art – Page 29

An unassuming influence

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Cartoonist Ralph Dunagin passed away last week. I always loved his work on the Dunagin’s People comic growing up and I see he worked on so many other things I liked like Grin and Bear It and The Middletons.

As I look at his work these days, I see so much of him rubbed off on me and I didn’t realize it. Apparently he was a big influence on my drawing style. I always tell people that Hanna-Barbera and Charles Schulz were my influences, but as I look at Dunagin’s work, I see my own drawing style – I got so much from him.

My faces look similar as well as the broken lines, which I like and also even simple things like shirt sleeves. I see it all in my work now. It seems as if he was my biggest influence without me even knowing it! Very unassuming!

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How did we arrange to meet before cell phones?

bethesda-fountain — Bethesda Fountain, Central Park, NYC (photo by me)

I’m gonna miss New York this summer. But I think I needed a kick in the pants to get out of my rut, or maybe not a rut, let’s call it a habit. I do things twice and that’s it – it’s my habit. I go to the same restaurants all the time. I watch the same tv shows. I told you about my cousin who does a concert on Facebook every few Saturday nights, now that’s a thing for me and I have to text him and ask him if this is the week for the show. The world isn’t right (in my head) until the show goes on.

My habit was going to NYC for a large part of the summer for most of my adult life, or maybe even starting in high school. I would go most summers, but many years I didn’t, but it was a habit. I put off doing other things and going other places for this. But now I am open to do anything. I feel very free this summer by “being released” of my NY summer obligation, which is an obligation only in my own head.

I was thinking of all the times I would arrange to meet Miami friends who were visiting the city at the same time.

What I was finding interesting that years ago, before cell phones and email and all the communication we have now, I would meet friends and I am wondering how we did it and how they even knew I was going to be there. I mean, we didn’t announce things on Facebook back then, so I must have told people separately – “I’m going to NY next week or next month or whatever.” And the amazing thing is that we met up if they were going to be there at the same time.

I remember meeting my friend Albert a few times in the summer when he was up there visiting and my friend Vincent during Thanksgiving week and so on. But how did we know to meet? Did I tell them on November 1st “Let’s meet in front of the Empire State Building on November 23 at noon,” or “Let’s meet at the Bethesda Foundation at 1 pm on July 5,” and that’s how it happened?

They were always there at the place and time. But how did we communicate? We were all out of town, did we call each other at our cousin’s houses or hotels we were at?

I would always show up at such and such time on such and such date and there was the person I was supposed to meet. Talk about reliability. Now with all the communication abilities we have it is worse. “Text me when you are near,” “text me when you are there,” “text me tomorrow.” And still they don’t show up.

A couple of drawing styles

I have a couple of drawing styles. Why? Who knows, maybe the Gemini in me – duel personality; duel drawing styles.

clubbing-print I noticed that I got a lot of likes and shares when I posted this silly caveman and woman comic the other day. I have been getting lots of shares with most of the comics, but this one seemed to be one of the the most liked, along with the SpaceX one, which was number one so far.

I will go back and forth because I draw differently depending on the subject matter. I guess the New Yorker-style drawings are more esoteric subjects where you have to think about the gag for a minute like this one with the oranges and apple pay and the “Empty When Full” one.

But the silly ones where they are right in your face, along with the drawing style, I call, “Flintstones-style,” are a fast, easy gag.

Drawing with a game cube controller

As I try making my way to 1 million followers on Instagram and Facebook I find it interesting that cartoonists that draw stick figures have a million followers or more. One guy does his comic using a game cube controller, I believe he has 2 million followers!

I don’t like to put down other cartoonists or artists, because I believe anything creative and created is art. But it makes you think. Drawing with a game cube controller.

But I remember years ago seeing a famous cartoonist who used toothpicks. He would dip them in the inkwell and use that as a pen nib. I guess it’s all about the finished product.

Back to work after zooming

This cartoon was published today. I kept going back and forth between the two images. At first I liked the boxers, then the jockeys (wide fronts in England), then back to the boxers. What do you think? I was going to run both at the same time, but then I thought people would dwell on the boxers or briefs subject rather than the comic itself.

At the last minute I added the mask. You may not be wearing pants, but in public, please don’t forget your mask.

I think the smaller underwear almost makes the guy look naked, less clothing seems funny in this instance but the hearts boxers are funny, as well.

One last thing, in the finished comic, I removed the garbage can, it made it a bit cleaner.

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Kids making and selling comics

comics Next time I am in Brooklyn, I’d like to check out this comic book store called “Loot.” I saw a segment about it on the Today Show recently.

It’s not just a comic book store, but it’s a place where kids can sit around and create their own comics and the store will sell them! The kids keep 90% of the proceeds from the sale which is “loot” for them in the shop. It looks as if the place opened last summer.

There are over 3000 comics, mostly personal comics of owner Joe Einhorn, that can be bought or borrowed, like a library.

There are tables where kids can sit around and create. There are workshops, too where kids can learn the craft and where they are teamed up to create comic books.

The store has white walls and looks a lot like a gallery.

I would love to go and buy some of the kids’ work, I think it’s such a great way to encourage them to continue with their art. I’ll take you along when I get there.

Today’s political cartoons

I’m sick over what is happening in our country today. Here are some political cartoons that ran this weekend regarding the Minneapolis/George Floyd murder.

Nick Anderson

Signe Wilkinson

Tom Stiglich

Clay Jones

Joe Heller

Rob Rogers

Clay Bennett

Paul Fell

John Deering

A friendly reminder

hal-and-high-water It’s amazing how my whole life has been enveloped by comics, yet a few years back I was sort of out of it and didn’t think I would draw again. Not for any special reason other than I was underwhelmed with so many comics in the newspapers and felt the heyday was over and I ran a very successful marketing business, so I felt that was my future.

About 12 years ago or so, my friend Victor bought me a bunch of stuff as a gift. I was reminded of it as I was cleaning out the closets recently. He bought me pads and pens or markers, something like that – for a birthday or Christmas gift and he said he hoped it would get me back into drawing and cartooning. It was the sweetest thought.

The funny thing is that it was all items I wouldn’t use and never have. And I’m sure anyone would feel that way because you use your own materials when creating art. If I was a painter, but then again no, isn’t that a song? Anyway, if I was a painter, I would have my own canvases that I preferred and my own paints and brushes.

But Victor’s thought meant so much more than the items themselves. And I am back on the road to cartooning history after all this time with a friendly reminder from those pads and pens.

As you know I post my comic daily online at TomFalco.com
And on FacebookandInstagram

Locked out of Facebook

I was locked out of Facebook early Saturday morning up until Sunday morning. That was the scariest 27 hours!

I don’t know why, but when I went to look at it first thing in the morning, it had me locked out and asked me for a personal ID to get back into the account!

I sent them my drivers license.

It seems this has been going on for many years, but I had never heard of this before. If there is some suspicious activity related to your account, they want to protect you so they lock the account and ask for ID, which in the end works out because people cannot use your photos and clone you then.

Anyway, it’s a scary thing because you don’t realize all of your life that is associated with Facebook. I use the messenger service just as much as texting. I use Facebook for business daily. I run ads on it for my marketing company and I use it to converse with customers sometimes. I also use it to converse with friends and relatives and keep up with them like we all do. Also, when I was writing the news I would use it to verify the spelling of people’s names and sometimes I would get their photo from their to use in a news story, with their permission. It’s become such a part of our lives, it’s amazing the power it has over us.

I use Facebook for everything, not just communicating, but for news. I follow so many news sites – the usual, The NY Times, The Wash Post, etc. but also Channel 3 in Phoenix or The Boston Globe and the Cincinnati Enquirer. Why? Who knows. I follow all sorts of news sites. I follow a lot of cartoonists, too. Basically my whole life is on there.

And of course I publish Tomversation comics Monday through Friday on Facebook as well as other places like Instagram and at TomFalco.com. It was quite upsetting because I just started publishing my comics there and have worked up to quite a large number of followers/fans, but I noticed that if I make a temporary personal Facebook page, I can somehow get in there and continue to post and sort of make it work.

What riled me is that I have ads running on my business page. The account was down, I couldn’t get in but was being charged for ads and I couldn’t get into the account to stop them. This is a multi-billion dollar company, maybe trillion dollar company, with all of our info and there is no way to call them or email them. And you can’t use the forms to reach them unless you are signed into your account, which you cannot do if you are locked out.

One more thing – don’t ever sign up for other accounts through Facebook, I use my email account. You know when you go to join something else and it asks, “Would you like to sign up using your Facebook account or email?” Choose the email. Otherwise, you would be locked out of all those accounts, as well.