If you swipe back and forth on this image, you can see the two options for today’s cartoon.
The stovepipe hat won out in the end. Not just for Abraham Lincoln, but for the cartoon. At the last minute, I changed from the “caught dead” cartoon to the “more formal” one.
I saw a picture of Lincoln the other day and thought, I would love to draw Lincoln. It was the stovepipe hat which drew my attention, and in the end, the hat, which is the star, never made it to the drawing board. At first I thought of funny ideas for the stovepipe hat but the red beanie won out.
I thought it would look funny to put a red woolen hat on him and the cartoons emerged from there. The “over my dead body,” was dark and I’m glad I changed the final cartoon to the fashion-based one.
I’m not sure why I keep calling it a stovepipe hat, rather than a top hat, but I guess in Lincoln’s era it was called a stovepipe hat. In the 1920s, it was called a top hat.
What’s even stranger about the hat is Lincoln here, in 1862, wearing the stovepipe hat on the battle field. It doesn’t seem like the type of thing to wear in a battlefield.
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Aug-tober. It’s a thing. It’s celebrating October, and specifically Halloween right now – in August!
Many stores, including Home Depot and Target have Halloween items out already and I’ve seen items being featured on tv on QVC. But of course, we know that as soon as September comes, the Christmas items will start showing up.
I see old movies and tv shows where people are buying and putting up the Christmas trees on Christmas Eve. I don’t want to go back to that, but I do think we should celebrate each holiday and season in the order that they come.
I have to admit that I do put up my Christmas tree in mid-November – only because I leave for New York then and don’t return until December, and I like to have it up when I get home so I don’t have to think about it.
I don’t light it. I start lighting it up a couple of weeks before Christmas.
One year I had it up in October! It wasn’t decorated, but it was stored in my spare room and I had a friend sleeping over, so I had to remove it from the room (it’s artificial, of course), and it seemed that it was easier to just put up the tree where it stands usually in the living room, but it wasn’t decorated. It just was there.
I do have my plans for October, regarding travel. I think it’s my favorite month. I’ll be at New York Comic Con as usual and I’ll be pumpkin and apple picking with some of my cousins in the Hudson Valley, which is always a favorite thing – seeing the leaves change, being in the cool weather, going to farms for the pumpkins and applies, having hot apple cider and apple cider doughnuts . .. it’s perfect! And sometimes we do the Oyster Festival in The Hamptons and so many other fall things.
Dude With Sign loves Halloween, too.
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I came up with this cartoon years ago. I redrew it for publication today. It just made me laugh when I blurted out “Morning Joe it alls” one morning a few years back while watching the show. I do watch it almost every morning – not the whole thing, but maybe an hour, from 6 am to 7 am, first thing in the morning.
I do like Joe and Mika, although Joe does shout a lot and it’s very early in the morning, so I have to lower the tv quite often when he’s off on one of his tangents. There are a couple of regular guests who put me to sleep the moment they open their mouths, so I turn the channel when they are on, but I do enjoy Morning Joe.
My mother started watching years ago. I believe it premiered in 2007, so back then, she would say to me, “You don’t watch Morning Joe?” as if it was must see tv. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I knew she was addicted to politics and she would go on and on with the goings on in Washington whenever she could.
She wanted to discuss the world events so badly and finally she finally found a comrade to discuss things with when my niece’s husband chimed in that he was addicted, too. So the two of them would rattle on about the goings on in DC, and so much of it included what Joe and Mika had to say. They agreed with each other and with Mika and Joe, so there were no shouting matches.
So while it’s still dark out most mornings, I turn the tv on in the living room at 6 am and I watch and listen to what the crew on Morning Joe has to say – the “Joe it alls.” And I agree with them most of the time, so I don’t mind Joe screaming at me in the cold, dark mornings. Like he did this morning.
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I’m still feeling FOMO about the Paris Olympics. I want to be in Paris. The 2028 summer Olympics are in Los Angeles – meh. For me it’s about the Olympics and Paris as a combo, not simply the Olympics, so LA has no allure as far as I’m concerned.
I started up my Tomversation single panel cartoon again, along with the final week of Ollie And Jacomo in Paris, so they are overlapping. My single panel had been on a two week break while I concentrated on Ollie and Jacamo.
I’ve been playing around with Substack, the blogging platform, but it seems to be overwhelmed and hogged by a few other cartoonists. I don’t follow them, but they seem to be dominating the platform in an annoying way. One cartoonist is very thirsty, he posts something every few seconds it seems, which is really being too extra. It’s all about him it seems where Substack is concerned.
He draws in the park and announces it. I’ve seen so many people drawing in the park in NYC and I don’t think any of them announce it. It’s sort of like these street musicians, they just appear and play, I don’t think they announce it to everyone, “Hey, I’ll be in Madison Square Park by the fountain playing at noon.”
This one guy drew something on a stain on the wall in a public restroom and had to post that image.
It reminds me of when my condo board was doing things around the building but not telling everyone about it as a courtesy. One person said, “I’ll tell you the next time I sneeze or pick my nose, Tom!”
I guess less is more. In every situation.
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Ollie and Jacomo are back for a summer run. I’ve been getting requests and lots of followers on social media, which is odd, since we’re not promoting the feature, but people seem to love the wile rabbit Ollie and his buddy Jacomo, the hedgehog. The Jacomo, “I Live for Summer” t-shirt has been selling, too, so it’s time to bring them back.
I enjoy them because they seem to write themselves, they took on their own personalities right way.
The Paris Olympics start this week and by dumb luck, Ollie and Jacomo happen to be right there in Paris! So we’ll follow their French adventures while they are overseas!
I just started drawing up the adventures, and as usual, they seem to be writing themselves! The cartoons will be all set to roll on Monday.
This 1957 cartoon was posted on Mike Lynch’s blog the other day. It’s by cartoonist Tom Hudson.
It reminded me of my new GE washer/dryer, which started out at a reasonable price and ended up being way over priced.
I have a very small space for the washer/dryer in my condo unit so I am limited as to what I can get. I found one at Best Buy. It was delivered, but it didn’t fit in the space all the way, it was sticking out a bit. The delivery guys who installed it blamed the vent in back, but the previous unit had the same dimensions and vent and fit in fine for all these years.
I tipped them $40.00 ($20.00 each) and they left.
I decided to live with it. Only it started making strange grinding noises, so I went back to Best Buy and managed to find the washer/dryer I liked to begin with. It’s ventless, so there is no worry about the size of the vent in back. We swapped out the units.
I didn’t get the unit I liked to begin with because I didn’t know I had two plus behind the washer/dryer, but when the guys were installing the first unit, I saw I had both – 110 and 220. So now I could get the washer/dryer I liked, an LC brand. The first unit delivered only used the 220 socket.
The new washer/dryer was delivered and installed, but then the delivery/installation guys told me the washer didn’t work! They said the 110 socket was not working, where the 220 for the dryer was working fine. I was told to get an electrician to check the breaker.
I tipped these two guys $40.00 ($20.00) each and they left.
By now, the original $1400.00 unit cost me another $940.00 for the new LC unit and the $80.00 for the tips for the drivers – $2420.00 total.
Now for the electrician – another $120.00 – for nothing. Because it turns out the 110 electrical socket was working fine. The installers just must have had the plug in there too loosely.
So another $120.00 for a total of $2540.00 for my original $1400 unit.
But I like the new washer/dryer and I’ve been happy with it. And contrary to reports on ventless dryers not drying the clothing fully, that’s a myth, because mine come out great. The towels come out dry and fluffy, too.
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This one with the rooster of course came from our neighborhood rooster. I wrote about him a couple of times before. Well, the other day I was walking and and I heard him crowing non-stop – it was about 8 am. I kept looking for him, but couldn’t see him. I saw the female chicken and babies but no rooster.
Then I looked up and there he was – up on a fence outside a neighbor’s house. I wanted to video him crowing, but he shut up as soon as he spotted me as I took this photo, but no video of him crowing.
The rooster up on the neighbor’s fence.
I have a friend who says Miami is the home of Peacocks and Palm Trees, we have to add roosters to this list. The other day when I was driving out of Publix, I had to stop for a family of chickens crossing the parking lot. Literally. They stopped right in front of my car and there was no way to get around them. I got out of the car and shooed them away. When I looked up, I saw a police officer watching and laughing at me. Just another day in the life.
This Temu idea came from the fact that I bought this beautiful trench coat on Temu – for $37.00! That’s it, no shipping charges and no sales tax. The thing is, I was looking for a coat like this for the winter and I went to Macy’s and the prices were $495.00 for the coats I wanted. I was actually prepared to pay $300.00, but I couldn’t see myself paying $495.00 for the few days I’m up north in the winter.
I tried them on in the store and fell in love with them, but I just couldn’t. So I ended u buying the coat on Temu. I’m not sure how, I am not a Temu shopper and I am guessing the good old internet saved my cookie from Macy’s and sent me ads online including the Temu add.
Anyway, the coat is beautiful, but knowing it was from Temu and $37.00 bothered me. Perception.
The Kors coat I bought from Macy’s.
I saw an ad on tv for Macy’s one day sale, where things were up to 70% off and I ended up buying the coat from Macy’s for only $137.00 plus sales tax. I had to order it online because when I went back to the store they had all been shipped out somewhere to make way for Spring clothing.
I ended up getting a gorgeous Michael Kors Wool Cashmere Blend Overcoat. It is so nice. To be honest, I don’t know if you can tell the difference between the Temu coat, other than the colors – Temu is black, Michael Kors is Charcoal.
But I’m all set for winter now. It seems way to dressy for me, I usually wear a bomber-style jacket in winter. But I’m looking forward to walking around the city in this new overcoat. I noticed that the charcoal coat at Macy’s is now $199.00 but all the other colors are back to the original price of $495.00. When I purchased the coat, they were all $137.00. The games retailers play.
I tried giving away the Temu coat, but I always preface it by saying it’s from Temu, and that sort of lessens the value in people’s eyes, so no one wants it.
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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 borrowed this recent cartoon from another one of my cartoons – it’s taken from Ollie and Jacomo. It’s popular, because people seem to like talking animals or inanimate objects. I’m not sure why.
I do cartoon on ancient Egypt and social events and cavemen and a play on words (but not puns) and the cartoons that get the most likes, shares and play are animals and inanimate objects.
Here’s the Ollie And Jacomo version. Interestingly enough, I haven’t published Ollie and Jacomo for quite awhile, yet it keeps picking up followers and fans around the internet. What do actors say about working with animals and children? Well, animals and inanimate objects seem to steal the spotlight, too.
I wanted to test the theory and that’s why I redid the cartoon for my Tomversation comic panel. And I was right, people love this cartoon. If I made the tree talk I’m sure it would be even more popular!
This recently “voted off the island” was very popular, too. Toast, salt, pepper, fruit, all in living form, what’s not to like?
I like to live by the quote: “Don’t publish for likes, publish what I like and the audience will follow.” But every once in awhile I’ll throw these animals and inanimate things because I need to grow my audience.
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I wasn’t sure what tv show to use for this cartoon, but I ended up doing “The Office,” in hopes that people are familiar with it. I don’t see how you can’t be since it’s on almost 24 hours a day on some tv channels.
I thought of doing Seinfeld or I Love Lucy, Gilligan’s Island or some other well-known show, but The Office seemed to work.
I’ve been watching The Office constantly on Comedy Central and while I watched it on it’s initial run every Thursday night, I never realized what a jerk and creep Andy is. I always liked him, but as I watch the reruns now, I don’t see any redeeming qualities in him. I guess he was always been a jerk, on purpose. Dwight is a jerk, but he doesn’t know he’s a jerk; that’s the difference.
My sister-in-law has a few dogs, their names are Lucy, Ethel, Desi and I think Carolyn Appleby, not sure if there is a Fred, but I remember on one Lucy episode, they had a puppy named Fred on the show.
My parents used to have a next door neighbor whose dog’s name was Richard. I never saw the lady, but when I would visit, I would often here her calling Richard – “Richard! Richard!” I asked my mother if the lady was calling her husband, and my mother, with a straight face, said, “No, she’s calling her dog.” And the fact that I never saw the lady made it even funnier.
This was some years back. My parents also had good friends who lived across the street – the Earps, descendants of Wyatt Earp, but that’s another story.
We had dogs named Daisy, Hans, Ginger, etc. The usual names i guess.
This is one of my favorite pictures It was taken a few summers ago. That’s Molly and Me (that’s a movie, isn’t it?) on our way to the Hamptons in the back seat of the car. Molly was my aunt and uncle’s pet, they were in the front seat. I don’t remember if one of them took this picture or if I took it as selfie. Molly is no longer with us and neither is my aunt.
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tomversation.com 