Saw this on CBS Sunday morning. A story about an Italian artist named Jacopo Cardillo, known in the art world at just Jago. he’s called the modern day Michelangelo due to his incredible sculptures.
One of his current marble pieces was placed in NYC this week, I missed it by a few days, hopefully it will still be there when I return in the fall. It’s called, “Look Down,” it s a sculpture of a baby, laying down on the ground. It’s in Thomas Paine Park, a small park a few blocks north of City Hall.
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Glad to be home, I had to leave NYC to get some cooler weather – in Miami!
NYC was brutal. Heat indexes over 100 made it unbearable at times. This red hoodie cartoon reminded me of my favorite red hoodie, which I brought to NY with me, thinking I might need it at nights like most summers, but even the nights were warm this year, there really was no cool air other than the airconditioned places. I heard a weatherperson on tv describe it as the Northeast having “no airflow.”
I was living on iced coffee.
MOMAMOMAStarry Night, MOMAPicasso, MOMAJP Morgan LibraryJP Morgan LibarayThe METSelf Portrait, Van Gogh, The METThe METThe METThe MET
One day, I felt I was getting heat stroke, really – I wasn’t sure what to do, but I managed to get back to the a/c and my bed and I drank a lot of color water, and in time, I got back to normal. I wondered how I would get back across town, from uptown to downtown, as I waited on those roasting subway platforms.
Also, this year Manhattanhenge was a bust – too many clouds blocking it both nights.
But in spite of all the heat, I did have a lot of fun. A lot of my family from Miami was up north and we had good times mostly in The Hamptons. In the city I did a lot of my favorite things and went to many of my favorite museums, including Cleopatra’s Needle, behind the MET Museum and the JP Morgan Library, which I had passed a few times, but never visited.
Ate in a lot of new places – three Greek restaurants ironically. But I forgot to check out Maria Loi’s place, Loi Estiatorio, which I see on tv a lot. I like her Mediterranean cooking style.
I’m looking forward to cooler temps in the fall, when I return for NY Comic Con and pumpkin and apple picking in October and Thanksgiving and so many more things in November.
Cleopatra’s Needle in Central Park
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I went to the Brooklyn Museum to the the Paul McCartney exhibit, “Eyes of the Storm.” They are random photos Paul took during 1963 and 1964, an important time for the Beatles.
He didn’t plan any of it and that’s what makes it so great.
I’m not a fan of the Brooklyn Museum, it’s impossible to navigate and they have a rude staff, but I went for the Paul exhibit.
Maybe it was just a bad day for me, that same day I was sitting in Union Square along with dozens of other people, and the rainbird type sprinkler came on. Hard. And it hit me right in my face along with wetting my whole right side from head to toe. Some stupid teens thought it was funny, but it did feel good in the summer heat.
On the subway a big heavy guy in one of those big ass wheelchairs ran over my toe. He backed up right over me. My toe is still hurting, hope it’s not broken.
And a chocolate Mister Softee dripped onto my new white sneakers. The cone had a hole in it. The guy in the Softee truck offered to give me a new cone, but I told him no problem. Then I saw the big stain, that looked like a black bullet hole.
Oh yes. On another train a guy comes up to me. Puts on a rubber glove and shoves it in my face. I don’t know what that was about. We were the only two on the car. I ran out at the next stop.
Just a random Wednesday in paradise.
The actual subway car. That’s not the guy with the glove, he got off and the nut with the glove got on after that.
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Got to NYC yesterday. The city is packed. I’ll be here for a few weeks. I already got my Mister Softee ice cream, and it wasn’t so hot and humid, so it didn’t melt all over my hand.
This Thursday is July 4th and people have started their holiday this weekend.
It’s gonna be a long week, I have a lot of family plans. We’ll be in The Hamptons, Connecticut, and we’re going to The Who’s Tommy on Broadway this week. Plus a lot more things. I visited that Portal thing in Madison Square, right next to the Flatiron Building – where we can see Dublin, Ireland and they can see us live.
It’s funny how people are so flabbergasted at it and can’t believe they are seeing Dublin live, but can’t we do that on our cell phones and zoom on our computers every day if we want?
I’ll visit the usual museums – MOMA, the MET, etc.
I’ll take you along.
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I heard someone say, “The clams are clamming,” and thought it was funny, so I used that, but then I guess my subconscious, in the middle of the night, liked the other version.
This happens often. I don’t lose sleep thinking of the gags all night, it just sort of pops into my head at some period and there I am, up at 3 am, changing it.
What I like about this is I am picturing these two guys on the beach in New England this summer. Two locals. One is walking the beach, sees the other guy clamming and asks him about it. The one guy in the flower shirt could also be a tourist asking about the clamming. I only say that because of the flowery shirt, it sort of looks like a tourist thing.
I can almost hear the seagulls in the background.
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I donated to the Kickstarter for “How Comics Were Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page,” by Glenn Fleishman.
Glenn has put together his research and collections of comics and cartoon artifacts, along with interviews he’s done with cartoonists and other to put this book in print.
It’s more than just a reprint of comics, although there should be that, but it explains everything about the history of comics and comic strips from 1890 to present and explains how certain techniques were done and includes info on newspaper comics along with webcomics.
The project is almost funded but of course you may still want to order now. Publication is planned for October 2024.
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I’m switching back to Ollie And Jacomo for a bit, taking a little break from my single panel Tomversation cartoon. Hope you follow along. It starts today.
I keep getting subscribers on the Ollie And Jacomo website and on Facebook and I’m not sure why, as I haven’t been promoting them, but they are being seen somewhere I guess. So I figured I should give them a little attention.
While new episodes of Tomversation are being “filmed,” I will dedicate my time to the new Ollie And Jacomo season. It’s my “seasons” thing, where comics have a season.
I’ve been doing this thing called “Cloudy With a Chance of Faces” since last April. It’s me seeing things in clouds. I posted Lincoln and Washington on Monday for Presidents Day.
It started innocently enough, I would look out my window and occasionally see things. Now I look for the images. The good thing is I only look out my own window usually first thing in the morning. I don’t walk around all day with my head “in the clouds.” I don’t really even think about it once I check out the clouds in the morning.
The original image
This Lincoln was caught by surprise. I took a picture of my favorite intersection in NYC, Madison Square, and when I looked back at the picture, there was Lincoln! It wasn’t planned. Unfortunately there is a huge building blocking the Empire State Building now, so the image is not the same, when I’m in NY next I’ll take a picture of the mess that is there now and I’ll show you.
But anyway, when I looked the picture later on, I saw Lincoln staring down at the city!
Now I look outside in the morning and if the clouds are puffy, I can get some nice images. The nice thing about Miami is that the clouds move fast, so if I see something and don’t catch it right away, it morphs into something else, which is also good, because sometimes I can just stand out there for a few minutes and in that short amount of time, I get many images to play with.
I saw an alligator wearing sunglasses the other day when we were driving back from the Renaissance Festival, but I didn’t catch the image fast enough. In New York in November, I saw Washington in the sky, but I didn’t catch that. But the Washington I show here I caught off my own balcony in my own backyard.
I’ve been thinking of going to Paris. And Italy. But this is a perfect reason to visit Paris.
I saw this report on CBS Sunday Morning about Vincent Van Gogh and a new digital feature about him and his art.
The Musee D’Orsay in Paris has a new exhibit of Van Gogh called, “Hello Vincent.” Anyone can go up and ask Vincent anything they would like to know about him.
His replies and his image are AI generated and the answers come from the over 900 letters he wrote in his life, where he told (in the letters) about everything from his health, personal life and art. You just walk up and ask him anything, and he’ll look at you and answer.
Seth Doane (and Vincent) on CBS Sunday Morning.
It works along with the art because people ask serious questions of Vincent; things that they really want to know about.
Maybe the exhibit will travel to the U.S. and I won’t have to go to Paris, although I still want to go to Paris. And Italy.
Digital Vincent Van Gogh
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Some people call my cartoons memes. I don’t know why, and I’m not crazy about that, but I have been known to use #meme as a hashtag at times. But it’s a comic or cartoon. Not a meme.
I also have been described as having an “old school” or “old fashioned” style of cartooning. It’s called drawing, not A.I.ing or computer generation. I guess the future is that – A.I. generated or some sort of electronic design. Like an NFT-type image.
Then there are the people who don’t get some of the cartoons. That’s a whole different category. But I do find that different gags don’t work in different parts of the world, even if we speak the same language , things come across different or confusing at times.
I mentioned in a previous post that my method was called drawing in an “exposition box.” I looked exposition box up and it says: “An explosion box is an origami box that pops open and “explodes” as soon as the recipient takes the top off, revealingpictures, messages, and even gifts inside. It’s a bigger version of our Explosion Cards project.”
I hardly think I fit into that category.
Must we label it? If so, it’s a cartoon or a comic or a comic panel or a comic strip. That’s it. People used to call online comics “online comics,” now they are just “comics.” But there are categories for them when it comes to awards. The National Cartoonist Society Ruben Awards (like the Oscars for cartoonists) has categories like, “newspaper strip,” “newspaper panel,” “online long form,” “online short form,” “gag cartoon,” and so on.
The gag cartoon is a panel cartoon like mine. Online long form can be a comic strip or longer and online short form is usually a single panel like mine.
Categories and labels all for basically the same thing.
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tomversation.com 