Geist, NBC newsman is one of my favorites. You can see his 10 With Tom here.

And Kim Zolciak-Biermann, who rose to fame in 2008 as one of the Real Housewives of Atlanta can be seen here.

Bike ride with Dwyane Wade

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Early Saturday morning, we had a special bike event in town. The D. Wade CommUNITY Bike Ride took place, hosted by former Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade and his wife, actress Gabrielle Union.

Hundreds turned out for the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT)’s event, partnered with City of Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado and our district Commissioner Ken Russell (I saw Ken, riding his bike, didn’t see the mayor).

It was a beautiful morning for the event. Sunny and pretty right on the water. “It’s great to get kids outdoors interacting with positive role models,” said Commissioner Ken Russell. “I can’t wait to ride through Coconut Grove with Dwyane Wade.”

The ride started at about 8 am and went for about 6 to 7 miles around Center and South Grove. There were events at Regatta Park and outside City Hall before and after the ride.

It was one of those days where the whole town came out and everyone knew everyone else.

Hillary and I

There’s a great Facebook account called Editorial & Political cartoons, they have almost 85,000 fans. They liked my Hillary cartoon from the other day and they posted it and apparently it struck a nerve because almost 1900 people liked the comic and 2078 people shared it last time I checked. That’s a nice audience for the cartoon. If each share had 100 eyes on it, that’s 190,000 people seeing it. Check out the page, with the current political season, there’s plenty to laugh (or cry) about.

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This is the oldest melody in existence

I saw this on the Classic FM website. A hymn was discovered on a clay tablet in Ugarit, now part of Syria, and is dedicated the Hurrians’ goddess of the orchards Nikkal. This is the oldest melody in existence. It is over 3400 years old. You can listen to it right here. More on this find at Classic FM.

Musical Score from Ugarit (Clay tablet from Ugarit) with the Hurrian hymn, 13th cent. BC. Found in the collection of Musée du Louvre, Paris. Artist : Ugaritic Culture. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Spocking Fives

There is a former prime minister named Sir Wilfrid Laurier on Canada’s five dollar bill and since Leonard Nimoy’s death, the bills have been marked up – to look like Spock from Star Trek! The resemblance is uncanny with just a few pen strokes. It’s been happening quite often. It’s perfect during this 50th anniversary of Star Trek, too.

According to Bank of Canada it’s not illegal to do this “…However, there are important reasons why it should not be done. Writing on a bank note may interfere with the security features and reduces its lifespan. Markings on a note may also prevent it from being accepted in a transaction. Furthermore, the Bank of Canada feels that writing and markings on bank notes are inappropriate as they are a symbol of our country and a source of national pride.”

I am surprised they are circulating, if I received one, I think I would save it and not spend it. But as you can see above, there’s a US $5 bill circulating with Lincoln made into Spock, guess that’s how Lincoln would look if he was Spock for Halloween.

Krazy Kat and The Gumps

I ordered a couple of books from Amazon. Krazy Kat by George Herriman and The Gumps by Sidney Smith. The books are part of a series by The Library of American Comics Essentials and they are superb. The quality of the books themselves are first class, they come with a place holder ribbon, you know, like a bible has. And what’s great about the books is that they have one comic strip per page, basically the size that the original ran in the newspaper, the unique size of the book allows this. Each book takes one year, 365 days, of a period in time and the object is to read one strip per day and to be transported back into that time period, which is quite hard to do as you want to binge read the strips and cannot just contain your enjoyment to just one strip per day.

I’ve always been a fan of Krazy Kat and I have many Krazy Kat anthologies. What’s different about this book is that it’s not the usual full color Sunday pages which get all the usual attention. This is 365 strips from 1934. The first strip is January 1, 1934 and the last is December 31, 1934. This year was chosen because it was thought to be one of his best years regarding writing and drawing.

As for The Gumps, I didn’t know much about them except the name. When I had seen images of the strips in the past, they were few and far between and seemed too wordy for me. I’ve always felt that less is more when it comes to text in comic strips. But back in the early 1900s when The Gumps started, the comic strip was a very important part of American entertainment and the more wordy, the better.

The Gumps strips in the book run from May 1, 1928 to May 3, 1929. This was an important period in that it was probably when it had the most readers and the biggest plot twist of all time. It involved a new neighbor who moved next door to Andy and Min Gump, named Mary Gold, and the whole year twists and turns around her disappearance and (spoiler alert) death. Yes, cartoonist Sidney Smith had the character die which was something unimaginable at the time. The Gumps received thousands of emails a week, they received front page headlines during the Mary Gold episode and serial strips were born.

The Gumps was already a very successful strip, probably the number one strip and most popular. It started in 1917 when Sidney Smith had characters from his previous strip, Old Doc Yak, about a bunch of goats as people, moved out and the Gumps moved into their house. It all took place in the same space on the newspaper page. In 1922. a common greeting of people was, “Did you see Andy this morning?” Sort of like, “Who shot JR?”

One other interesting fact about The Gumps is that when the New York Daily News began in 1919, The Gumps was the only comic strip in the paper! “Gump” was a word used by Joseph Patterson, owner of the Chicago Tribune, NY Daily News and Tribune Syndicate, to refer to everyday people, he had Sidney Smith use that name for the characters in his new strip.

At the front of the Library of American Comics Essentials books there is a written history of the cartoonist and the strip. There is a lot of information there that I had never heard before. It’s just as good as the strips themselves. The Gumps really can fill a book all by themselves, I don’t mean comics, but the whole story of Sidney Smith and his life, how he was the richest cartoonist at the time, the most popular cartoonist and was known for his exotic car collection. He received a new car each year as part of his cartooning contract, something like a Speedster 348, which is shown in the book.

Sidney Smith was killed in an auto accident in 1935, very ironic since his life was the comic strip and cars. He was front page news as you can see.. You can read the article up close here. It jumps to page 6, which you can see if you scroll down on the Tribune site.

The election polls are out

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Batman, Superman, Peanuts, he’s got his hand in all of it

10 With Tom
10 questions in 10 minutes

Marc Tyler Nobleman, shown here, is the author of books including Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, Brave Like My Brother, and Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, which helped correct the 76-year-old credit line of one of the most iconic fictional characters of all time. This effort is the subject of the Hulu documentary Batman and Bill, premiering in October.

I had the chance to ask Marc the 10 With Tom questions:

TOM: You rescued the legacy of Batman by taking over 10 years to have Bill Finger proclaimed co-creator of Batman so he has his rightful place next to Bob Kane. Why was this so important to you?
MARC: Because it was so important to so many. For decades, Batmaniacs have clamored for this (rumblings at cons, message board posts) but there was no organized campaign to rally around. I had intermittent delusions that Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman alone could lead to change, and if not, felt it could serve as a tangible focal point to educate people and build a groundswell of support for additional efforts. At the heart of the issue, the man who co-created one of our greatest champions of justice suffered from an egregious cultural injustice and it simply wasn’t fair to the Finger legacy, the Finger family, or Batman fans.

TOM: You also talk about the creators of Superman. Who would you prefer to be, Batman or Superman. Why?
MARC: Superman. Power of flight = no airport security lines.

TOM: You interviewed Peanuts voice actors a couple of years ago. That’s such a clever idea, what possessed you to do that?
MARC: Thank you. In between what I am supposed to be doing (writing books and speaking at schools/conferences), I like to fill gaps in pop culture history, particularly the eras I’ve lived through. Everyone has a story, even those who think they don’t. I believe in documenting as much as possible while the principals and firsthand witnesses are still here. The internet has been a boon for the kind of oral histories I do, in terms of both tracking down people and providing a platform to present the result. If there even are any magazines that would run such a niche feature, it’d be there-and-gone; so many fans would miss it. Online, the stories are generally easier to access and available indefinitely.

TOM: Can you draw?
MARC: Certain things! Actually, I’m a lapsed cartoonist. For several years I was regularly licensing single-panel cartoons to publications including The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Good Housekeeping. I also drew a book of cartoons for Scholastic. I started cartooning professionally with only one goal: break into The New Yorker. I got as far as having my own rejection folder there, and was proud of it! One day I’ll give it another go.

TOM: If you could spend the day inside any newspaper comic strip (other than Batman or Superman), which would it be?
MARC: Given how often I’m speaking in elementary schools, I already feel like a recurring cameo in Peanuts. But beyond that, Little Nemo in Slumberland for the visual stimuli alone.

TOM: Word of the moment?
MARC: Unconventional.

TOM: What is your favorite book of all time (not including your own)?
MARC: Morality Play by Barry Unsworth.

TOM: What’s the one thing you would like to change about yourself?
MARC: I’m in a constant state of trying to sleep and exercise more. At the moment, I’m doing better than usual.

TOM: What was the best phase of your life, and why?
MARC: Fatherhood. It encompasses all else (love, fun, challenge, responsibility, fear) and ultimately matters most.

TOM: What’s the one thing that people always misunderstand about you.
MARC: Perhaps some don’t realize that my persistence is not only a personality trait but also a bridge to do my job: tell stories to people whom I am confident will be moved.

Thanks for being a good sport, Marc! Marc is one of the great personalities in Tom Falco’s 10 With Tom series.

A lesson from 20 years ago

I was going through some old comics I did in the mid-90s. And I found some from the 1980s, too! I don’t know if I ever submitted them to the syndicates, I used to like the process and the journey, rather than the final destination back then. I would draw and enjoy the process but not send the work in.

I did find a bunch of comics that King Features published in the mid-90s as part of a comic called “The New Breed,” where they were grooming new cartoonists for something bigger and better. But I quit in the middle of it all when my business took off, I didn’t have the time; the road not taken. I regret that now.

Anyway, I found an old letter from King Features and I don’t think I noticed it at the time, but there was a handwritten note that said that they loved my single panel comics and they wanted to buy them at will a few at a time for “The New Breed,” but as a regular feature it lacked a look or style. They said it was “generic.” Their words. They said I didn’t have a unique style for the characters. I wish I had noticed it back then or at least remembered that as I would have worked on my style for single panel cartoons. So to that end, I am thinking of reviving “Paws,” my comic about Tombo the Rabbit and Jacomo the Mole. People loved it when I published daily, I even had a large dedicated audience on Instagram.

Paws is a single panel comic, which I love because I find it interesting and fun to do the gag in such a small space, without dragging it out through panels and in these days of social media, I feel that the single panel is easier to see and read on things like cell phones and tablets.

nighthawks-color-print — Tombo and Jacomo in my version of Nighthawks.

10 things you didn’t know about best-selling author Brad Meltzer

10 With Tom
10 questions in 10 minutes

Brad Meltzer is a well known, best selling novelist who writes political thrillers and non-fiction. He’s also a comic book author, having written for DC Comics’ Green Arrow, also Superman/Batman, Justice League of America series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and so many more. Brad is also well-known from his excellent TV shows, “Brad Meltzer’s Decoded” and “Brad Meltzer’s Lost History.”

He has two new children’s books out, “I am Jane Goodall,” and “I am George Washington,” also “The House of Secrets.”

I asked Brad the 10 With Tom questions. Here they are:

TOM: I see you were one of the entertainers at Barbara Bush’s 90th birthday party. What did you do to entertain the guests?
BRAD: The only thing I know how to do: Tell stories.

TOM: Who would you rather be Batman or Superman? Why?
BRAD: Batman. He’ll never win. He’ll never stop crime. He’ll never bring back his dead parents. But he’ll never stop fighting. Superman is who we wish we were, but Batman is who we know we really are. We all fight a losing battle every day. But we never stop.

TOM: I watch “Lost History,” your History H2 show. If only one piece of lost history could be found, which would you prefer it be?
BRAD: The 9/11 flag. That’s the one.

NOTE: Good News! Looks like the flag was finally located thanks to Brad’s determination!

TOM: Favorite junk food?
BRAD: Ice cream. Scooped ice cream at Haagen Dazs for four years. Still never tire of it.

TOM: Which comic strip would you love to jump into and spend the day?
BRAD: Calvin & Hobbes.

TOM: Last show you binge watched?
BRAD: Stranger Things.

TOM: Word of the moment
BRAD: Sad.

TOM: I was hesitant to ask why.

TOM: If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
BRAD: Hawaii.

TOM: Last book you read, other than your own.
BRAD: Southern Bastards by Jason Aaron.

TOM: What did you have for breakfast today?
BRAD: Blueberries and granola. But I tell my brain it’s Count Chokula.

Thanks, Brad!