Category: comics

Buying time to travel and do other things

Stephan Pastis at NY Comic Con a few years ago.

In my interview with Stephan Pastis the other day, he mentions that  he draws 14 Pearls Before Swine comic strips every week, which buys him 26 free weeks a year to write other books and travel. He needs 7 strips a week, six dailies and one Sunday and in one week he gets double that done – 14 (12 dailies and two Sundays).

I find that fascinating because one big complaint with daily cartoonists have is that they don’t have a life. Most say they work non-stop, full time and never have time to travel or do many family things, but Stephen seems to have it all figured out, which I love. 26 weeks of free time to do other things is fantastic, especially the travel part.

I do five cartoons a week, he does seven, so with me, that would be 10 strips a week, rather than 14. And mine are single panel, rather than actual multi-panel strips. Not that I have a problem getting them done, for some reason five strips a week, rather six or seven, seems to work perfectly for me and it’s worked out for my travel schedule. I also work fast, which to one cartoon editor was a negative, while I see it as a positive.

I have another 10 With Tom interview with another cartoonist this week and he says he spends six hours on dailies and up to 18 hours on a Sunday strip. I have to work fast, I can’t imagine spending all that time on one single strip. It’s just not part of my constitution.

I have thought about working while I traveling, but I’m not in my element, my office, I can’t get comfortable doing that, so it’s easy to see that if doubling up on weeks, it buys all that extra time.

I do get ideas when am traveling, so while that is work, it’s not actual drawing, it’s just thinking and jotting ideas down, which is great, because them I have an arsenal of them when I return home and am ready to work.

Another thing Stephan said, which I found interesting is that he gets more eyes on his comic strip when posts it on social media because of all the shares. “Those reader numbers may exceed newspapers,” he said, which shows that more people read the comics online and through social media than in print these days.

I like that fact because after all these years, I prefer online publication, rather than print for so many reasons – there is the sharing aspect of course and the main reason is that the deadlines are short, if there even are deadlines. With newspaper comics, the deadlines are sometimes four to six weeks. Online it can be minutes, literally minutes. The cartoon can be drawn and be posted right then and there.

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Stephan Pastis revisited

I had the chance to interview Stephan Pastis, the cartoonist you know from Pearls Before Swine. I interviewed him one in 2017 for the Huffington Post.

You can see this new interview right here on 10WithTom.com

How do you feel about self-check out?

This recent cartoon, really hit a nerve. I didn’t think it would affect people so much. It got thousands of shares an untold number of comments on social media.

Mostly people who work at Walmart were upset, thinking I was picking on them, but I just chose Walmart because I usually hear people complain about the check-outs at Walmart. Truth be told, I don’t remember the last time I was in a Walmart, I think it could be 10 years or more and it’s only because there are no near where I live, I think the closest is 10 to 12 miles away, which isn’t much, but why not go to closer stores, rather than drive 10 miles to get something?

If you didn’t realize, the lady in the cartoon has a Walmart logo on her vest.

And people seem to hate the self-check out, but is it mandatory in Walmart? Every place I have been that has them has them as a choice; they have the usual cashiers, as well.

I prefer the self-check out, I seek it out. I use it at Publix, Whole Foods, CVS, Home Depot and I’m sure whatever place I see it. I find it convenient, fast and I don’t have to speak to anyone.

I’m glad the cartoon made the rounds, it must have been seen by over a million people so far.

One site where it was shared, got so hot and heavy in the comments section, it almost came to blows, that they removed the cartoon! And it had hundreds of shares and almost as many comments!

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On (and off) stage

Today’s cartoon reminds of a scene I used to see almost daily, some years ago.

I used to run on the boardwalk on Miami Beach, almost daily. And there was a hotel pool area that sort of looked like a cruise deck. I don’t know if it was deliberate, but the pool was set up where there were cabanas behind it, built into the wall. When I looked at it, it almost looked like a stage. Like a fake cruise ship set up on a stage.

I used to run by, sometimes walk, and stop there, and look at the layout and picture the Carol Burnett Show for some reason. I would imagine it was a set on the stage, set up as a cruise deck.

And for some reason, I guess when I drew this, it reminded me of that in a way, where you don’t see the whole ship, just this small section.

Back then, too, I used to stop back behind the Roney Hotel as I was on the boardwalk, and the way it was shaped, reminded me of a stadium. It is a sort of horseshoe shape face out to the ocean, so if you stood below, on the boardwalk, it was like looking up at stadium seating, and I was on first base or on stage or whatever. You can see it here, the boardwalk which can’t be seen would be at the bottom of the picture and looking up from below at the “U” shape, looked like stadium seating.

Vivid imagination I have. But almost daily I would look at these two scenes and imagine the one where I was looking u at the audience and the other, where I was the audience, looking at the Carol Burnett Show. Weird.

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Frank and his wife

This cartoon which was published a couple of days ago ended up being quite popular. When I thought of it and drew it, I wasn’t sure. But that quote from Jason Chatfield, “Don’t curate your art to what gets likes. Curate it to what you like,” and that always seems to pan out. If I like it, the readers like it, most of the time, anyway.

The Frankenstein Monster, who I call Frank, and his wife and recurring characters in Tomversation cartoons, I don’t know why, but ideas for them seem to pop up in my mind often. Yesterday’s cartoon about taking things home from the office was going to feature them in some way. I pictured body parts hanging on hooks in the kitchen or something like that, but I thought I’ve been using them too often, so I thought of another idea, which surprisingly went quite well, too.

I use Batman and Superman often, Batman more so, in fact, I have three or four new Batman related cartoons drawn and in the hopper for publication, one is published today.


I like using snakes, witches, cavemen and ancient Egypt and a few other concepts on a regular basis. Again, I don’t know why they are in my mind, but ideas pop up often.

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Super clean

This is how they clean the windows at the Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh.

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Cartoonist Tom Toro

Cartoonist Tom Toro

I had the chance to interview Tom Toro, New Yorker magazine cartoonist who has a new comic strip published at GoComics.

It’s part of my 10 With Tom column, which you can read here.

One of Tom Toro’s New Yorker cartoons

Overpriced concert tickets

I wasn’t sure if people would get this cartoon, but they sure have. It’s hit a nerve with so many people. On social media people are letting loose with their comments. With this new “dynamic ticket” pricing, it’s saving all the good seats for those who can afford it, raising the price to thousands of dollars. Ticketmaster allegedly is scalping the scalpers.

I am surprised though at so many people who don’t like Bruce Springsteen, according to their comments anyway.

The last time I saw Springsteen in person was 1985! At the Orange Bowl in Miami. For years I’ve been thinking it was 1984, but this news article says it was 1985.

My mother even went! No, we didn’t need her to chaperone, she just loved Springsteen, too, so she was a fan!

My mom had eclectic tastes, she loved Springsteen, AC/DC, Peter Frampton, Fleetwood Mac and it’s no secret that her favorite song was Sweet Child o’ Mine by Guns ‘N Roses, but she also loved Frank Sinatra and Elvis, Tom Jones and basically everything!

There was a period where I went to a lot of concerts and I would get the best seats possible. I remember about 10 or 15 years ago sitting mere feet from Stevie Nicks at a Fleetwood Mac concert, she was just a few rows up and my friends and I were dead center. And I’m sure we didn’t overpay for the tickets.

Now the ticket prices are out of sight. Like gas, groceries and everything these days. I’m surprised no one has blamed President Biden for the cost of concert tickets yet.

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Google it

I have a friend who worked in an info booth in town for years. Whenever I wanted to go to lunch or whatever, I would say, “Put a sign on the booth and let’s go. Tell people to Google It!”

Actually, the city sort of did that. They removed the info booths and put in something like those LinkNYC things they have in NY, only they aren’t as sophisticated, you can’t go online or use the internet, it’s more of an advertising thing. I have another friend whose beautiful art is on the info link things as part of the City of Miami’s project, I would love to get some of my cartoons on them.

A few years back I was in New York and a Nor’easter was coming. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I asked the concierge about it, “What should I do Michael? Stay? Go home?” He told me he would let me know in the morning. I gave him my number and figured that being a concierge, he had some sort of in with the weather service.

I asked him, “How are you going to get the weather?” He said, “I’m going to Google it,” to which I laughed.

In the end, the airline contacted me and had me change my flight and I came home early because of the oncoming storm. Michael did contact me the next day about the weather, but I took an early flight and was already home in Miami by then.

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Van Go Moving and Storage

Today’s comic made me think of the real thing. What if there was a moving company called “Van Go” and and all of the movers looked like Vincent Van Gogh? We’ve all seen people in real life who look like Van Gogh, right?

But I guess it would be hard to gather a bunch together and have them work as movers, right? But it’s an interesting idea.

Or another idea I had was a arts and antiques moving company that used people dressed as or look-alike artists or art subjects. Like for instance you had the Mona Lisa delivering a painting you won at auction or Monet delivering a vase you got at a tag sale.

I remember years ago there was a restaurant in town that gave you famous names as you walked in along with your table buzzer. When your table was ready they would call out, “Marilyn Monroe, table for two!” “Clark Gable, table for four,” etc.

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