I have a new Amazon store called Tomversation – you can see it here.
I’m offering all sorts of comics-related things from books and dolls to t-shirts and jewelry.
Please check it out. You might like something for yourself or as a gift and it supports this blog.
Thanks!
So the comic strip Nancy has changed. I don’t know if you knew or if you care, I only care because this is one time when I don’t mind that a comic strip continues.
Usually I feel that when a cartoonist retires or passes on, the strip should pass on, too. Comic strips seem to never end. Usually a new cartoonist takes over and they continue on and that has always bothered me. But for some reason, I like the new Nancy.
So Nancy is now written and drawn by Olivia Jaimes and the new Nancy is a bit fisty and nasty and modern. There are cell phones and video games and things from the 21st Century.
Olivia is one of many cartoonists to do Nancy, many think that Ernie Bushmiller was the creator, but Larry Whittington created Nancy in 1922 and Ernie Bushmiller took over in 1925, then others took over after his death and the last person to do the strip was Guy Gilchrist and finally Olivia. It’s amazing the many lives Nancy has had – sort of like a cat.
People either hate the new Nancy or love it. Here it is at GoComics, check it out for yourself.
There’s a book out called, “How to Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels
I don’t know if it was meant to be an April Fools joke, but I took it that way seeing today’s Bloom County. I’m not sure where else it is published, but I follow it on Facebook and it comes up in my feed.
Today, Bloom County is called, “Calvin County” and it features Calvin, from Calvin and Hobbes.
At first I wondered by Berkeley Breathed did this. Why would he copy Calvin and make him the star of today’s strip. And the drawings of Calvin were so perfect, that I thought he probably traced him.
But if you look at the byline, it gives it away – it’s signed by both Bill Watterson and Berkeley Breathed!
Perfect April Fools day comic.
You can see the full comic here.
Cartoonist Dan Rosandich wrote an article called “Cartoonist cost cutting.” I thought it had to do with the supplies. He was writing about the disappearance of paid staff political cartoonists by newspapers and he blames the internet, which of course decimated the whole newspaper business, not just cartoonists.
But in many cases, the internet has allowed many more cartoonsits to flurish and work for themselves and be seen by many more people who might not have seen their work.
Also, regarding art supplies, I don’t remember the last time I was at an art supply store since I do everything digital now. I don’t even remember the last time I bought a pencil!
Dan has a couple of more articles regarding the way the world wide web has affected cartoonist. He is not a happy camper. But the internet has changed so many professions. I think along with newspapers, retail has to be the biggest, Amazon is taking over the world. Even supermarkets are closing because people shop for food online now!
I’m always finding comics that I really like, they just pop up. I think most of them I find on Facebook, where they are posted in comic sites I follow. See? Social media – again, leading the way when it comes to comics.
Right now I’m loving Man Martin’s Inkwell Forest. Martin Man did the Billy and the Giant Frog comic that I wrote about in the past. I didn’t realize at the time that the Billy comic was a part of the Inkwell Forest comics. Man Martin is doing what I thought would be a good idea – having different comics with different themes under one masthead.
You’ve probably seen the Simons’s Cat comics on social media, they are all over the place. They are short cartoons by Simon Tofield. I don’t know if I can post the short films here on the blog, so here is a link to them.
Dunce by Jens K Styve is really good. The drawing and the writing are perfect. I mostly see these on Twitter, but it seems that daily strips are posted at Instagram here. Just seeing the drawings is really enough, it’s beautiful.
Petri Dish by John Sutton is funny, but I love the drawings very much. Petri Dish centers around the life of Doctor Thaddeus Euphemism, a scientist along Bob, a bobot.I love how the characters don’t have many facial features, yet they are still so expressive.
As I get my Tomversation comic panel ready for publication I am back working on getting my social media sites up to par. I really feel that the future of comics, of so many things, is social media. I get so much of my news on social media (real news, not fake news) and I get a lot of my comics on social media too.
My two favorite sites are Facebook and Instagram. Now that Instagram allows you to swipe through photos, it’s the perfect place for comic strips as you can read them so much more easily now by just swiping through the panels. I like that on both sites fans can easily share your work with their friends, there’s nothing better than recommendations from friends.
Some cartoonists have hundreds of thousands of fans/followers and some even have 1 million or more! That’s my goal.
I have a few accounts on Instagram, I used to post comics on my Tomversation account and I had thousands of fans, which dropped when I stopped posting comics, I basically just put personal things there now, you know, sunsets, travel pictures, art shows and festivals, things like that. I have started a new account for my Tomversation comic panel called Tomversation.toons. That is where I will post my comic daily when I start publishing. Right now I am showing some of the progress and working on building up my fan base.
On my Facebook Tomversation page I have different things now. Mostly links to stories here and other places I’ve published like at Medium and the Huff Post, but I will start publishing comics there daily when ready.
I love the social media aspect because the comics just appear in people’s timelines and are unobtrusive. People don’t have to go looking for the comic online, it just appears along with whatever else they follow on their social media sites.
I’m playing around with Tombo and Jacomo again, getting “Paws” ready for it’s return.
Looks like Jacomo has a new hero.
Every once in awhile, I think of the “Arnold” comic strip that I loved in the 1980s. It ran from 1982 through 1988. Arnold Melville and his friend Tommy Jordan were the stars. The cartoonist was Kevin McCormick. If you click on these strips, they’ll open larger.
I read it daily in The Miami Herald. I really loved it. Arnold was this big nosed kid and lots of the action took place in his school. His long suffering teacher was Mr. Arnold.
Almost daily, Arnold would screech out AIEEE! at the most inopportune time. Is there every an opportune time? It always made me laugh, it just came out at the right moment.
Most of the other characters spoke from outside the panels, you wouldn’t see them.
I think the strip ended too early, Kevin ended it, the syndicate didn’t drop it. Kevin had a big hawk fly in in the final strip and eat Arnold. Kevin regretted ending the strip and said it was too late, “the big bird swallowed.”
But again, look at Bobby Ewing and the shower bit. Maybe Arnold can reappear one day and the big bird sequence could just be a dream.
The syndicate listed on the strips are News America and Field Enterprises. In 1984 it was renamed News America after Hearts bought Field in 1984 and then in 1986 renamed North America Syndicate. Now it is all part of King Features Syndicate.
You can see some more samples of the Arnold comic here.
tomversation.com 