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Why I’m ambivalent about Nancy and Sluggo

Nancy the comic strip is going through some changes.

You remember Nancy, don’t you? Well, it has been in production all this time.

The Ernie Bushmiller comic, started in 1925, went on until 1982, when he passed away. Mr. Bushmiller wrote and drew the comic. It started out as Fritzi Ritz, who is Nancy’s aunt and then morphed into Nancy when she was introduced in 1933. So yes, it goes way back.

From 1982 to 2018, after Bushmiller’s death, the strip was written and drawn by various people.

Mr. Bushmiller took Fritzi Ritz over from a cartoonist named Larry Whittington, who started it in 1922. I only mention it because it’s been in quite a few hands over the years. For the last seven, it’s been written and drawn by the mysterious Olivia Jaimes, but currently it’s in reruns.

Another change. And therein lies the rub.

I remember reading Nancy when I was a kid. I mostly remember it at my grandmother’s house, so maybe it wasn’t in the newspapers we got at home and was in something she subscribed to.

Since 2018, there was a “new” Nancy. It was the same old Nancy and Sluggo, but in a new way. As I mentioned, cartoonist Olivia Jaimes wrote and drew the strip, now she is retiring from that and Caroline Cash is taking over. New strips will appear in the new year. Currently old Ernie Bushmiller strips are running.

When Olivia first took over, I tried to interview her for my 10 With Tom column, but I received no response. Olivia Jaimes is a pseudonym and she, or is it a he? likes to remain unknown.

I find it quite careless to just take on a well-known strip, make it your own for a few years and just “retire.” But I guess that was the case from 1982 to 2018 when the strip was run by others, sort of passing it around until Olivia took it over in 2018. And now she is passing it on. And who knows, perhaps she needs to leave for personal or health reasons.

I know that if I was given a legacy strip, I would guard it and cherish it like so many other cartoonists do.

I was reading comments on The Daily Cartoonist blog, where I found out about this Nancy change and there are those for it, and those against it.

One commentor feels as I do, saying, “I find it highly insulting that Andrews McMeel just passes this classic comic strip over to others willy nilly. And Olivia had a plum position that people would kill for. She just went through the motions. Didn’t she take off a long period of time last year, having others fill in for her?” He went on to call her “blasé” about it.

Andrews McMeel runs GoComics.com – they syndicate the strip along with so many others.

But again, since we don’t know who Olivia is, perhaps she was ill in the summer and needed the break and maybe that’s the case now.

One guy says in the comments at The Daily Cartoonist that it isn’t a “plum” assignment. But I beg to differ. As a cartoonist myself, I think having a nationally syndicated comic strip is a “plum” assignment. He called it a “zombie strip,” but it was alive when Olivia produced it. And thousands, if not millions of people read it over the past seven years.

Another comment on the Daily Cartoonist: “I miss the original Bushmiller style Nancy. I shudder to think what would have happened if Peanuts had been continued after Schulz’s death. I guess, however, things change and time marches on. And maybe I’m a little envious of a working cartoonist.”

Other strips have changed hands and changed the look and feel, which sort of makes it the cartoonists’ own. In the beginning, Ernie Bushmiller took Fritzi Ritz over from Larry Whittington, so there right there it shows that a person can take over a feature and really put their stamp on it.

Anyway, the new Nancy starts in January, we’ll have to check it out.

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Sole heirs and easter eggs

Charles Edwards and Rebecca Gibney from “Under the Vines”

I came upon this new show (new to me), called “Under the Vines“. It’s a drama-comedy from New Zealand. It just started showing on one of our PBS channels here in Miami, but I think it’s a few years old.

I had seen the commercial and it looked good, almost a Green Acres sort of thing – a fish out of water plot line.

Two people, a step daughter and a nephew inherit a vineyard. They don’t know each other and are told they are “sole heirs” of the vineyard.

To make a long story short, they meet each other and find out the quandry, of both being owners, but they end up both wanting to sell the place and get out asap. But it’s such a charming place, that by the end of episode one, they stay and attempt to work it out, and therein lies the show. I’ve only seen the one episode, but I love it.

I guess there are not many actors in New Zealand because the actors seem to move from show to show. One guy, Pana Hema-Taylor, I’ve seen on “Under the Vines”, “800 Words” and “Brokenwood Mysteries.” He has small parts on every show, and I laugh whenever I see him pop up. It’s almost a requisite to have him on a show based in New Zealand.

Anyway, I got the idea for this cartoon from the show. When the barrister told the characters they were the “sole heir” of the vineyard, the cartoon is what popped into my head.

In my head, my cartoon had a different scene – they were in a lawyers office and were being read the will, but it ended up being this.

I like to put little Easter eggs in my cartoons – things that regular fans would notice.

In this case I just reused the storefront and “redressed it.”

I’ve used scenery from other cartoons over, sort of like they do in tv and movies – just redressing the scene and using the same sets. And I’ve used the same people at times – just giving them different dialogue.

In this case, you can see the storefront, redressed, and used in two cartoons.

Sure, I can easily redraw the scene, but I think it’s fun to do this, just to give the audience something to enjoy if they find the “Easter egg.”

Here’s a quick little video of the single panel cartoon. There’s no sound.

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Remembering the 1970s

This cartoon ran last week and it got a lot of interest – from people who remember this and from those who think it’s an exaggeration.

Unfortunately, it was a thing – when we were kids, we had orange shag carpet all over the house. Our nextdoor neighbors had red. I can also remember houses having green. Weird.

And kitchens were harvest gold or green – green appliances, etc. We had harvest gold. The odd part is that our house was built from scratch and my parents chose the styles and colors – so that was what was chosen – that was the style.

The house was redone after Hurricane Andrew’s wrath in 1992 and it’s being renovated right now. My two brothers are contractors, and they are handling the job. I’ve seen photos and it seems like they knocked the whole inside of the house down – kitchens, bathrooms, walls, and so much more.

I haven’t been by, because I want to be surprised at the finished product. I’ve seen the work they do, so I know it will be a modern (for today) white kitchen, all open concept, with a large island in the middle, which of course will be old and haggard in 20 years and of course, out of style; but it will be the utmost in fashion today.

The 1970s were a unique decade in terms of cultural, technological, and social change. Some things that were common then are either obsolete, outdated, or have evolved in some way.

Here are a few things from the ’70s that are no longer around or have been replaced along with brightly colored shag carpet:

8-Track Tapes

The 8-track was a popular way to listen to music on the go. They were large, clunky, and prone to malfunction, and they were eventually overtaken by cassettes and later, CDs and digital formats. I read recently that cassettes are making a comeback.

Wood Paneling in Homes

In the ’70s, wood paneling was a dominant feature in homes, especially in living rooms and basements. It was considered stylish at the time, but it quickly fell out of favor, giving way to lighter, more neutral colors and modern finishes.

Bell-Bottom Pants

These pants, which flared out from the knee downward, were a major fashion statement in the ’70s. Though they’ve had minor comebacks, they aren’t the mainstream trend they once were.

Polaroid Instant Cameras

While Polaroid cameras still exist, the instant cameras of the 1970s are far different. Today, we have digital cameras and smartphones with instant printing options that are more advanced, and Polaroid’s original models are now considered nostalgic.

Pong (and Early Arcade Games)

The first commercially successful video game, Pong, was released in the ’70s, and it set the stage for modern video games. But the original hardware and arcade game style have long been replaced by more advanced gaming systems and consoles.

Cigarette Ads on TV

Cigarette advertisements were common everywhere – on billboards, newspapers, magazine ads and so much more, so many ads ran on TV in the ’70s, but by the early 80s, health concerns and government regulations led to a ban on tobacco ads.

VHS Tapes (Early Video Tape Formats)

The VHS was a major home entertainment format, but digital media like DVDs, Blu-rays, and streaming have rendered it nearly obsolete.

Soda in Glass Bottles (Like Coca-Cola in CONTAINERS)

While glass bottles for soda still exist, they’ve largely been replaced by cans and plastic bottles, mainly because they’re easier to manufacture, transport, and store.

The CB Radio Craze

The CB (Citizens Band) radio was a big thing in the ’70s, especially among truckers, and it even sparked a pop culture moment with songs like “Convoy.” I remember one of my cousins had a CB radio in her car and so did her friends. I drove into the city one time with them and they were on the CB discussing the traffic on the upper level of the 59th street bridge in Manhattan with other CB radio enthusiasts who were stuck in traffic as well.

Some of these items are still fondly remembered in pop culture, while others are almost completely forgotten.

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Alex Katz’s ‘Painting Energy’

Artist Alex Katz has been painting for over 75 years. He turned 98 this past July. This is a short piece I saw on CBS Sunday Morning this past weekend, so enjoyable to see and hear Alex speak about his life and work.

A collection of over 100 pieces from the Alex Katz Foundation Collection are on display at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine. I only just found out about it, unfortunately, it’s been there since May. It ends in just a few weeks – on September 14. I know I have a lot of New England readers, so this is your chance!

Alex Katz, 2004. Photograph by Vivien Bittencourt.

The exhibit is called, “Painting Energy.” These are pieces of art that Alex owns, pieces he purchased because he loved them and wanted to support other established and emerging artists purchasing their art. He’s paying it forward.

Alex is one of those people who you just like to listen to when they speak. The Guggenheim Museum had an exhibit of his work in 2022, which I regret missing.

The paintings he chose for the Maine exhibit have to have a “pow” as he calls it. It’s sort of like an elevator pitch or shorter. He says it’s like an elevator door opening, seeing the painting, having the elevator door closing and “getting it,” from that one short moment.

“Alex Katz is a leader in contemporary art, but in the state of Maine, he’s king, and we all look up to him,” said fellow artist Katherine Bradford, whose work is part of the “Painting Energy” show.

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Where everybody knows my name

A recent Tomversation cartoon via **TomFalco.com**

I was at the Starbucks in our village the other day with a few friends. I hadn’t been there in a while. It was strange to see that they are promoting Pumpkin Spice Lattes already – it’s still summer, isn’t it?

When I’m in NYC I am in and out of all the Starbucks around the city all day, especially in the summer, getting cold brew coffee. There aren’t as many Starbucks in the city as there used to be, but still, they are all over.

I remember years ago, there literally were four Starbucks on certain intersections in NYC. I mean at a busy intersection, there would be one Starbucks on every corner, so you didn’t have to cross the street to get coffee. Obnoxious, I know. But it’s not like that now.

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What I do like is that they seem to know you at the Starbucks if you go often enough. Even in NYC where I don’t live, when I order at certain locations, they don’t call my name when the order is ready – they just hand it to me, knowing who I am, which is nice.

At my local Starbucks, at home, everyone knows everyone, so that’s very nice.

I usually order using the phone app, it makes it very fast and easy. A few years ago, I was in our village and I ordered a hot coffee on the app. As I was walking, I ran into someone I knew. We talked for a bit, possibly 20 minutes to half an hour. We parted, and I went across the street to pick up the coffee.

To my surprise, the coffee was still hot. I asked them how the coffee stayed hot for so long. The girl behind the counter said, I saw you talking across the street so I held off making the coffee until I saw you start walking over. I was thinking to myself,” she said , “Is he ever going to cross over?”

I thought that was so great and thoughtful. And no, I don’t order Pumpkin Spice Latte’s there. I don’t like the taste.

I know we should be using mom and pop local places but for some reason, Starbucks has this homey feel when they know who you are and treat you well. No, this isn’t a commercial for them.

The pocket telephone

This cartoon is from 1919 – 106 years ago. It’s about “pocket telephones,” which of course were not a thing back then. Regular landline telephones were barely a thing, so it’s amazing that cartoonist W.K. Haselden came up with this concept.

And the thing is, all of these scenarios have happened to us at one time or other with cell phones today. So Haselden was really predicting the future.

When cell phones first became popular, I used to think of what a Seinfeld episode would be like with cell phones, you know, how would it fit into the show. I’m not sure why I thought of Seinfeld, because it could be interesting with any show from the past.

I pictured the characters in a store or something and a bunch of phones would ring at the same time and everyone would grab their phones and hilarity would ensue.

These days, most people text. I gave up answering my business phone years ago, which sounds strange, but I own an online business and most of the questions people ask need to be in writing – quotes, things like that. So I don’t answer the phone, I have a message that says, please email us at this address . . . “

A couple of people in my life, one of my cousins and one of my sisters-in-law will call me if I text them. I can text either one of them, “What time is the party on Saturday,” and they’ll call me back, rather than text me the time. So whenever I am going to text them, I make sure I am available to take their phone call which invariably is two seconds after I send the text.

When I text, I usually do it with one or two words. I’m quite famous for my, “OK.” For instance I’ll get a text telling me to meet so-and-so at 1 pm, I respond, “OK.” Or I get a text telling me not to forget the milk, and I’ll respond, “OK.” People didn’t like the one word answers, but they are used to it by now.

One of my brothers texts back “Okay” for “OK.” I asked him why he fully spelled it out. He said it’s because it just auto fills that in as he is typing.

I’m on a lot of text chains with family, friends, my condo neighbors, etc. Some of them are on silent, because once a text starts, it goes on and on and the beeping alerting me of next texts is non-stop.

At our building, someone will text, “I’m looking for my Amazon package, has anyone seen it?” And you get a dozen, “not me,” “not me,” “not me.” People feel the need to respond.

One friend sends out about 20 or more photos at a time. If it’s someone’s birthday or the Miami Dolphins scores or something to do with The Beatles, who he loves, he sends out images and text by the dozens. I have that alert sound off, so when I look at the phone and see 40 new text messages, it alarming, no pun intended, until I see it’s him sending us 20 Paul McCartney photos on Paul’s birthday, and the other 20 messages are from people responding.

I left my house without my phone one time. I felt totally naked and lost, but after a while, it turned out to be one of the most peaceful days I had in a long time. It’s hard to remember back to a time before we had cell phones.

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I’ll do it every time

I saw this old comic strip recently, it’s “They’ll Do It Every Time.” It’s from the 1940s.

This reminded me of me because I never wanted to go anywhere – to weddings, parties, communions, whatever, and my mother would always say to me, “You always say you don’t want to go, and then you’re the last one to leave.” And she was right, I did it every time.

I remember a few years back I was at a Chamber of Commerce event and at the end, I was sitting at a table with three other people, and as we were talking the restaurant staff was taking the table cloth off the table, telling us they needed to get ready for the dinner service, so we were basically pushed out.

One of the people with us was a friend named Robert, who is no longer with us, he was a nice guy. As we exited the building, I can remember him looking down at my shoes and saying, “Nice set of wheels!” Which I guess meant he liked the shoes. I had never heard that expression before, but it always stayed with me.

“They’ll Do It Every Time,” the comic panel is one of the ones I enjoyed as a kid. I was surprised to read recently that it ran new until 2008; it started in 1929.

I also liked “Hazel,” and “Our Boarding House” and so many single panel cartoons, which is why I probably do my Tomversation single panel cartoon today.

I see also old “Our Boarding House” cartoons posted daily on Facebook and I often watch the old Hazel tv show reruns.

While the cartoon above is not single panel, most of the time “They’ll Do It Every Time” was single panel.

I like the fact that single panel cartoons have to happen in that one panel. Of course, “The Far Side” was the best when I was growing up. I loved seeing that in the newspaper every day.

While I don’t have to be limited to a single panel or a single size since I’m publishing online and I could fill up a whole page with multi-panels if I wanted, I do enjoy having the one size – 5″ x 5″ where I have to fit it all in.

Once in awhile I do break it up, as I did with this one last week, but it’s very rarely that that happens. I like to keep it in the one panel.

There are many single panel cartoons that I don’t like, simply because I don’t enjoy them, so it’s not that every single one is enjoyable to me. But the format is what attracts me to it.

New Tomversation tees are available at the Etsy shop. They come in four colors, many sizes. Only available in the U.S. at the moment. With free shipping on every order. Here’s the link to the shop.

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So many things can wait

I saw this video by Bethenny Frankel online somewhere. She keeps popping up on my social media apps and she is engaging at times. She eats a lot of strange and new things and reviews them in real time, which I find interesting. But the other day she was talking about how we get cheated out of summers – especially kids. An interesting thing to think about as summer winds down.

Bethenny who calls it a “summer disruption,” was saying that schools, camps, clubs and sports chip into summer months and kids have to practice for these things – mostly football team, baseball, band, cheerleading, etc.

“As soon as summer starts, you’re planning for the summer to end,” says Bethenny. Her reel about all this is here.

And this affects the whole family – people have to shuttle the kids and cancel vacations and things like that.

I used to own a company that printed school newspapers. I remember many times the school wanted that year’s first newspaper out on the first day of school, so it had to be prepared and done during part of the summer. The kids had to get the stories, write the stories and put the newspaper together.

I had to meet with them, discuss the project and have the job printed and delivered, so it affected me, too. I canceled so many Thanksgiving trips due to this, too, but that’s another story.

To be honest, I needed the money and since there wasn’t much business in the summer, I appreciated the jobs coming in, even in the summer, but still, what if I wanted to travel and go away for that part of the summer? I couldn’t, and neither could the teacher (the newspaper sponsor), the kids and their families. We were all being cheated out of part of the short summer which was being chipped away.

It’s just something to think about. So many things can wait – including the school newspaper on the first day of school.

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Ancient Roman baths

Before I get to the gist of this post, I’d like to say I combined my daily cartoon emails with this blog email. In other words, if you subscribed to my daily cartoon, you will receive it along with my newsletter and if you subscribed to my newsletter, you will receive my cartoons.

But wait – they won’t be combined in one email and they won’t be daily.

The cartoons which went out daily, will now come once a week as five cartoons on a Friday – rather than one email a day with one single cartoon. If you would like to see the cartoons as they are published daily, you can do that online here:
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You can subscribe free to my Tomversation blog/cartoon list here if you are on neither and now will be on both, which is now one. Hope that all makes sense: https://tomversation.substack.com/

And now for today’s blog post:

I get ideas for cartoons from all over the place. I’ll hear something or read something and just sort of twist it around in my head.

Saturday night I was watching this tv show called Pompeii, the new dig. It was on PBS Passport, if you get that, you should check the show out. I’ve seen it on YouTube, too. I actually watched the first episode twice! There are four episodes.

This Roman (Pompeii) bath was being discussed, they were digging it out from a large private home, and the narrator said, “The baths were about making contacts and being seen.” And today’s Tomversation cartoon wrote itself!

I ran to my office to jot that down to remember to draw it up the next day.

Another cartoon I toyed with, but probably won’t do is a woman walking into a room in ancient Rome, and her earrings are clicking, announcing her arrival, and someone making a funny remark about that.

Gold and pearl earrings from AD 79, Pompeii

The idea wrote itself because on the same Pompeii episode, they showed a pair of gold earrings found with two pearls hanging from each earring. And they explained how the pearls clicked as the elite Roman women walked, making a specific sound, which “announced” their arrival when they showed up at various places. It was the “Gilded Age” thing to do at that time.

These earrings were called, “Crotalia.”

They found this pair of earrings in a box being held by a victim who passed away from the Mt. Vesuvius volcano. The earrings were in a box being held by the woman, all stopped in time, almost 2000 years ago.

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The best of summer

The Lake House was the best part of the whole trip. A dream realized.

I haven’t been writing here because it’s been a slow second half of the summer. I’m grateful for that.

Was all over New York State from late June into July – flew into Albany, then ended up at a wedding in Hudson, NY; was at a lake house across the Hudson River in Athens (on Tommy Trail!), which my brother obtained through Airbnb, then we all drove down to NYC and spent time in The Hamptons, too. Sort of a letter “L” shape for the early summer.

I felt sick at the wedding, not sure why, I think it was the heat – it was brutal from upstate all the way to the Hamptons – hot and humid.

One of my cousins feels that I was making it up because I didn’t want to be there – at the wedding – which makes no sense. I took two planes to get there, took an hour Uber ride to the house from the Albany airport, sent in two RSVPs (paper and online), made a special trip to get a gift card at Macy’s before I left home, had to lose a couple of pounds to fit into my suit pants, which was a joke with my friends and me for a month or so until I actually fit into the pants.

I bought a train ticket down to the city – arranged to be in the lake house with my family, originally I was going to get a hotel room and at the wedding, I did not touch any food or drink, until the end of the night when I had some ice cream, because who can pass u a big set-up of desserts anchored by a bar of ice cream sundaes?

I never ended up taking the train down the city, because I drove down with another couple of cousins, so that worked out well.

The wedding ceremony upstate in Hudson, was on the Hudson River and then across the street at the Basilica, an old factory that is an event venue now. I do regret not spending time on the river – I didn’t notice, but I am sure some of the guests grabbed a drink and took it across to the river and spent time there, where it looked like they had docks and boats – right there on the Hudson. Something I love.

I thought the Basilica was an old train station/depot, but I read that it was a factory in the late 1800s. Either way, a very impressive structure.

Just that should prove I was sick, for me to miss the Hudson River, which is right out my window, is a non-starter. That’s one of my favorite places.

Seeing Madame X, almost seeing Manhattanhenge (it was a bit cloudy), Mister Softee, MOMA, Brooklyn adventures and so much more. We did a lot.

Now I’m home, where it’s quiet – easing into autumn, which is my favorite season – where we will visit the Hudson Valley again, for pumpkin and apple picking! And ComicCon, can’t forget NY ComicCon!

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