With The Beatles’ new song out, “Now and Then,” there seems to be a lot about The Beatles online now. I’ve seen a bunch of memes along with news stories. One meme, shown below, reminded me of this old Paul McCartney cartoon I did awhile back. Tube vs. Tube.
I guess it should really be is he on the “tube,” meaning subway or “telly,” meaning television? But tube and tube seems to work.
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Editor and Publisher has an article on the disappearing of syndicated comic strips in newspapers. The NY Post dropped the few they had years ago and I stopped reading the Post after that – and for other reasons.
The major hit was in Australia, where so many popular strips, including the 100 year old Ginger Meggs was dropped by hundreds of newspapers, all owned by Rupert Murdoch and Nine Entertainment – a problem and monopoly right there. By the way, Murdoch also owns the NY Post. I guess he just doesn’t like comic strips.
He is replacing them or enhancing puzzles and games in the newspapers rather than print the comics.
Ginger Meggs is printed on GoComics daily, and I like some of the others that were dropped, which, like Ginger, you can read online now.
Swamp by Gary Clark is a favorite of mine – when it would pop up online somewhere. You can read that online at swamp.com.au and Snake by Allan Salisbury can be seen here: snakecartoons.com/snake.htm.
I read the comics online at various sites – GoComics, Comics Kingdom and other websites and I think the majority of readers do that these days.
After so many years of trying to be syndicated in newspapers, I don’t think that’s where I want to be now. For one thing, I think it’s a precarious place to be to make a living. Every day you may be losing clients (and money), not gaining new ones and it seems that the readers are mostly online anyway.
But I do agree that newspapers should carry cartoons and comics pages for those that read them there. It’s part of life, it’s been part of all of our lives – everyone that is alive today has lived with comic strips and panels as part of their daily newspaper. As long as the newspapers are still printed and published, why not include them? They are pop culture, part of everyday life.
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Another October, another NY Comic Con.
Went to the first day of Comic Con on Thursday, it was a beautiful day, sunny, cool and perfect. The usual cosplayers took over the Javits Center.
I walked around for a long time looking for the National Cartoonist Society booth, the program provided by the convention, didn’t show their location. Finally found it after an hour of walking around and there was Jason Chatfield, right in the center, doing his thing, which I think was drawing and giving out autographs.
I didn’t get too close to the booth – too many people. But I’m always tempted to “talk shop” with him. I interviewed last year for my 10 With Tom column and that would be a good ice breaker, but I didn’t introduce myself last year and I didn’t do it this year.
You can see him in the group of photos above, chatting away at the booth.
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This recent cartoon is a play on words from “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” You know, the “I got a rock!” part.
I got a t-shirt recently with the Peanuts characters and Charlie Brown is shown saying that as the kids go trick-or-treating. I plan on waring it at NY Comic Con on Thursday.
I was wearing the shirt the other day and one of my neighbors, who reads this blog, by the way, asked me what it meant. She didn’t get it.
She’s not big into pop culture. But this cartoon been playing non-stop every October since 1966, so I don’t understand how she didn’t understand it. She’s about my age, so we have had plenty of years to see the tv show. It was funny, because I was explaining the scene to her. She asked, “You mean every time he went to another house he just got a rock? Why?”
“Because he’s Charlie Brown,” I responded.
You can get the shirt here on Amazon if you like it. It comes in different colors.
Looks like Apple tv still has the rights to the Charlie Brown specials unfortunately. I miss having the shows on CBS with Dolly Madison and Coca Cola sponsoring them.
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I was shocked and saddened to hear of Jimmy Buffett’s death Friday. Living in Florida, he was a big part of our lives. I never cared for tequila or margaritas, but I lived the Margaritaville lifestyle for most of my life.
It was a life of spending almost every day at the beach – for an hour or for eight hours. In crowded beaches and secluded beaches. I would find fallen coconuts on the beach, crack them open and use the milk as suntan oil.
Meeting friends on the boardwalk was a common thing, we would run, then head to happy hour at a beach bar. I would work out or relax at secluded beaches. Many times, grabbing lunch, then head to a quite beach and eat, then head back to work. I did that last week.
Years ago, I would skip school and when I got home, my mom would ask me why I had a tan. I would make up some sort of excuse.
Regarding my cartoons, there was period of time where I would go to the beach daily and make a rule where I would not be able to leave until coming up with two cartoon ideas. Many ideas and gags were water and beach related, but most weren’t. It was a fun, interesting exercise. I must have done a good job of it because during that period, I sold a lot of single panel cartoons to magazines and newspapers. Looking at some of those old cartoons, I can remember where I was, at what beach, where the ideas came from.
I spent a lot of time in Key West, too, where Jimmy is worshipped. But he was worshipped all over South Florida. Every time I drive by the old Miami Marine Stadium in Miami these days, I think of Jimmy, he did concerts there in his early days and while I didn’t attend, I guess it was big news around here, so it sticks in my head.
I found some Jimmy Buffet music and books and stuff here at Amazon.
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Friends ask me how my comic “career” is going.
I always tell them these days, that it’s going well. No, I’m not published in newspapers, but honestly I don’t want to be.
Being published in newspapers was always my goal but those days are over. I sometimes wish I was part of the height of the cartooning days, when cartoonists’ works were worshiped. From the turn of the last century until possibly the 1980s, I think that was the time to be part of it all. In the very early days, they were treated like movie stars.
I think the 1940s and 1950s might have been the best time. Now I think it’s all about online publication.
Just as new performers, singers and such, are discovered online and on apps, so are new cartoons and comics. It’s where the readers are, and viewers. Many people watch tv and movies via apps now, they aren’t subjected to the scheduling and whims of tv networks.
It’s where I can be creative, do my own thing, have short deadlines and just not be controlled by a large corporation – gaining the same readership as I would if I was printed, maybe more.
I’ve lived by cartoonist Jason Chatfield‘s quote: “Don’t curate your art to what gets likes. Curate it to what you like.” In that way, my readers find me, rather than me searching for readers.
And now he introduced a new one that I am living by: “We need to forget the newspapers. They forgot us a long time ago,” referring to cartoonists and comic strips. Keef Knight, another cartoonist, said it first. But Jason brought it to my attention.
And it’s not just cartoons. I’ve been reading newspapers online from other areas of the country. I subscribe to them and read the e-papers which I like flipping through. I noticed that so many of them don’t seem to be published locally, even though they are local daily newspapers.
One newspaper in upstate New York had as their main above-the-fold headlines stories on Nevada’s wet weather and a story about Olympians from California. Nothing related to upstate New York on the front page, not one story! I unsubscribed from that paper after a few days. It wasn’t what I was looking for. It’s owned by USA Today and it seems that that is the news that they print – what USA Today prints in all the newspapers they own.
Back to Jason Chatfield – he took over an old Australian newspaper comic strip called Ginger Meggs a few years ago. It will be 102 years old this November. It’s gone through quite a few cartoonists since it’s inception in 1921.
Well, the newspapers in Australia that publish the strips has cancelled Ginger and that’s the end of his 102-year-old newspaper publication. It appears as if the newspapers there have abandoned all cartoons. There seems to be a newspaper monopoly ownership in Australia.
Ginger Meggs will continue online at Jason’s website: gingermeggs.com and GoComics will post reruns here: gocomics.com/gingermeggs.
Hence, the quote: “We need to forget the newspapers. They forgot us a long time ago.” But I’ve been way ahead of Jason and Keef on this one for quite a few years now.
I interviewed Jason a few years back for my 10 With Tom series when he was president of the National Cartoonist Society. By the way, he is also a New Yorker magazine cartoonist.
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Depeche Mode has a new album out, I saw a segment about them on the CBS Sunday Morning, you can see that CBS segment below.
They were one of my favorite bands in the ’80s and ’90s.
I drew this cartoon in 2019. I’ve been holding on to it because I was thinking of redrawing it – having the guys in ice cream, you know, sort of lounging in a banana split or something. But I left well enough alone and just made it look like a new album, which, as I said, is now out. It’s called Memento Mori, which means “Remember You Must Die,” which is a bit morbid, because fellow band member, Andy Fletcher passed away in May 2022.
Dave Gahan and Martin Gore are the remaining duo.
Memento Mori can be heard here in full at YouTube.
The CBS interview is here.
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There are two cartoons published today – same concept, two images.
I wasn’t sure which version to use, so I did two of them.
As you know, lately performers have things thrown at them from the audience. Not sure why, seems like a stupid thing to do. Cardi B threw a mic at one guy who threw water from a plastic cup on her!
The story goes that Cardi B was asking the audience to throw water on her because she was burning up in the Las Vegas heat. So this person threw the water. But when Cardi B threw the mic into the crowd, she hit someone else – a lady, and now the lady is suing because she is “bruised.”
The world we live in today.
Even the Sign Guy agrees. Saw this on his Facebook page.
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Today’s cartoon reflects the changes at Twitter, or is it now “X”? Not sure.
I will miss the little bird. It’s been the mascot/logo since day one. I don’t think the look ever changed after all these years like so many logos do. In this case, it just became a whole new thing.
The X in this cartoon is a shuriken, a ninja star, killing the poor Twitter bird.
I don’t use Twitter these days as much as I used to. I mostly read it and get news there. I recently signed up for Threads. The new alternative to Twitter.
If you want, you can follow me on Twitter/X at: twitter.com/tomversation
And Threads at: @tomvesation.toons
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It’s a pink weekend. Between the new Barbie movie and Lionel Messi. the soccer superstar’s USA debut, it’s all pink. You can swipe back and forth for both cartoons here.
Pink is of course the theme of Barbie and Messi’s color is pink. Messi’s pink a little bit lighter in color, but still, I think this deep, bright pink makes the point (cartoonwise).
I first did the Barbie cartoon and at the last minute I thought of Messi. Here in Miami, it’s Messi all over the place. Murals are appearing on buildings, soccer tickets have zoomed up in price and that’s all you hear about – Messi, Messi, Messi.
On the national news, I’ve seen lots of reports on Messi, so I thought I would add it to today’s cartoon as a second option, to add to the pink theme of the weekend.
The Oppenheimer movie is opening this weekend, too, and people are buying tickets for both Barbie and Oppenheimer and will do a double feature, sort of like the old days. The big debate there is which one to see first so as to set the tone for the next movie.
I couldn’t fit Oppenheimer into the pink theme. It’s anything but bright and pink.
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