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New Yorker videos

I’ve been submitting comics to The New Yorker, they like my work and asked me to submit. But even though they like my work, I’ve had to adapt to their style and comic sensibilities. A friend sent me a New Yorker video page which is pretty cool. There are lots of comic-related videos (or cartoons, which The New Yorker calls them).

One is about a little girl named Alice Kassnove, who they call a “caption-writing sensation.” She’s really funny. She says the goal is to not be funny but in the end it is funny and her captions are hilarious.

These two guys, shown above, Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal do the same thing. It’s funny and interesting to watch and I learned a lot from all of the videos. I guess they rubbed off on me because I woke up at 3 am and came up with a couple of cartoon ideas that I’ll draw today. Here’s the page of New Yorker videos which has much more than just the caption videos.

There is a certain style and a different way of thinking when drawing for The New Yorker. It makes me think of the old days when there were so many magazines that printed cartoons. Did they all have their own style and sensitivities or did cartoonists just submit them in batches to all the magazines at once hoping for a sale?

The cartoon creating process is sort of like writing a song, which comes first, the lyrics or the music? I’ve always had the gag in my mind first, then drew the image based on that, I have now tried the opposite. I picture a funny image and then come up with the caption and it seems to be The New Yorker way of doing things.

Some years ago I had a lot of work published in various magazines but I just drew my usual style and they liked that as it was. I remember one time the National Enquirer turned down one of my cartoons, not because it wasn’t funny, but because they thought I and used a computer to add shading to it! I used Ben Day and for some reason it looked computerized to them. I laugh at that now since we are living in a digital world now and I’m sure the Enquirer is producing their whole newspaper digitally.

Visiting the New York Herald again

heraldsquare

This image of Herald Square is from 1903.

I’m not sure why I am obsessed these days with the old New York Herald building. This past summer I spent a lot of time in front of the old site looking at it. It’s an ugly mid century (1960s) square block building now with a bank and drugstore in the space.

I was standing to the right of the trolley shown at the right of this photo; standing right in front of the site. Macy’s is the left today.

One day I was on my way to meet a friend to see Hello Dolly, 10 blocks away, and on the way I stopped here and just contemplated the location. So much history is still in New York, but so much is gone. I saw Hello Dolly in the Shubert Theater, which was opened in 1913. The Herald building was standing at the same time a few blocks away.

The Herald building opened in 1894 and they left around 1924 after a 30 year lease. A clothing store took over the location and retrofitted the newspaper offices and press room but around 1940, the building was demolished for the ugly new structure that is there today, which is almost 80 years old. The actual newspapers only lasted in that location for 30 years.

You would think Herald Square would have kept the Herald building. Times Square still has the Times building. It’s behind all those neon signs, you have to look hard to see it.

The Village Voice is dead

voice

The Village Voice is gone. Dead.

They went from printed publication to online publication three years ago, but that was good, as so many publicatons are going online. But now it is totally gone.

I read it in Gothamist, but Gothamist was dead for a bit but they were resurrected so who knows. Maybe the Voice will come back.

The Village Voice was special to me because it was my foray into New York City when I wasn’t in New York City.

For most of my life I spent a lot of time in NYC, even though home is Miami. But ever since I was a boy, I would go to NYC and spend long periods of time there. I would go during high school vacations and sometimes spend months there and even now I will spend long periods of time there. I spent weeks there this summer and I’ll be back for ComicCon next month and then Thanksgiving in November so the Village Voice was how I kept up with New York when I wasn’t there. And you know what? I don’t think I ever actually read it while in New York. I think it was just my taste of NY when I wasn’t in New York.

There was something forbidden about it when I was 16, I don’t know what, maybe the backpage ads? Maybe the articles? Whatever it was, I would read it in the library at high school and college and also at our town library. It was so New York-y that I felt as if I was in New York when immersed in it.

lifeinhell — Life in Hell, by Matt Groening

I loved the early cartoons as well as the articles. Jules Feiffer, R. Crumb, Matt Groening, Ted Rall, Tom Tomorrow, I could go on; such great cartoonists. I read them all.

I remember at one time their address was on University Place in New York and every time I walked by or crossed University Place, even to this day, I think of the Voice. I don’t think I ever sought out the building, but just seeing the street name reminds me of The Village Voice.

I won on HQ Trivia!

I won HQ Trivia last night! It was there 1 year birthday and after one full year, I won my first game.

I won 40 cents. Yup, 40 cents.

I don’t think you can even buy a gumball these days for 40 cents, aren’t they like 50 cents?

No, it wasn’t fun just because I won, sort of like being nominated is good you don’t need to win. I wanted to win money.

They have given away $400,000 in one game, shared by those who won, my game last night was $5000 shared by over 12,000 people, so that’s where the 40 cents comes in.

Don’t know HQ Trivia? I did a story awhile back on Medium, you can read about HQ Trivia here.

Coffee break

Sorry, I haven’t been around. Been busy.

I’ve been working on new comics but I also have started a new biz called Fair Trade Coffee Roasters. It’s coffee imports and also coffee-related items (and tea). I’ll share the website with you when it’s up and running.

This is the logo. How do you like it?

Coffee Fair Trade

I needed another revenue source, so this is it. Hoping it brings a lot of revenue.

I’ve been trying to get some 10 With Tom interviews, too. But a lot of people don’t respond to their calls and emails. I’ve reached out to a few tv people but also a bunch of cartoonists that I like, who apparently don’t need the publicity, because they haven’t answered my requests.

Tapas for comics, do you know it?

biden I was listening to a podcast called, “Tapas Media and Building Your Brand” at Webcomic Alliance.

They have over 35,000 comics at Tapas, and it seems that if you find your niche audience you have loyal fans. They also have some sort of payment system, which is great. I used to post there but found the whole system confusing but if that is where the audience is, I guess that’s where comics should be posted. That’s my version of Joe Biden.

I like the idea that Tapas seems to be geared toward mobile devices rather than computers and it’s the go-to place for Millennial comic readers. The podcast folks were not fans of social media as a means to share comics, but I find that to be quite the opposite. It might not work for long form comics and serials, but I think for gag-a-day, it’s great, especially since you can divide the panels into single panels and swipe through them on Instagram now.

My one concern is single panel comics. I’m going back and forth between my single panel Tomversation comic panels and a strip I have in mind. I don’t see too many single panels on Tapas but I guess with millions of readers I’m sure to find my audience. I think they have more younger readers than GoComics, which seems to have an older audience, including myself.

I was waiting for Sherpa to come back at GoComics so that I could start publishing there, but to be honest, I’m tired of waiting for them to complete the platform.

My plan is to start publishing at Tapas, Facebook, Instagram and possibly Tumblr (I like the sharing aspect of that) in the fall, probably on Labor Day, September 3.

Stay tooned.

Thinking of newspapers

Newspapers are not where comics are most popular these days. Millennials, as we know, don’t read the newspaper, at least not the printed version. It took me a long time to come to terms with that regarding my own work. It’s like making a movie and having it go straight to video. That is how I felt not having my comics in the newspapers. Comics were created for newspapers. But it’s a new era.

I think of the kids born today or in the last few years. Will they ever know the feeling of going outside and picking up the newspaper off the front porch, taking it in, smelling the ink and the paper, getting the feel of it all and reading the news from cover to cover, in black and white? There was a time when the ink came off on your fingers. Now they just flip through it all on their phones.

517AbN9Y1+L._SL250_ I think of the days of George Herriman, George McManus, Rudolf Dirks, Bud Fisher and the others, when cartoonists were the celebrities of the day. What was it like in 1905 or 1915? I’m glad I’m here today, but I like to think back sometimes and wonder about those times were like. I think of the excitement of the newspapers, the deadlines, the camaraderie.

If you haven’t read the book on George Herriman and Krazy Kat by Michael Tisserand called, “Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White“, do yourself a favor and read it. It will transport you back to that time, you literally are immersed in that period. You feel as if you are in those old newspaper newsrooms and walking the streets of New York and Los Angeles. I am about to read it again. It’s sort of like “Breaking Bad” to me, I can just envelope myself in the story and get lost at any time of day.

Getting close to the action

I was talking about “old” Miami Beach, which to me was the 1980s. This was before all the glitz and glamour and before they called it “South Beach.” It was just Miami Beach.

We used to watch them film Miami Vice often. And we really got up close. Years later I would watch them film Burn Notice around town, but we couldn’t get as close, but I managed at times, I would take pictures and write about them here, and here and here). And this is a funny story called, The Accidental Extras, how we were mistaken for extras while they were filming.

I remember one time in the ’80s we were watching Miami Vice film and there was a car chase on Ocean Drive and we were standing right there on the sidewalk watching. Cars were speeding and spinning mere feet from us and there we were, watching the action.

Once I left the beach, the actual beach with the sand where I was laying out, and I got in my car and as I drove down Collins Avenue, I was stopped and asked if I wanted to be in a movie. I said, ok and was told to drive when they said, “action.” I did, but I never made in the movie. You can see the scene they were filming on the opening credits of “The Making of Mr. Right,” the 1987 film with John Malkovich and Ann Magnuson. It’s where Ann is driving down Collins as the film titles roll at the beginning. You can see a lot of the Miami Beach I hung around in at that time, raw and not made into the pink and purple and neon place it is now.

Back to Miami Vice. Once my friend Jack and I were watching them film at the Hare Krishna hotel. Were were right up close and personal again. As we watched, my friend said, “Isn’t that Karen Black?” She was a big actress at the time. I asked, “Where?” And he says, “You’re leaning on her chair!” And so I was. She was sitting in a director’s style chair and I was leaning on the back of it, while she was sitting watching the scene. You could literally get up that close in those days.

I always remember in that episode, “Victim’s of Circumstance,” how they screwed the Hare Krishnas out of their moment on film. In the last scene, Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas are walking from the hotel, down a walkway/alley type thing and behind a wall were the Krishnas. As the two men reached that spot, the Krishnas came out from behind the wall and did their thing with drums and tambourines, you know how they do. Well, that was the final scene in the episode and on tv, as the two guys walked, the credits rolled. As they reached the wall, the scene froze, it just froze and the credits rolled over that. So the Krishnas were never seen on the show.

Years later, the Krishnas moved from that hotel to a church in my neighborhood and I got to know them on a first name basis.

My brush with the NY Daily News

sunday news — The first thing I would see on Sundays when I was a kid.

I’ve always wanted to have my comic strip printed in the New York Daily News and just a few years go Iwasthisclose. But due to the current climate and the constant staff changes, it didn’t happen.

At one time, for many years, the New York Daily News was the highest circulation newspaper in the country. It had 1 million readers a day, and way back in the day, say in the 1940s, they had 2 million readers daily and 4 million on Sunday! That was the place to be. They used to say that three people would read every one newspaper – so that is a hell of a lot of people reading one issue.

The editors loved my work, they practically had me in the paper, they wanted to know how many comics I had, how long I could sustain the feature, when I could start, etc. etc. I met with them at the building downtown, not the Daily News building on 42nd Street, they are now in an office building next to the Staten Island Ferry terminal.

I remember how excited I was that day, I had swag with me, Tomversation cube pads and pens and stuff and I had a wonderful meeting. But it never was to be, by the time I got home to Miami, the guys I met with were gone. One was fired for sexual harassment!

I started the process all over and again, the new editors were very interested. The problem at the Daily News at the time and probably even more so today is that there is not one specific editor for features or comics or things like that. At one point I dealt with the Sunday editor of the whole newspaper, another time a news editor. And again, it was not to be, mostly because of total confusion at the newspaper.

I have come to terms knowing that my comics will have a home on the internet and that is really a better place for so many reasons. But that was my brush with the New York Daily News.

NY Daily News; sign of the times

Subway then

Subway now

The New York Daily News has an editorial about itself called, “Local journalism is sick; don’t misdiagnose the disease.” They explain their current situation where they have been gutted by Tronc, their current owner. They say it’s more than Tronc cutting the staff by more than half, it’s the times, it’s the internet, it’s so much more.

To be honest, I didn’t buy one newspaper the whole time I was in New York this summer and that is saying a lot. I usually buy The Daily News every single day when I’m in the city, I pick it up with my breakfast, and most days I would buy the Daily News, the NY Post, The NY Times and Newsday, all four daily newspapers, but even if I didn’t buy all four, I would always buy the Daily News. I’m not sure why I did not purchase the papers. I think it all started with my Miami Herald fiasco this past winter and I just got out of the habit. Reading the newspapers is a habit, sort of like having breakfast every morning.

The NY Daily News itself is now down in an office building down near the Staten Island Ferry, they aren’t even in the actual Daily News building on 42nd Street, which has been the case for years.

I took a short video of the Daily News building in November, here it is.

The Daily News Building is a beautiful Art Deco building and the Daily News should be in that building. I wrote about the strike in 1945 and showed an incredible video where it shows millions of newspapers being sold per day as people waited in long lines to plop down a nickle for the Daily News and all of the other New York newspapers at the time – the Mirror, the Journal-American, the Sun, etc. Newspapers were the world back then.

Today the sports department has been gutted. That’s the one thing my father would always mention when I would give him copies of the newspapers that I would bring home with me – the New York Daily News and the New York Post – he would admire the size of their sports section, putting down the puny Miami Herald’s sports section, asking, “Why can’t the Herald be like the New York papers?”

And the photography department at the Daily News has been gutted, too. No photographers at New York’s Picture Newspaper!!! No photographers! Should they remove that iconic camera logo that has been part of their masthead since day one in 1919?