There is this TikTok video which started this conversation. A girl asks her boyfriend how often he thinks of it, and oddly enough, he thinks of the Roma Empire quite often. Now others are asking their boyfriends/husbands and these guys say they think of it a lot.
Do you?
I think I do, but honestly, I think of ancient Egypt almost daily.
Seriously.
I’m obsessed with ancient Egypt and I think I probably would be an Egyptologist if I did my life over. I have been thinking of the Roman Empire lately because I keep trying to think of a cartoon that is Coliseum-related.
I have done quite a few cartoons related to Egypt over the years and maybe that’s why I think of it a lot – to get cartoon ideas. But I do watch a lot of tv shows based on Egypt, but also ancient Italy, including Rome.
I know that the Rosetta Stone was found in 1799 during a war. A soldier found it in a fort. It had hieroglyphics at the top portion and an ancient Egypt translation on the bottom portion. People were able to decipher the hieroglyphics from that. It was the first time they were deciphered.
The first word they deciphered was Ptolemy – which was Cleopatra’s family/dynasty. And who was Cleopatra? The last pharaoh of Egypt, which was then taken over by the Ancient Romans – when Augustus invaded and that ended the Ptolemy dynasty and all of the centuries of pharaohs and Egyptian rule, which became the Roman Empire.
I learned some of the alphabet from the Ptolemy hieroglyphic – a P is a square, a T is a half circle, an L is a lion and so on.
My parents passed away – my Dad last September and my Mom the October before that. The house is still sitting as it was left. I’m not sure what it taking us so long to clean it out. Too many memories maybe, maybe too big of a job. There is 50 years worth of stuff in that house. 50 years this month.
I decided to start going a couple of days a week and try to make a dent. I started with my old room. I’m amazed that so much of my old art from when I was a kid and also from high school and college is still there. Not that anyone would dispose of it, but 30 years ago, Hurricane Andrew struck and the house was inundated with water. There was so much water in the house that the refrigerator was on its side. It was lifted up and thrown over! I guess maybe four feet of water or more was in the house.
The art was on the top shelf of the closet, I’m luckily it survived. Everything below that is gone now, destroyed in the flood.
There were piles and piles of large pads full of cartoons and comic strips I drew and also art from high school and college classes.
Yes, we had nude models in college for figure drawing. I guess we got used to it after the first couple of times.
It’s funny, but I remember this guy’s face from so many years ago. I know, he was naked, but it’s his face I remember. For some reason, it had a familiar look, almost like a famous person or so, so when I look at this I can almost remember him.
Here’s a more detailed figure. These nudes are from college, But one image from high school sticks out. We had to draw a pair of sneakers that were on the table and I remember doing that. I remember how happy I was with the results. I guess I’ll find that in the pile of art I now have.
Not sure who this is, but I don’t remember her being a model. Maybe it was from a book or magazine.
I saw this photo of the Obamas on my mother’s dresser. I don’t remember ever seeing it before.
When I picked it up and read it, I see she must have donated to them or his campaign or something. I was living out of the house by then so I guess I never saw this and she never mentioned it.
My mom loved the Obamas, so did my dad, I was happy to see that she kept the image along with family photos on/in the mirror like people do.
My mom gave to all sorts of charities, she always did. I’m glad to see she donated to political campaigns, too.
One sad thing about the way my parents passed away was that they left the house and didn’t come back in the end. And things are left as if they just walked out of the room.
This looks like my dad’s eyeglasses, just sitting on the side of the bed.
In the kitchen, next to the sink there is a towel and there are two spoons on it, looking as if they were washed and placed there to dry. Just like it was yesterday.
My dad used the dining room table as a desk. All of his papers are there – just as he left them. A pen sits on the pile, just as if he put it down and walked out of the room for a second.
All this reminds me of famous houses I’ve visited – the Roosevelts, Hemmingway, etc. Their personal papers and things were just sitting there, although they were probably set up and placed there. But it gives the illusion that they just walked out of the room for a second. In these cases at my parents’ house, they were really just left as I see them now.
I spoke to one of my brothers. We may start going through the house next weekend, to just start packing things up. We’ll do it as a group to make it go faster, I guess. We grew up up there. It won’t be easy.
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Today is the first day of school in Miami-Dade County. The private schools started last week.
The reason I bring that up is because I started going through things in my old room at my parents house and I came upon so many things I had forgotten I had like these school newspapers.
For many years, I had a company that printed school newspapers among so many other things. I found all the newspapers I had saved that we printed – years and years worth of papers. I plan on giving them to the schools – a time capsule from the 1980s through the early 2000s.
I used to celebrate the start of school – I used to go to the beach on the first day – the beach was dead due to it being the first day of school – and I had the place to myself.
I was celebrating because business picked up again. My business was dead all summer. There were no school newspapers or other things to print since most of the work I did was seasonal. So I worked for nine months, but for those three summer months, there was no money or business coming in. But starting in the fall and particularly, the first day of school, business picked up again for the year.
It’s interesting going through the newspapers because most have the news of the world, not just school news. There are a lot of movie reviews from new movies of the time – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Back to the Future and things like that. The kids loved the movies, by the way. There is national news that the kids were interested in and it’s interesting to see their take on all that and how it played out at the time. Lots of pop culture made it into the newspapers – music, movies, tv – Madonna!
I loved those days. The work was easy and I was in schools around the county almost daily. I would go by to pick up the work and then deliver it after it was printed. I not only handled the newspapers, but we printed year book supplements, literary magazines, sports journals and so many other things. I loved being part of that as it kept me young being in the high schools and junior high schools which became middle schools some time in the middle of all that.
I taught the newspaper classes sometimes – meeting up with classes and explaining the process. I was friendly with most of the teachers and office staff.
The black and white newspapers started experimenting with full color and computers took over the schools and rather than my company doing the typesetting and paste-up, the kids did it all and handed the job in ready to print. So I was there at that interesting time of all the tech changes.
I drive by so many of the schools these days and it brings back so many memories as I drive by. It all comes flooding back.
Back then I had my run of the schools. Toward the end of my doing the newspapers after doing it for so many years, something sad happened. Metal detectors started appearing at the front doors and many of the entrances. I had to show my ID to enter and it was the end of those innocent time.
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I was telling one of my cousins last week that I watch a lot of PBS. She assumed I watched a lot of “nature shows” or educational stuff, but I told her I watch a lot of British tv – britcoms, mysteries, etc.
The lighthouse was in danger of falling off of the cliffs, as the erosion got closer and closer. So a plan was set in place to move the much-loved and historic lighthouse back 135 feet to save it for another 150 years or so.
I kept picturing people 150 years from now doing the same thing- moving the lighthouse in another 135 feet, cursing the people in 2023 for not doing it at the time. But they can’t move the lighthouse too far back, – it still serves a purpose and needs to be visible by boats at sea.
It’s a fun program, talking about the history of the lighthouse, showing the village people of Martha’s Vineyard and the actual crew doing the job of lifting the lighthouse four feet off the ground and moving it without it collapsing under its own weight.
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I went to the Brooklyn Museum the other day. I visited the art and then just before I left, I stopped by the Ancient Egypt area. And you know what? I felt at home. I literally felt at home.
I was pleased to see objects from Ramesses II and so many others, including Akhenaten.
I’m always fascinated by ancient Egypt. The exhibits have inspired me to do more Egypt-based cartoons.
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I was going to put Tomversation toons on hiatus many times and start up Ollie and Jacomo again, which I did earlier this week finally and I hope you’ll check it out. But each time I was going to make the switch, a current Tomversation cartoon would get millions of views (one cartoon had over 2.5 million views just on Instagram) and it would egg me on to keep going. One day cartoons would get a few thousand views and then overnight, one cartoon would get millions. It happened more than once and so I kept putting Ollie and Jacomo off.
This cartoon about the one hour film processing ran last week. It was one of my most popular cartoons. It has been seen by almost 1.5 million people so far on Facebook alone, and shared by thousands and debated and commented no non-stop. You can see the stats below. There are over 1000 comments, and over 3000 shares.
It’s still being shared and commented on today, almost a week later. The odd thing is that I meant to say, “One Day Service,” not “One Hour.”
And originally when it was published, I spelled “whoa” wrong. I was corrected by readers, as they are so quick and gracious to point out one’s mistakes.
Many camera aficionados or people who simply worked in photo places at the time told me that One Hour Service started some time in the early 1980s. But it’s interesting either way how many memories this cartoon has brought people, mistakes and all.
I love when a cartoon hits a nerve in some way – in a good way, that is – jogging good memories is always a good thing.
My Ollie and Jacomo cartoon started Monday, June 12, hope to see you there for something new and different from me. You can see it here.
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Recently this old west cartoon was published regarding the Pony Express. By the way, the pony express only lasted 18 months – from April 1860 to October 1861. It went bankrupt in that short time, and by then the telegraph was being used which made it obsolete.
I like to do these “living the dream” cartoons once in awhile – it’s usually regarding something that was ultra modern back in the day and we laugh about now. I’ve done old tv sets that were new at the time – getting a whole three channels on a big 12 inch screen; and I’ve done cavemen all confused about the new fangled tech device called fire.
I often think of those times – 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, whatever. Even today, we think we are living in the most modern of times, but think of 100 years from now, how so many of the things we think are the highest of tech will be laughed at as being primative.
I may have goofed with this old west cartoon because people are joking about that being post office is today, only they really aren’t joking.
I ordered a book not long ago which was shipped from California on the same day I purchased it. It got to Florida exactly one month later. One month to the day.
There was a time during election time where I was selling a bunch of election stuff on etsy – a lot was selling, but I had to discontinue because the items which normally take 3 days or less in shipping time, were taking a month or more!
Some of the comments I got from readers regarding the this “living the dream/pony express cartoon,” are:
“It’s still 12 days, with all our automation and computers, only 163 years later.”
“Looks like we need to go back to the pony express.”
“Takes that long to mail something from one house to the neighbors now.”
“Some things never change!”
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Another great story on CBS Sunday Morning this past week.
Bill Blackbeard, over 30 years, has preserved 2.5 million comic strip artifacts – actual ephemeral newspaper comics sections. I love this, but I do wish he would have saved the whole newspaper of the times! Some go back to 1904.
He drove around the country with his wife and friends, collecting old newspaper comic sections, a lot from libraries who would microfilm the newspapers and then have no future use for them after filming them.
The comics are being featured at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University right now.
Included with the newspapers is the whole original set of 1931 comic art pieces of Blondie – actual drawn pieces of art from the time.
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This cartoon is all about those Victorian images we see where people are very serious in the photographs. It seems like every single image at that time was a serious thing.
I came across some images online the other day, where people were actually laughing and smiling in the old photos, and this cartoon came to mind – what if they were able to smile and the photographer just told them not to, like in the cartoon here?
Supposedly it took up to 15 minutes at the time for the shutter speed to work correctly and it was easier not to smile. Also, many people had only one, two or three photos taken during their whole lifetime and I guess it was a serious matter.
People also had their photos taken after they were dead – they were propped up with the living and that was a remembrance of a person who may not have had their photos ever taken when they were alive. I’m serious. Look here. It’s called, “Death Photography.”
The cartoon above was done two ways, a part black and white image of the subjects, to mimic the photo being taken and a full color cartoon. If you slide the thingy back and forth you can see what I mean.
Below are a few Victorian photos, some smiling, some not. And I’m wondering the smiling ones look like spur of the moment, and not posed, especially these girls jumping and smiling and laughing in a photo from 1880, so I think that blows the 15 minute time constraint theory. But who knows.
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