Category: Ollie And Jacomo

Watching the Olympics on and off

I’ve been watching the Olympics occasionally, depending on when I catch it. I am feeling FOMO of not being in Paris, it looks like it’s the place to be this summer.

When I was a kid, I watched it all – from opening ceremony to closing ceremony. I knew every Olympians life story if it was reported on tv and I watched hours and hours of it. Of course we didn’t have 1000 tv channels back then, so since there weren’t many choices, I watched the main event for two weeks.

Ollie And Jacomo at the Olympics.


I did catch the men’s gymnastics and I stuck with it because one of the guys is the spitting image of one of my neighbors. He could be his brother. They look so much alike. I’ve seen still pictures of this Olympian online and he doesn’t look like my neighbor in still shots, but on tv, moving, he looks just like him.

I haven’t told my neighbor because I don’t know how he would take it, sometimes when people tell you that you look like someone it isn’t a compliment. My neighbor is much younger than me, more like a son, and I yelled at him one day, as a father would yell at a son, only he isn’t my son, and it caused bad feelings. He’s back talking to me, so I don’t want to be stupid by saying anything that might be stupid.

For years I’ve said things out loud that I think I am only thinking in my head. I’m not sure how or why that happens, but really, I think it and I think I am only thinking it, and I end up blurting it out.

I’ve been having fun with Ollie And Jacomo, setting them in Paris during the Olympic games. It’s given me lots of ideas and themes to work with.

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Ollie and Jacomo in Paris

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.

You can can check them out at OllieAndJacomo.com

Or you can follow the on Social Media at:
Facebook here: facebook.com/OllieAndJacomo
Instagram here: instagram.com/ollieandjacomo

Animals and inanimate objects

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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Ollie and Jacomo


I’m switching back to Ollie And Jacomo for a bit, taking a little break from my single panel Tomversation cartoon. Hope you follow along. It starts today.

I keep getting subscribers on the Ollie And Jacomo website and on Facebook and I’m not sure why, as I haven’t been promoting them, but they are being seen somewhere I guess. So I figured I should give them a little attention.

While new episodes of Tomversation are being “filmed,” I will dedicate my time to the new Ollie And Jacomo season. It’s my “seasons” thing, where comics have a season.

You can can check them out at OllieAndJacomo.com

Or you can follow the on Social Media at:
Facebook here: facebook.com/OllieAndJacomo
Instagram here: instagram.com/ollieandjacomo

Thanks!

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Buggy bugs

My Ollie And Jacomo cartoon which was published yesterday hit so close to home.

In Florida, while mosquitoes may be a problem, Palmetto Bugs are the worst. If you’ve never seen one, picture a large black roach, sometimes two inches long – that flies!

I’ve lived in Florida practically all my life, but I’ve never got over seeing one in my house. I remember years ago I practically destroyed my house like this cartoon, trying to kill one, which was climbing up the wall. I can picture it in my head now, crawling along a painting above the tv. I was getting ready to go out for the night, but I couldn’t leave until I got it, which eventually I did.

A couple of weeks ago I walked into the kitchen at night, turned on the light and there was a big, and I mean big, palmetto bug sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. I had the bug spray in my other room across the house, so I went running to get it before the bug disappeared and in the process, I slipped on the floor, put my hand out to steady myself and fell into the closet doors, which are now broken and need replacing!

I did get the bug in the end though. I bought this new eco friendly stuff that paralyzes the bugs but is safe for people and the environment.

It’s funny, when I’ve mentioned to people that I broke my closet doors by falling into them, they ask me if I tumbled into them because I was drunk.

I hadn’t seen a palmetto bug inside my house for over 10 years. Now every once in awhile one pops up, I don’t know what changed. I’ve taken to spraying once a month now under the stove and at entrances, sort of like an exterminator would.

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Jasper and Richard

A dog and cat are part of my new Ollie and Jacomo cartoon. They will start showing up in cartoons later this summer.

Jasper is the dog and Richard is the cat. I always liked the name Jasper for a dog and Richard seems quite funny as an animal or pet’s name to me.

Years ago, my parents had a next door neighbor who had a dog named Richard. She would often call out to the dog who was out lost in the neighborhood somewhere, “Richard! Richard!” The first time I heard the lady’s high pitched voice calling, I asked my mother, “Who is Richard, her son? Her husband?” And my mother replied, “Her dog.”

I never got over it, every time she called out to Richard over the years it always made me laugh. I don’t think I ever saw Richard or the lady. I guess I was too lazy to look out the window. I didn’t live there at the time, I had long moved out, so I was just over visiting and I guess I really didn’t want to spoil the image by seeing what Richard and the lady looked like.

That reminds me of that train trip I took where I listed to the old ladies the whole trip and didn’t want to know what they looked like, but did see them in the end and was disappointed. That story is blogged here.

Anyway, I hope you are enjoying Ollie And Jacomo. I know it’s started out slow, but I had to introduce the premise. It will pick up now. Here’s today cartoon. It sort of hits home because lately I’ve been noticing that everything seems to be half full or less these days – in cans, packages, whatever. You open the package and wonder where the food is? It’s worse with clear packaging, you really feel gipped.

You can see Ollie and Jacomo at these locations if you would care to keep up with their adventures in Coconut Cove:

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Ollie and Jacomo premiered today

Ollie and Jacomo, my new cartoon, started publication this morning. It starts off slow, to introduce the characters and will get funnier by the end of the week. Promise. 🙂

Ollie And Jacomo will publish Monday thru Friday, and can be seen at these locations:
Website: OllieAndJacamo.com
Facebook: facebook.com/OllieAndJacomo
Instagram: instagram.com/ollieandjacomo

I hope you’ll follow along at one or all of these locations.

Ollie and Jacomo

I keep going back and forth in my head about starting up my “Paws” comic panel again.

Some of you may remember it, I first started posting it in 2013 – 10 years ago! I’m not quite sure why I stopped.

It stars a Rabbit and a Mole – Ollie the Rabbit and Jacomo the Mole. Ollie was called Tombo at one time, but he’s back to being Ollie, his original name.

Back 10 years, ago, in 2013, I saw a cute black and white cartoon daily on Instagram. A 19-year-old guy from Norway or that area of the world would post this great cartoon about a 5-year-old boy and a snowman. Each day it was sort of a full adventure in one comic panel and without any words! It was that good. It was quite amazing. And that’s what gave me the idea to start up “Paws” which I’m sure was called something else back then.

I was enthralled by the artwork and concept from the guy from Norway and I wish I had remembered his name. He started branching out, selling his work as greeting cards and things like that. The reason I may have stopped following him was that at the end of winter and these charming cartoons, he had the snowman melt! Yes, the snowman melted and that was the end of the adventures of him and the boy and he probably stopped posting things so his account just went dormant.

Anyway, I’ve played around with the characters and really like them. I now have things set up, I changed the whole thing from “Paws” to Ollie And Jacomo and got a new URL and set it all up, I reworked the characters and premise, renamed some and am ready to start publishing.

I don’t want to do two things at once – Ollie and Jacomo along with my Tomversation daily cartoon panel, so my Tomversation comic panel is going on hiatus for the summer, maybe shorter, maybe longer, I’ll see how I feel. I may publish Tomversation toons intermittently all summer, we’ll see.

I have this idea about cartoons having seasons, like tv shows, you know, one cartoon will run for a bit, then take a break, then another will run in its place and so on. And then the other will come back with new episodes and so on .

So now, starting Monday, June 12, Ollie And Jacomo will publish daily, you can see them online at these locations:
Website: OllieAndJacamo.com
Facebook: facebook.com/OllieAndJacomo
Instagram: instagram.com/ollieandjacomo

Hope to see you there!

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