Category Archives: Tomversation comics

Getting eyes on my work

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I’m having problems with my Facebook page for Tomversation which is at Facebook.com/tomversation.toons .

I’m not getting the views I usually have. It’s been about a week since I’ve seen this. Were the algorithms changed?

I used to get thousands of eyes on the cartoon daily and lots of comments, likes, etc. Now it’s a handful.

My Instagram site seems to be the same regarding views and algorithms and so does my dedicated website, TomFalco.com. Those get thousands of eyes on them, but I’m concerned about Facebook. You can see below one of the cartoons that reached over 2 million views on Instagram; it has over 83,000 likes. So when it’s being seen, it is really being seen and interacted with.

It makes no sense that people subscribe or “follow” a page and yet they don’t see it in their feed. If I follow a page for old movies, or baseball or whatever, don’t I wish to see the latest posts that come up daily?

I know many cartoonists have moved away from social media and focus only on their websites and subscriptions. Their blog and cartoon/comic are one. And they publish once or twice or three times a week – not daily.

I’m trying to think what to do. In the meantime I’m trying to figure out this Facebook algorithm. I like Facebook because people share the work and many more eyes see it this way.

I saw cartoonist Harry Bliss along with Steve Martin on The View the other day. They were promoting a new book they collaborated on, called Number One Is Walking, their second book together. Harry was great, but he started the interview by saying he was so nervous being on live tv. I found that very humbling and endearing and like him even more for that.

I think I reached out to him before to interview him for 10 With Tom, but never received a response. I’ll maybe try again since he’s out and about promoting his book now.

I’m also trying to get noticed by Andrews McMeel and GoComics.com.

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Doctor Who rides again

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This Doctor Who cartoon was published recently. It’s re-do of one from 2014. The original is Matt Smith as the doctor, but if you swipe the image, you can see the new doctor, David Tennant is the doctor.

David Tennant played the doctor from 2005 to 2010 and Matt Smith played the doc from 2010 to 2013, right after David. But for I think, it’s three episodes, David Tennant is back for the 60th anniversary specials. So I thought it would be cool to make the cartoon reflect that.

I know they don’t look exactly like either guy, but it’s just a suggestion in both cases because Doctor Who changes so often, that I wanted to cartoon to be timeless. When I first did the cartoon, I didn’t realize that a lady would play Doctor Who, and that happened from 2017 to 2022 with Jodi Whittaker as the doctor.

I’m not a great Doctor Who fan, I’ve only seen a handful of episodes, but the gag is obvious and it’s been done by other cartoonists over the years. I’m surprised the old Abbot and Costello bit stands up to this day, but people do get the gag and like it.

A guy left a comment on one of the published pieces of David Tennant’s Doctor Who here and said he looked like Colombo. Maybe he does by the way he is touching his chin thinking. I have done a Colombo gag or two over the years. Here is one. Similar, but no way David Tennant, not that the Doctor Who cartoon is either, but you know what I mean.

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I hate when this happens

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This pumpkin cartoon was published today. I drew it last week and was holding it to run the day after Halloween, but I had so many other cartoons running related to Halloween, that I ended up running it today. I was going to hold it back until next year, but that didn’t make sense.

You can see my Halloween related cartoons here at TomFalco.com.

But know what? John Deering, the Strange Brew cartoonist, ran the same thing yesterday in GoComics.com


Mine originally did say, “rough night?” like John’s, but I changed it to “rough week” when I knew I would be running it a couple of days after Halloween.

I did almost pull mine after seeing John’s work, but why? This has happened so many times over the years – I guess there are only so many cartoon ideas, but these look so similar. It doesn’t bother me now, but for years it did.

For many years I was insisting people were stealing my work, until I saw things like this, where I published the same thing after another cartoonist did.

I’ll chalk it up to great minds thinking alike. I did question it, and wonder if it was funny or not, but I guess we both can’t be wrong. Looks like John’s guy had a rougher night than mine, though.

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How I came up with them

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People ask me how I come up with ideas, so I grabbed a few recently published cartoons and will show you my twisted mind works.

This one was easy. I got a new iphone and they did away with the thumb imprint for signing on, so now it’s either punch in the pin number or use face recognition. After you set up the face recognition, they ask if you would like to do it again this time wearing a mask!

At first I thought of doing a cartoon with someone wearing a Halloween mask, but then thought of other things, like what if someone was in an accident or had a facelift or some sort of procedure where the phone would not recognize them anymore. And I remembered a previous cartoon that was published, this cartoon, where Dracula takes a selfie, only his image doesn’t come up, and from there I got to this cartoon above.

This one started with pumpkin picking. Every year my cousins and I go to the Hudson Valley in New York State to pumpkin pick. And I think it’s more about the Hudson Valley, than the pumpkins. It’s a gorgeous area with spectacular mountain and river views along with the changing leaves in the fall. Only this year, we went to the north fork of Long Island instead, because we needed to be closer to the south fork, where we were going to an event after the pumpkin picking.

I got to thinking – will my pictures be as nice in the north fork as they are up in the mountains and the valley? How will it all look on Instagram? And from there, I got to the cartoon above, and changed the Hudson Valley, to Tuscany, to make it more of an extreme travel plan.

As for this one – I live in Miami – I hear the words “Gulf Stream” almost daily, and this is what I thought of when I heard it one last time.

I’m in museums a lot and I always notice that the guards are ignored by everyone. And even when I say hello they sort of keep to themselves. One time I was in a museum in NYC that was being renovated, and there were only two big rooms open. I was in there with one other person, who happened to be John Lithgow, the actor.

I didn’t speak with Mr. Lithgow, but he spoke to the security guard who was on hand in one room. I didn’t hear what they were saying, but I found it interesting that he reached out and engaged with the guard. Other than that, I often think the guards could be on the phone, eating and even sleeping as no one seems to notice them, or maybe if they did lie down on a bench, like the cartoon suggests, then people would notice them.

Recently I posted something about the Baltimore Museum of Art having an exhibit totally curated by it’s museum guards, which sounds like an excellent idea. So in that case, they were noticed by people.

This trunk one came simply from the fact that luggage was being lost all summer by the airlines.

And of course this museum window one, which I have written about a few times before – I thought it was funny to think of the guard being so blasé about the art after seeing it day after day, that it was more interesting for him to look out the window to see what was going on.

And yes – there are windows next to the art in many museums. Here’s proof taken last month at MOMA in NYC.

And there you have some of the workings of my mind – how I juggle ideas in my head to come up with Tomversation cartoons.

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The museum windows

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Was at MoMA again in NYC yesterday, seems like my home away from home. I saw people looking out the window again and it reminded me of this cartoon, which I’ve shown before.

It’s been shown around the internet and people always comment on it as if they are experts. People insist that museums don’t have windows next to the art, so the cartoon makes no sense. But of course I got the idea for the cartoon because in most of the NYC museums, there ARE windows next to the art – new buildings, old buildings, it just is.

Here are some shots from yesterday.

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Nasty comments

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I don’t do political cartoons, mostly because it’s not expected by the readers, so I don’t want to throw them a loop. But some things I post might be a bit political, but they aren’t meant to be.

Other times, a cartoon has nothing political about it, yet there are people who turn it into that and they leave nasty comments.

I posted this cartoon with Joe Biden and Joe Cool (Snoopy), when Biden became president. A friend suggested it and I drew it up and used it. Boy – did the nasty comments come in about Joe Biden, most of them lies and made up stuff.

Yesterday, this Special Master cartoon was published. I just thought it was funny and it was on my mind I guess since it’s in the news daily.

Of course, the nasty comments started coming in – against President Biden – not Trump! Go figure.

What I did was turn off comments on social media sites where the cartoon was published, just to avoid fights, ugliness and me banning readers from the pages permanently.

I met a professional cartoonist at NY Comic Con years ago, he was signing autographs at the GoComics booth. He has comments blocked on his cartoon all the time – every day. It’s not a political cartoon, but I told him I understood why he did that. I guess he has a thin skin like I do.

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It’s all about the color

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This is one of those cartoons that kept bothering me. It wasn’t hitting the mark, I kept looking at it and after it was published, I changed one color and that made all the difference.

If you look at both images above (slide from one image to the other), you can see that they are two lifeguards and it makes it funnier, because you can imagine the one guy asking his buddy, “What happened, where have you been?”

The blue bathing suit guy originally was just a nosey guy walking up the beach or pool area – someone for the lifeguard to explain his situation to. But I think it works better with the guy being another lifeguard and friend.

And all it took was changing the swimming trunks to red from blue and adding a whistle!

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How do you feel about self-check out?

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This recent cartoon, really hit a nerve. I didn’t think it would affect people so much. It got thousands of shares an untold number of comments on social media.

Mostly people who work at Walmart were upset, thinking I was picking on them, but I just chose Walmart because I usually hear people complain about the check-outs at Walmart. Truth be told, I don’t remember the last time I was in a Walmart, I think it could be 10 years or more and it’s only because there are no near where I live, I think the closest is 10 to 12 miles away, which isn’t much, but why not go to closer stores, rather than drive 10 miles to get something?

If you didn’t realize, the lady in the cartoon has a Walmart logo on her vest.

And people seem to hate the self-check out, but is it mandatory in Walmart? Every place I have been that has them has them as a choice; they have the usual cashiers, as well.

I prefer the self-check out, I seek it out. I use it at Publix, Whole Foods, CVS, Home Depot and I’m sure whatever place I see it. I find it convenient, fast and I don’t have to speak to anyone.

I’m glad the cartoon made the rounds, it must have been seen by over a million people so far.

One site where it was shared, got so hot and heavy in the comments section, it almost came to blows, that they removed the cartoon! And it had hundreds of shares and almost as many comments!

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On (and off) stage

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Today’s cartoon reminds of a scene I used to see almost daily, some years ago.

I used to run on the boardwalk on Miami Beach, almost daily. And there was a hotel pool area that sort of looked like a cruise deck. I don’t know if it was deliberate, but the pool was set up where there were cabanas behind it, built into the wall. When I looked at it, it almost looked like a stage. Like a fake cruise ship set up on a stage.

I used to run by, sometimes walk, and stop there, and look at the layout and picture the Carol Burnett Show for some reason. I would imagine it was a set on the stage, set up as a cruise deck.

And for some reason, I guess when I drew this, it reminded me of that in a way, where you don’t see the whole ship, just this small section.

Back then, too, I used to stop back behind the Roney Hotel as I was on the boardwalk, and the way it was shaped, reminded me of a stadium. It is a sort of horseshoe shape face out to the ocean, so if you stood below, on the boardwalk, it was like looking up at stadium seating, and I was on first base or on stage or whatever. You can see it here, the boardwalk which can’t be seen would be at the bottom of the picture and looking up from below at the “U” shape, looked like stadium seating.

Vivid imagination I have. But almost daily I would look at these two scenes and imagine the one where I was looking u at the audience and the other, where I was the audience, looking at the Carol Burnett Show. Weird.

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Frank and his wife

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This cartoon which was published a couple of days ago ended up being quite popular. When I thought of it and drew it, I wasn’t sure. But that quote from Jason Chatfield, “Don’t curate your art to what gets likes. Curate it to what you like,” and that always seems to pan out. If I like it, the readers like it, most of the time, anyway.

The Frankenstein Monster, who I call Frank, and his wife and recurring characters in Tomversation cartoons, I don’t know why, but ideas for them seem to pop up in my mind often. Yesterday’s cartoon about taking things home from the office was going to feature them in some way. I pictured body parts hanging on hooks in the kitchen or something like that, but I thought I’ve been using them too often, so I thought of another idea, which surprisingly went quite well, too.

I use Batman and Superman often, Batman more so, in fact, I have three or four new Batman related cartoons drawn and in the hopper for publication, one is published today.


I like using snakes, witches, cavemen and ancient Egypt and a few other concepts on a regular basis. Again, I don’t know why they are in my mind, but ideas pop up often.

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