This cartoon was published this morning. But it replaced the one below it, at the last minute. It was a quick change of Santa, as you can see.
I kept thinking after the cartoon was published that it needed something else, and it seemed that if Santa was lying back on an easy chair, it would be the thing.
So after the first one (the close-up of Santa cartoon here), was published, I quickly drew a new Santa sitting back on an easy chair, and I had the published cartoon changed to the easy chair one.
I do this often – not usually changing the whole cartoon, but finding a typo or something minor and I change it before people hopefully see it. After the cartoon is published, it gets passed around the internet quite quickly, so sometimes the “wrong” one gets shown around.
I really like the close-up image of Santa, but I think the other one conveys the message better.
Anyway, that’s it. A quick change on Christmas Eve morning.
I’ll be with my family tonight and tomorrow, hope you will be, too. But I am thinking of Italy and I saw something about Christmas in Rome on the news this morning, and I sort of willed it, you know, manifested it, that I’ll be in Rome for Christmas next year. I’m really feeling it, you know. As I thought it, I felt it. And that is really how manifestation works.
Let’s see if that plays out!
Till next time . . . Merry Christmas!
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A perfect holiday gift. And a way to support me. 🙂
Welcome! I’m so happy you’re here. If you aren’t subscribed, consider keeping in touch. I’ll send you 5 cartoons every Friday and two short blog posts during the week.You can subscribe right here.
Read my blog:Tomversation.com Subscribe via email to my cartoons here – they will arrive each Friday plus 2 short blog posts during the week.
I’ve had the idea of tutoring or teaching kids lately. What would I teach? The art of cartoons or comic drawing of course. I can barely add two and two, so math would be out and I am good at English, but I guess cartooning is the way.
I have a neighbor who is a retired teacher and she makes more money tutoring kids than she ever did teaching. I think she teaches Spanish and was a Spanish teacher in her teaching career.
She mostly tutors here at the condo, at her condo unit. There are kids in and out all day, I don’t see how she does it, it’s a lot of work, but she is raking in the money.
I’m wondering if this type of tutoring is the way to go. How do I start?
Things are done digitally now. I draw my cartoons digitally using a Surface Pro and a program called Clip Studio Paint.
I’ve used other programs like Procreate and an ipad and a Wacom Tablet, but I like the Surface Pro because it’s also a computer with a keyboard and it’s easy to work on when I need to do actual work. I’m used to Clip Studio Paint, so I use that. But anything will do, I suppose. But therein lies the rub.
How do I teach? Do I teach using digital tools or do I use pen and paper? Does the student need their own hardware (computer) and software (program)? I’ll of course need to know how to use all the tools if I am setting them up to draw, which I suppose would be the same using all platforms.
How do I get clients? Is it ok to have kids here at my condo or is that weird since I’ve never been a teacher and I’m a strange man having students in and out? I guess it’s like giving piano lessons or tutoring Spanish or math.
Lots to think about, but I like the idea of being a sort of art teacher, which was always my favorite “subject” when I was in school.
Maybe I could do the whole thing digitally, you know, online I could possibly do lessons through zoom. Do people still zoom? Or maybe I can tutor on YouTube or something; give drawing or cartooning lessons on YouTube. Then I can reach a lot of students at once and not have to interact one-on-one in person.
if I teach through zoom or YouTube, then adults can be tutored, too.
Guess I should think this all over for a while before I make any decisions, or god forbid, get any paying students and then not know what to do with them.
Till next time . . .
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It’s calendar season and I’m part of it this year.
Many years ago, I published a calendar based on our village and it sold like crazy. Now I have a 2026 “Tomversation” cartoon calendar, based on my cartoon work.
It’s a wall calendar, 11″ x 8.5″ in size when opened. There are over 25 cartoons covering the 12 month calendar pages. It’s a limited edition.
They matte finish allows for writing on the calendar for notes and such.
I based the calendar on animal cartoons – mostly dogs, some cats and even snakes and other animals like lions and fish (are fish animals?).
I don’t charge for my blog or cartoons published online and people are always asking how to support me, so I put this together where you can purchase a calendar or two and support me that way. It will keep me from charging for subscriptions for this blog and my Tomversation comics online.
No calendar? That’s fine, you can subscribe to this Tomversation blogby clicking here – it’s free! Receive my five cartoons each Friday and 2 blog posts during the week!
You remember Nancy, don’t you? Well, it has been in production all this time.
The Ernie Bushmiller comic, started in 1925, went on until 1982, when he passed away. Mr. Bushmiller wrote and drew the comic. It started out as Fritzi Ritz, who is Nancy’s aunt and then morphed into Nancy when she was introduced in 1933. So yes, it goes way back.
From 1982 to 2018, after Bushmiller’s death, the strip was written and drawn by various people.
Mr. Bushmiller took Fritzi Ritz over from a cartoonist named Larry Whittington, who started it in 1922. I only mention it because it’s been in quite a few hands over the years. For the last seven, it’s been written and drawn by the mysterious Olivia Jaimes, but currently it’s in reruns.
Another change. And therein lies the rub.
I remember reading Nancy when I was a kid. I mostly remember it at my grandmother’s house, so maybe it wasn’t in the newspapers we got at home and was in something she subscribed to.
Since 2018, there was a “new” Nancy. It was the same old Nancy and Sluggo, but in a new way. As I mentioned, cartoonist Olivia Jaimes wrote and drew the strip, now she is retiring from that and Caroline Cash is taking over. New strips will appear in the new year. Currently old Ernie Bushmiller strips are running.
When Olivia first took over, I tried to interview her for my 10 With Tom column, but I received no response. Olivia Jaimes is a pseudonym and she, or is it a he? likes to remain unknown.
Ernie Bushmiller’s work.
I find it quite careless to just take on a well-known strip, make it your own for a few years and just “retire.” But I guess that was the case from 1982 to 2018 when the strip was run by others, sort of passing it around until Olivia took it over in 2018. And now she is passing it on. And who knows, perhaps she needs to leave for personal or health reasons.
I know that if I was given a legacy strip, I would guard it and cherish it like so many other cartoonists do.
I was reading comments on The Daily Cartoonist blog, where I found out about this Nancy change and there are those for it, and those against it.
One commentor feels as I do, saying, “I find it highly insulting that Andrews McMeel just passes this classic comic strip over to others willy nilly. And Olivia had a plum position that people would kill for. She just went through the motions. Didn’t she take off a long period of time last year, having others fill in for her?” He went on to call her “blasé” about it.
Andrews McMeel runs GoComics.com – they syndicate the strip along with so many others.
But again, since we don’t know who Olivia is, perhaps she was ill in the summer and needed the break and maybe that’s the case now.
One guy says in the comments at The Daily Cartoonist that it isn’t a “plum” assignment. But I beg to differ. As a cartoonist myself, I think having a nationally syndicated comic strip is a “plum” assignment. He called it a “zombie strip,” but it was alive when Olivia produced it. And thousands, if not millions of people read it over the past seven years.
Another comment on the Daily Cartoonist: “I miss the original Bushmiller style Nancy. I shudder to think what would have happened if Peanuts had been continued after Schulz’s death. I guess, however, things change and time marches on. And maybe I’m a little envious of a working cartoonist.”
Other strips have changed hands and changed the look and feel, which sort of makes it the cartoonists’ own. In the beginning, Ernie Bushmiller took Fritzi Ritz over from Larry Whittington, so there right there it shows that a person can take over a feature and really put their stamp on it.
Anyway, the new Nancy starts in January, we’ll have to check it out.
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