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The grass is always greener

north-carolina It’s interesting in this time of self isolation, people are reinventing themselves or at least living their dreams or trying to.

I have a friend who is a tv producer and editor. His tv shows are household names. He started out as a tv cameraman on reality shows. And his passion – making pies! While he is still working in the tv biz, his dream is to bake pies full time. He’s looking for a larger kitchen to work in and he is working on getting regular customers like restaurants and such. It’s so interesting how the grass is always greener. How many people would love to produce tv shows that are known and seen by millions of people?

The other day we were at lunch and he told me that he had to edit a commercial, which was for a major retailer, and he said, “This is going to take time from my pie making.” I had to laugh.

He loves taking advantage of this down time to explore his passion and I feel the same. After deadlines and pressures for so many years, I am living my dream cartooning. When I did the daily news I was pressured daily.

I remember one time we had an event in town and it was early in the morning. I was walking in town with my friend and she said to me, “Tom, you’re so lucky, you are at every event and in the middle of everything!” She said, “I have to go to work now.”

The ironic thing is as she was saying that, I was thinking, “Is it 6 pm yet? Is the day over?” I didn’t want to be there and it seemed like so much fun to her. The grass is always greener.

I may end up canceling my trip to New York for the summer, it doesn’t seem like the time to go, but in the end I may end up living my dream – going to the Carolinas and checking them out. My goal has always been to live on a lake in North Carolina, near the mountains. Now I may have the time to do it – to explore the area which I always wanted to do – to just get in the car and go. We’ll see.

Image by Clay Banks

Sundays are for ‘Breaking Bad’

breakingbad

Ever since we’ve been cooped up in self isolation, I’ve been finding myself watching Breaking Bad on Sundays. Usually in the afternoon I’ll watch two or three episodes. I don’t know why I’m so attracted to the show. I’ve talked about it before.

Sure the stories and acting are superb, but it’s more than that. It’s the location – the desert and Albuquerque and the darkness of their house and the dynamic between the characters – the family, I mean – the Whites and the Schraders. I love the family scenes, especially when they are all together at a backyard bbq or whatever. Of course Jesse and Walt’s relationship is special, too. And then there is all that crime and drugs thrown in.

I’ve never been to ABQ – short for Albuquerque, but it seems almost as if the place stopped in time. Like for instance if you go into a bar it may be a throwback from the 1970s, that’s what I get from watching this and Better Call Saul, also filmed on location in ABQ. I love that. Even the airport looks small and quaint and the gas stations look like 1960-70s throwbacks. The houses look to be from that period, too.

Here in Miami, everything is chrome and glass, there is no reverence for history, if it’s 20 years old, it’s knocked down for something bigger and shinier. It doesn’t look like that in ABQ. I would like to visit there real soon.

George Herriman, of Krazy Kat fame loved that area of the country. While he lived in New York and Los Angeles throughout his life, he spent a lot of time in ABQ – it’s obvious in his drawings and Krazy Kat backgrounds. I don’t know if I lived there in another life or what, but I’m always drawn to the area.

Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Ray Donovan and Shameless. All my favorite shows at the moment. And the weird part of this is that for all except for Saul, I started watching after their run or toward the end – you know, not from the beginning from when they first went on the air.

Back to work after zooming

This cartoon was published today. I kept going back and forth between the two images. At first I liked the boxers, then the jockeys (wide fronts in England), then back to the boxers. What do you think? I was going to run both at the same time, but then I thought people would dwell on the boxers or briefs subject rather than the comic itself.

At the last minute I added the mask. You may not be wearing pants, but in public, please don’t forget your mask.

I think the smaller underwear almost makes the guy look naked, less clothing seems funny in this instance but the hearts boxers are funny, as well.

One last thing, in the finished comic, I removed the garbage can, it made it a bit cleaner.

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Kids making and selling comics

comics Next time I am in Brooklyn, I’d like to check out this comic book store called “Loot.” I saw a segment about it on the Today Show recently.

It’s not just a comic book store, but it’s a place where kids can sit around and create their own comics and the store will sell them! The kids keep 90% of the proceeds from the sale which is “loot” for them in the shop. It looks as if the place opened last summer.

There are over 3000 comics, mostly personal comics of owner Joe Einhorn, that can be bought or borrowed, like a library.

There are tables where kids can sit around and create. There are workshops, too where kids can learn the craft and where they are teamed up to create comic books.

The store has white walls and looks a lot like a gallery.

I would love to go and buy some of the kids’ work, I think it’s such a great way to encourage them to continue with their art. I’ll take you along when I get there.

My earliest memory involved a cartoon

fredflintstone Over the years when I’ve been interviewed, I have been asked who my cartooning influences are. The first is Hanna-Barbera and next is Charles Schulz. I remember drawing Fred Flintstone as a little kid, maybe I was five years old or younger.

I think, because The Flintstones seems like it was for adults, so I am not sure why I would love it so much.

But I do know that my earliest memory of all time, you know, in my whole life, my earliest memory was me, at two or three years old, running around our Brooklyn apartment – naked – trying to get away from my mother, who was trying to get me in the bathtub and Huckleberry Hound was coming on the tv – the theme song was playing! I can sort of picture that.

huckleberryhound I don’t think I have an earlier memory, so it’s quite interesting that a Hanna-Barbera cartoon is my earliest memory. Is that crazy? I’m surprised I didn’t draw Huckleberry all the time. But I do know I used to love those Hanna-Barbera cartoons – along with The Flintstones it was Huckleberry and Yogi Bear and Quick Draw McGraw and so on.

I’m trying to not change the subject of what’s happening in our country these days, but need to post here daily and don’t wish to repeat what you see on the news every day. It almost reminds me of Al Roker and the weather – the news people show murder, rape, riots and then, “Here’s Al with the weather!, which I’ve always found stupid.

Wrong perceptions

cds A couple of summers ago I was walking through Times Square with a couple of my cousins, we were coming from seeing a play and heading to the car or subway or something. A black guy approached us and handed me one of his CDs. It was free and as so many guys do, he just wanted to get his music out there so he was passing it out.

It sort of looks like this photo only there were hundreds of people around going in all different directions. It was crazy and crowded, like Times Square usually is.

I sort of shrugged it off and said, “No thanks,” and we kept walking. But the guy’s response was quite disturbing. He seemed to think I was some sort of white dude from Iowa or something who never saw a minority before and he said, “It’s ok man. I’m a black dude. This is what we look like, we’re human, we’re harmless. Get to know us!”

I was shocked that he profiled me like that, which is totally the opposite of me, and I’m sure he himself is profiled every day of his life, but I turned him down because of so many reasons – basically I wouldn’t listen to his music. My music tastes are stuck in the ’80s and ’90s, so it wasn’t my thing. I also didn’t want to take the CD and end up throwing it away or throwing it aside in the back seat of the car or something, you know, wasting his money, and also I don’t think I even have a CD player! Also, in Times Square, there are people coming at you from every which way trying to hand you something or talk to you, it’s a crazy place, you sort of duck everyone subconsciously as you walk through. We were only there because we had to cross through to get out from the theater where we saw the play.

But of course disturbing about this is how the guy thought I perceived him, which was 100% wrong, just like his perception of me was totally wrong. It makes me sad whenever I think of it. What do I do in the future, take the CD, thank the guy and be on my way? Maybe.

Is the Earth crying?

spacex-print2 With the Covid-19 virus, the riots and protests around the ~~country~~ world due to the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis, the virus of racism in our country and so much more these days – the anger, the tension and the raw emotion. I couldn’t just ignore it, so I created this comic last night for today. I wanted to add what’s going on in the country and world today and I guess this says it.

At first the astronauts were saying, “Do we have to go back?” but I thought that was sort of mean-spirited and too negative. I think this is better.

You can donate to the Black Lives Matter Fund here.

Today’s political cartoons

I’m sick over what is happening in our country today. Here are some political cartoons that ran this weekend regarding the Minneapolis/George Floyd murder.