There’s this crazy phenomena happening in NYC these days – plastic flowers on buildings.
I think it started during the pandemic, I remember seeing these big plastic flower arrangements popping up, mostly to disguise or prettify, the outdoor wooden structures built for seating when people were unable to eat at indoor restaurants.
After a couple of years, they got nasty – faded and broken and falling apart. But these days, I don’t see any of the craggy ones, it’s all new ones – colorful, big colorful plastic flowers – everywhere!
I think they are ugly. Just my opinion.
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I went to MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art in NYC yesterday, only to not see my favorite piece of art – Starry Night. I had forgotten that it was on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There’s some sort of Van Gogh exhibit going on up there and they loaned it out. Not a problem as I can easily get to the MET a few blocks uptown.
But I did find it uninteresting to see some of the new displays at MOMA. As you can see here, on display are soap boxes – no, not Warhols, something else – and there blocks of wood, a violin filled with corn, doors with bats. And some other weird things.
I did see so many of my other favorites by Picasso and Monet and so many others.
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I’m back in NYC for a bit of the summer. Had my first Mr. Softee of the summer – actually first of the year and to think about it, I haven’t had any ice cream of any kind since October, which was a Mr. Softee at a block party in Westhampton.
Ran into a Chinese food festival at Washington Square Park – delicious food, long lines. Wall to wall people. Summer is here in NYC!
That cute little guy was in my face in the subway. Luckily I didn’t have my Mr. Softee cone with me, he would have been all over it.
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I saw some Berry’s World cartoons online the other day. It reminded me of Ralph Dunagan, who I wrote about here. Both of them seem to be big influences on my drawing style – on the way I draw comics. I love their styles, which are very similar.
When I was a kid I enjoyed both cartoonists’ work.
Jim Berry’s “Berry’s World” was a daily cartoon which ran from February 18, 1963, through March 1, 2003, with a Sunday color comic.
Jim received the National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award for 1965, 1966, and 1972 for his work on the strip.
I see so much of my own work in both of these cartoonists and until recently I didn’t realize that they were a big influence on my work.
Here are a few images of Dunagin’s work.
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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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My neighbor asked me if I wanted two large speakers he had. I didn’t. But this reminded me of a story from some years ago. These aren’t the speakers my neighbor had, but they look like the ones I am going to tell you about
Many years ago, I was leaving Macy’s with my friend Jorge and a couple of guys approached us. They wanted to know if we wanted to buy these two big speakers, like the ones shown here. I don’t know why, but I agreed. Oddly enough, I had my checkbook with me, which I never carried around, but I was about 22, and I guess I didn’t have credit cards yet. I wrote the guy a check, we took the speakers and left.
Jorge and I went home to my apartment and left the speakers and other stuff we got at Macy’s and we went out, I don’t know where, probably to lunch or something.
When we got home for lunch, there sitting on my kitchen counter was the check I gave the guys outside Macy’s and the speakers were gone! I had the guy’s phone number and I called him to ask him about this. He told me the bank, I think it was Centrust at the time, wouldn’t cash the check for them. I guess these guys looked quite shady, which they were.
I asked him how he got into the apartment, he said he broke in through the window. And this did not faze me, because I guess when you’re 22, things don’t faze you. It is creepy to know now that the “secure” building was not so secure from the front building entrance to my window. Both easily broken into.
I told the guy to bring back the speakers, I wanted them. He came back and I don’t remember if I gave him cash or we went to the bank together or what. But I ended up with the speakers.
And you know what? For many years, they just sat there. I never used them; never attached them to any music equipment and they were mostly used as sort of plant holders or end tables. I don’t even know if they ever worked. I had to have them, but never even tried them to see if they worked.
Ahh, to be young and carefree again, not letting anything bother me. Although I don’t think I let many things bother me now.
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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:
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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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. 🙂
I’m loving Succession. I started watching it about a week ago. I never watched it during it’s initial run on HBO. Not sure why. There was a time when I watched all those Sunday night 9 pm shows on HBO and Showtime – The Sopranos, True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, etc. But for many years now, I’ve been watching other stuff, I guess.
I did the same with Breaking Bad. I never watched one episode during it’s initial run and then after the show was over for about a month, I started watching it and got addicted. I think I’ve seen every episode about five or six times. My two favorite episodes are Dead Freight and Face Off.
Jeremy Strong as Kendall Roy
As for Succession, I just finished season one. My favorite character is Kendall Roy played by Jeremy Strong. Love him – the character and the actor. He commands the screen when he’s on.
I do have one complaint – the darkness. The show is very dark. And I don’t mean the storyline, I mean the filming. It’s as if they are trying to save money on lighting or something. I guess it’s to set the mood, but so many times I can’t see what’s going on. The tv screen is almost black! Have you noticed that?
I literally have to shut the lights off in the room and make it pitch dark to see what’s going on. From an article in TV Line, regarding many tv shows: “Dark twists are fine, but scenes that are lit so dimly we can’t tell what is going on, or even with whom, are quite problematic.” The whole article is here.
Other than that, I love it all.
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tomversation.com 