Friday is, of course, Christmas Day. We traditionally host dinner and eat around 1:00 or 2:00 PM. This year, because our daughter Erin has to work on Christmas and can't arrive till the afternoon, we'll eat at 4:00. This is a pretty big change for our family, which this year will include nineteen people at the table--well, tables; even with the leaf added, our main dining table only seats ten. We've always eaten in the early afternoon. Even when we were kids, both my wife's family and mine ate earlier. And this is the second time in two months we've eaten later: Thanksgiving dinner was also moved later in the day because of Erin's work schedule.
Yet no one has said anything about it being too late or that they'll be eating something else instead as a result. Maybe it's that we're all old enough to roll with the punches, tradition be damned, but I like to think that it is in part because no one would want to exclude Erin for the sake of eating at the "normal" time. However I look at it, it seems to me an example of how we make little adjustments in the holiday season to accommodate each other.
Today is Festivus, a holiday introduced years ago on the Seinfeld TV show and which has grown to be "celebrated" by thousands, maybe millions, of people. "A Festivus for the rest of us," as George's father proclaimed, was intended to counteract the commercialized holiday season with a gathering where you tell everyone what's wrong with them and battle through Feats of Strength (for many years, my son's high school Festivus parties included picking up a friend's Ford Fiesta). This year, my son will host, along with his wife now, what I think is his fourteenth or fifteenth consecutive Festivus party. And while the whole premise of the celebration is anti-holiday, it is in fact a gathering of old and new friends to play, laugh, eat and drink together. In fact, falling just before the holiday on which most of them will gather with their blood families to celebrate Christmas, it's a chance to join with their family of friends. That's three consecutive days of celebrating with Family, be it born-into or chosen. That's a pretty good way to spend some of the darkest days of the year.
Click here for a great explanation of Festivus. Or here for a clip from the show.
Happy Festivus!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
Christmas lights
On this date in 1882, the first Christmas light strings were sold. They replaced candles, which were responsible for houses sometimes burning down when the tree caught fire. Now more and more people are using LED Christmas lights, which emit almost no heat and therefore pose even less of a fire threat than mini-lights.
We went to a Hanukkah party this past Friday. It's a wonderful, annual affair at our friends Kathy and Jonathan's house. It has become the tradition that a group of men will peel, shred, squeeze, mix and fry the potatoes, onions, eggs and flour into an extravaganza of latkes, which is (are?) accompanied by applesauce and asour cream, brisket, kugel, the occasional vegetable, and many desserts. This year, some men brought their own aprons--next year, I'll have bring my own as well, although putting on a frilly red apron normally intended for Kathy or one of her daughters is always amusing.
Attending a Hanukkah party a week before Christmas is an embarrassment of riches for which I'm very grateful, and we've enjoyed it for every year but one over the last sixteen or so years. To be there for the lighting of the menorah is a pleasure and a chance to honor the rich history that goes with it. Since I spend my days being silly and irreverent for a living, it's nice to take time to be serious, respectful and grateful. I think the addition of a Hanukkah celebration to our Christmas season makes Christmas more fun for me. I always reach a point where I decide that the one more present I'd like to get someone will be unnecessary, that running around at the last minute to fight the crowds is counterproductive, and that I'll save my energy to be a better companion to that person on the day I'm preparing food and drink and tending to my guests' needs. While Christmas has Santa and Rudolph and presents and shopping attached to it, Hanukkah is still largely unspoiled. With all the gifts and hoopla and excitement and drama of the season, the lighting of the menorrah at the party and the lighting of candles at the 11:00 PM church service on Christmas Eve still are the highlights for me.
Then, of course, I'm ready for the opening of presents!
Nice thoughts for the week of Christmas, huh?
We went to a Hanukkah party this past Friday. It's a wonderful, annual affair at our friends Kathy and Jonathan's house. It has become the tradition that a group of men will peel, shred, squeeze, mix and fry the potatoes, onions, eggs and flour into an extravaganza of latkes, which is (are?) accompanied by applesauce and asour cream, brisket, kugel, the occasional vegetable, and many desserts. This year, some men brought their own aprons--next year, I'll have bring my own as well, although putting on a frilly red apron normally intended for Kathy or one of her daughters is always amusing.
Attending a Hanukkah party a week before Christmas is an embarrassment of riches for which I'm very grateful, and we've enjoyed it for every year but one over the last sixteen or so years. To be there for the lighting of the menorah is a pleasure and a chance to honor the rich history that goes with it. Since I spend my days being silly and irreverent for a living, it's nice to take time to be serious, respectful and grateful. I think the addition of a Hanukkah celebration to our Christmas season makes Christmas more fun for me. I always reach a point where I decide that the one more present I'd like to get someone will be unnecessary, that running around at the last minute to fight the crowds is counterproductive, and that I'll save my energy to be a better companion to that person on the day I'm preparing food and drink and tending to my guests' needs. While Christmas has Santa and Rudolph and presents and shopping attached to it, Hanukkah is still largely unspoiled. With all the gifts and hoopla and excitement and drama of the season, the lighting of the menorrah at the party and the lighting of candles at the 11:00 PM church service on Christmas Eve still are the highlights for me.
Then, of course, I'm ready for the opening of presents!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Moving into a new office
We had the upstairs bedroom that used to be our daughter's painted about a month ago. This was exciting because I've always done my own interior painting, so to walk into a room that was magically transformed into new colors with no effort on my part (other than writing a check) was a treat.
The only step remaining before I can move into that room is to screw down the floorboards.
When I built the house, I used wide southern yellow pine planks for the floor, laid over black plastic and attached with common nials from a regular framing nail gun. I figured the combination of the little burrs on each nail, as the gun breaks off the wires connecting the nails in a magazine, and the glue on the shaft of the nail, which is activated by the heat of shooting it into the wood, would hold the boards. Nope. For years, the floors in our bedrooms have creaked. I screwed down the downstairs floors early on and had them sanded and refinished, but the upstairs bedroom floors continue to whine and moan when walked on. So as each room is repainted, I will fix the floors.
Trouble is, with the busy holiday season and my innate ability to get distracted by other things, the floors haven't been fixed yet. The screws are ready but I guess my resolve isn't. I should probably be doing that now instead of writing this, but this seems to be more fun. Kneeling for hours on a hard floor that you thought you'd done right the first time is an easy task to put off, at least for me.
I'd hire someone to do the floors, but that's too much money for a project that can be done relatively quickly. I'm thinking this may be a Christmas weekend project. If I can tear myself away from going to the movies, visiting with family and friends, and inhaling one more piece of pie or glass of eggnog (I make a mean eggnog), I may get it done then.
Note the upholstery. Click here to see more cartoons.
For my next house, I want tot rip 1/4" plywood--probably oak--into wide strips and glue them down to the subfloor, then add a couple of coats of different stain: one for the basic color and another to give them a worn look. Then a few coats of water-based polyurethane and I'll have old-looking, inexpensive, durable wide board floors that don't, and won't, squeak. I did several floors like this for clients in my old carpenter/handyman days, and they all worked well and saved thousands of dollars. And I like "getting away" with something like that. I guess it goes back to my theater days, building sets and props out of cheap materials and making them look expensive. I did a beautiful-looking mandolin from foam core board and the type of elastic thread in the waists of underpants.
But I digress. And the fact that I start out talking about finishing a floor project and end up writing about underpants--and that I easily do this sort of thing all the time--is why the floor still lies there, waiting for me. It's not like it doesn't complain--I just don't listen very well.
The only step remaining before I can move into that room is to screw down the floorboards.
When I built the house, I used wide southern yellow pine planks for the floor, laid over black plastic and attached with common nials from a regular framing nail gun. I figured the combination of the little burrs on each nail, as the gun breaks off the wires connecting the nails in a magazine, and the glue on the shaft of the nail, which is activated by the heat of shooting it into the wood, would hold the boards. Nope. For years, the floors in our bedrooms have creaked. I screwed down the downstairs floors early on and had them sanded and refinished, but the upstairs bedroom floors continue to whine and moan when walked on. So as each room is repainted, I will fix the floors.
Trouble is, with the busy holiday season and my innate ability to get distracted by other things, the floors haven't been fixed yet. The screws are ready but I guess my resolve isn't. I should probably be doing that now instead of writing this, but this seems to be more fun. Kneeling for hours on a hard floor that you thought you'd done right the first time is an easy task to put off, at least for me.
Note the upholstery. Click here to see more cartoons.
For my next house, I want tot rip 1/4" plywood--probably oak--into wide strips and glue them down to the subfloor, then add a couple of coats of different stain: one for the basic color and another to give them a worn look. Then a few coats of water-based polyurethane and I'll have old-looking, inexpensive, durable wide board floors that don't, and won't, squeak. I did several floors like this for clients in my old carpenter/handyman days, and they all worked well and saved thousands of dollars. And I like "getting away" with something like that. I guess it goes back to my theater days, building sets and props out of cheap materials and making them look expensive. I did a beautiful-looking mandolin from foam core board and the type of elastic thread in the waists of underpants.
But I digress. And the fact that I start out talking about finishing a floor project and end up writing about underpants--and that I easily do this sort of thing all the time--is why the floor still lies there, waiting for me. It's not like it doesn't complain--I just don't listen very well.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Energy efficiency and Christmas
I do love Christmas. I love the festivities, trying to keep up with too many holiday functions, eating more sugar than (I think) all the rest of the year, making myself work out several times a week to make up for that, the inspirational spiritual aspect, the colors...it's just a fun time of year, and a nice consolation for the decreasing hours of daylight and the increasing cold for those of us who live in cold climates.
I've spent several days this month drawing Christmas cartoons while I listen to Christmas music. I almost feel guilty. But not quite.
Speaking of guilt, I know that even the mini Christmas tree lights use a lot of electricity, especially when you add up all the trees around the world at Christmastime, so we decided to buy LED lights for the tree this year. We bought them on Black Friday at a big discount. Now they're on the tree, and I like them a lot. White LED lights often look bluish outdoors, but on our tree, they look fine. They're also bright enough to light up the ornaments; our old mini lights were too faint. The blue, especially, is a beautiful, rich, almost mysterious color. And they come in different shapes, so you can have tiny dots of light or big, honkin' old fashioned bulbs. There are even special versions of white LED strings if you want the traditional warm color for your outside decorations. Target is one source of many.
LEDs use much less energy than any other type and will last for years longer No more studying strings of lights each year to figure out which bulb burned out and is causing the whole thing to fail--even though the box said they all stay on if one goes out! I read recently that we may all be using them as our primary light sources in our homes within three years. They're expensive for anything but tree lights now, but as demand and production increases, prices will drop. Of course, the ultimate savings in energy already offset the initial higher cost of the bulbs, if you're willing to spend the money now. They screw into standard sockets, so it'll be easy to convert as prices allow.
My dream (one of many) is to have a house with prewired sockets in all the windowsills so an LED candle can just be plugged into each window and be controlled from a central switch. They don't get hot, so there's no worry about melting window shades or burning curtains.
If you don't have them now, look for LEDs the day after Christmas at bargain prices. And remember, if you throw out fluorescent lights--don't! Fluorescents have a little bit of mercury in them and shouldn't be dumped into the environment. Recycle them. Most municipalities do now. If not, go here to find out more about how to recycle them.
The season is even more fun if you feel like you're doing something good for others, and this is an easy way to do that. And it's good for you too.
I've spent several days this month drawing Christmas cartoons while I listen to Christmas music. I almost feel guilty. But not quite.
LEDs use much less energy than any other type and will last for years longer No more studying strings of lights each year to figure out which bulb burned out and is causing the whole thing to fail--even though the box said they all stay on if one goes out! I read recently that we may all be using them as our primary light sources in our homes within three years. They're expensive for anything but tree lights now, but as demand and production increases, prices will drop. Of course, the ultimate savings in energy already offset the initial higher cost of the bulbs, if you're willing to spend the money now. They screw into standard sockets, so it'll be easy to convert as prices allow.
My dream (one of many) is to have a house with prewired sockets in all the windowsills so an LED candle can just be plugged into each window and be controlled from a central switch. They don't get hot, so there's no worry about melting window shades or burning curtains.
If you don't have them now, look for LEDs the day after Christmas at bargain prices. And remember, if you throw out fluorescent lights--don't! Fluorescents have a little bit of mercury in them and shouldn't be dumped into the environment. Recycle them. Most municipalities do now. If not, go here to find out more about how to recycle them.
The season is even more fun if you feel like you're doing something good for others, and this is an easy way to do that. And it's good for you too.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Calendar
I meet with the printer to approve the calendar proofs tomorrow morning, and then the calendar will be ready to ship in (I hope) a week or less. It's exciting to be doing the first QlownTown calendar, especially since it's grown from the original concept of just a large cartoon on top with the monthly calendar below to also including several interesting holidays and clown-related birthdays per month to adding a holiday or birthday to every day of the year, and one or two additional cartoons. Now it exists as a "Holiday" calendar, another way to give people a lift every day. As a matter of fact, people can still hate clowns but enjoy the list of wacky holidays. How bad can a day be if you know it's Rubber Ducky Day or National Kazoo Day, and that someone somewhere is actually celebrating it?
I'm hearing from more and more people that they always look forward to their morning QlownTown fix to get the day started right. I do that myself with other people's cartoons, so I feel lucky to be a part of a group that helps people get going on the right foot. I receive the daily cartoon myself via email, and I always check it to make sure it comes through all right. I frequently think of some particular friend or relative who I know will be especially entertained by whatever cartoon arrives that morning...that's how I get a lift from the strip.
And, for the first time, I also get to see the cartoon as my readers do.
As I've mentioned here previously, by the time I've gone through the process of writing, drawing, scanning and coloring the strip, the joke often seems lame; but seeing it arrive, fully formed, in my email gives me a fresh perspective. I sometimes laugh out loud at my own cartoon! This is when I know that 1) it's a good one, or 2) I may be the only one who finds it funny and I should be an accountant or burger flipper. Of course, I always choose to believe the former is true, and feel encouraged when someone writes to say they especially liked that day's cartoon.
Perhaps, in keeping with my campaign to start people's day right, I should go into coffee distribution. Qlown Qoffee, anyone?
I'm hearing from more and more people that they always look forward to their morning QlownTown fix to get the day started right. I do that myself with other people's cartoons, so I feel lucky to be a part of a group that helps people get going on the right foot. I receive the daily cartoon myself via email, and I always check it to make sure it comes through all right. I frequently think of some particular friend or relative who I know will be especially entertained by whatever cartoon arrives that morning...that's how I get a lift from the strip.
And, for the first time, I also get to see the cartoon as my readers do.
As I've mentioned here previously, by the time I've gone through the process of writing, drawing, scanning and coloring the strip, the joke often seems lame; but seeing it arrive, fully formed, in my email gives me a fresh perspective. I sometimes laugh out loud at my own cartoon! This is when I know that 1) it's a good one, or 2) I may be the only one who finds it funny and I should be an accountant or burger flipper. Of course, I always choose to believe the former is true, and feel encouraged when someone writes to say they especially liked that day's cartoon.
Perhaps, in keeping with my campaign to start people's day right, I should go into coffee distribution. Qlown Qoffee, anyone?
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
National Fritter Day
I turned in the artwork files for the 2010 QlownTown calendar yesterday. It was probably three months later than I should have gotten it ready (note to self for 32011 calendar: have ready in August), but at least it's now at the printer. I noticed as I looked at my 2009 calendar---which featured a few holidays, birthdays, and special occasions, but nowhere near the one-for-every-day of the 2010 one---that today is National Fritter Day. I've decide to honor this important day by making fritters for dinner tonight.
Here's a recipe that I like for corn fritters:
3/4 C. all-purpose flour
1/2 C. corn meal
2-1/4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
2 T. sugar
1 egg, separated
3/4 C. milk
1-1/2 tsp. canola oil
1 12oz. can whole-kernel corn, drained (optional)
Oil for frying
Sift flour with baking powder, salt and sugar. With rotary beater, whip egg whites till stiff peaks form.
In another bowl, using same beater, beat egg yolk, milk, and 1-1/2 tsp. canola oil.
Gradually add flour mixture, beating till smooth. Gently fold in egg white. Add corn, if using.
Heat oil (at least 2 inches deep) to 375F. Drop corn mixture by large spoonfuls (about 1/4 Cup) into oil, a few at a time. Deep-fry, turning once, till golden brown (3-5 minutes). Drain well on paper towels. Serve with maple syrup, molasses, honey or jam; or, to really impress, with cob syrup, made by boiling sugar, water and corn cob together, then straining...a somewhat involved process that I won't do again, in part because I love maple syrup more.
You could also go the savory route, topping with salsa, tapenade, curry sauce or hoisin.
Happy National Fritters Day!
This has been a service of the QlownTown Test Kitchens
Here's a recipe that I like for corn fritters:
3/4 C. all-purpose flour
1/2 C. corn meal
2-1/4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
2 T. sugar
1 egg, separated
3/4 C. milk
1-1/2 tsp. canola oil
1 12oz. can whole-kernel corn, drained (optional)
Oil for frying
Sift flour with baking powder, salt and sugar. With rotary beater, whip egg whites till stiff peaks form.
In another bowl, using same beater, beat egg yolk, milk, and 1-1/2 tsp. canola oil.
Gradually add flour mixture, beating till smooth. Gently fold in egg white. Add corn, if using.
Heat oil (at least 2 inches deep) to 375F. Drop corn mixture by large spoonfuls (about 1/4 Cup) into oil, a few at a time. Deep-fry, turning once, till golden brown (3-5 minutes). Drain well on paper towels. Serve with maple syrup, molasses, honey or jam; or, to really impress, with cob syrup, made by boiling sugar, water and corn cob together, then straining...a somewhat involved process that I won't do again, in part because I love maple syrup more.
You could also go the savory route, topping with salsa, tapenade, curry sauce or hoisin.
Happy National Fritters Day!
This has been a service of the QlownTown Test Kitchens
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Thanksgiving
It took most of last week for me to fully recover from the play I had been in. I was just a member of the ensemble, one of almost fifty onstage, but it was exhausting. Not so much the work--our dancing and singing probably only amounted to fifteen or twenty minutes of each show---but the excitement of undertaking such a large project with so many people and the inevitable celebration after every show took a lot out of me! I wanted to grab every moment of fun that I could, and I'm glad I did; but I'd pace myself more if it had involved more than one weekend.
I'm lucky. I was able to adjust my work schedule last week around the occasional nap, or start later and work later as it suited me.
I watched House last night. It was about a genius who intentionally drugged himself to make himself stupider, so he wouldn't have the pressures of being an overachieving writer and thinker. He says at one point, "I'd rather be happy than rich." I could identify with that. While I wouldn't mind being wealthy, the reduction in stress since I moved from being a kitchen designer to being a cartoonist is huge. I was taking anti-stress medication and Prilosec for indigestion every morning at the end of my designer days; a month later I was off both. The ultimate outcome of QlownTown will, I believe, be a very comfortable income--it's growing already--but I've already received the biggest payoff: I'm happy. I don't know how many times I've received an email or had someone tell me face-to-face that the first thing they do in the morning is check their email-box for the daily cartoon. The idea that I'm directly responsible for starting someone's day off right is exciting. I don't feel pressured by this, but I do feel honored. Of course, if I had a dollar for every time someone felt a lift from reading my cartoon...
So, two days before Thanksgiving, as I struggle to get the calendar all assembled for the printer (several months behind schedule, I know!), I'm thankful for being able to do this. I have a wife who works in partnership with me as I build this dream. I have friends, family and readers who encourage me. And I have a bunch of qlowns who make me laugh every day, even if I have to draw them before they can do that for me.
I'm lucky. I was able to adjust my work schedule last week around the occasional nap, or start later and work later as it suited me.
I watched House last night. It was about a genius who intentionally drugged himself to make himself stupider, so he wouldn't have the pressures of being an overachieving writer and thinker. He says at one point, "I'd rather be happy than rich." I could identify with that. While I wouldn't mind being wealthy, the reduction in stress since I moved from being a kitchen designer to being a cartoonist is huge. I was taking anti-stress medication and Prilosec for indigestion every morning at the end of my designer days; a month later I was off both. The ultimate outcome of QlownTown will, I believe, be a very comfortable income--it's growing already--but I've already received the biggest payoff: I'm happy. I don't know how many times I've received an email or had someone tell me face-to-face that the first thing they do in the morning is check their email-box for the daily cartoon. The idea that I'm directly responsible for starting someone's day off right is exciting. I don't feel pressured by this, but I do feel honored. Of course, if I had a dollar for every time someone felt a lift from reading my cartoon...
So, two days before Thanksgiving, as I struggle to get the calendar all assembled for the printer (several months behind schedule, I know!), I'm thankful for being able to do this. I have a wife who works in partnership with me as I build this dream. I have friends, family and readers who encourage me. And I have a bunch of qlowns who make me laugh every day, even if I have to draw them before they can do that for me.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Free shipping
Today (Thursday, November 12th) only, the Cafe Press store (www.cafepress.com/qlowntown) will be offering free shipping on orders on $50 or more. QlownTown merchandise makes a great gift, so grab stuff now and save a few bucks!
Use the coupon code SHIPSHAPE.
Use the coupon code SHIPSHAPE.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Busy busy
When I embarked on the QlownTown adventure, I envisioned sitting at my drawing table playing with cartoon characters, which I would then casually scan, color and upload to the site for automatic release on the proper date. What I didn't envision was discovering that coloring them was as much fun as crayons were when I was a kid, and, as a result, spending hours playing with color and patterns after the initial black and white drawings are done.
This on top of being in Production Week for a play I'm in, doing work to publicize a concert for this coming Sunday, and trying to put the finishing touches on the 2010 calendar. The calendar has become an especially large undertaking since I decided to list a holiday for almost* every day of the year---yes, there are that many. So, after a 4-1/2 hour rehearsal, I found myself putting a cartoon together till 10:45 last night so it could go out to subscribers at midnight.
This is the danger of being only one day ahead on drawing the strip, but I plan to change that after the play and calendar are done. At least doing the play and researching the calendar are both lots of fun.
Interestingly, one involves working with about sixty other people, and the other involves working alone, yet I love both. I can't imagine drawing a comic strip with sixty people, and doing a one-man show would be nerve-racking. If those sixty people worked well together, the cartoon process would go really fast, though.
Anyway, this is the type of week one often refers to as Hell Week, but I think/hope it'll be Heaven and Hell Week. Next week will be Catch Up and Nap Week.
*I may ask people to suggest holidays for the few days that feature, as far as I can tell, no existing holiday or celebration, to be listed on the 2011 calendar.
This on top of being in Production Week for a play I'm in, doing work to publicize a concert for this coming Sunday, and trying to put the finishing touches on the 2010 calendar. The calendar has become an especially large undertaking since I decided to list a holiday for almost* every day of the year---yes, there are that many. So, after a 4-1/2 hour rehearsal, I found myself putting a cartoon together till 10:45 last night so it could go out to subscribers at midnight.
This is the danger of being only one day ahead on drawing the strip, but I plan to change that after the play and calendar are done. At least doing the play and researching the calendar are both lots of fun.
Interestingly, one involves working with about sixty other people, and the other involves working alone, yet I love both. I can't imagine drawing a comic strip with sixty people, and doing a one-man show would be nerve-racking. If those sixty people worked well together, the cartoon process would go really fast, though.
Anyway, this is the type of week one often refers to as Hell Week, but I think/hope it'll be Heaven and Hell Week. Next week will be Catch Up and Nap Week.
*I may ask people to suggest holidays for the few days that feature, as far as I can tell, no existing holiday or celebration, to be listed on the 2011 calendar.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Size matters
I did an escalator cartoon on Sunday that was hard to see. [For those who read it and couldn't make out what was happening, the woman rides the escalator down, but instead of getting off at the bottom, disappears into the escalator, then reappears at the top, presumably riding down and up as long as she wants. I liked the idea as a whimsical reverie on what might happen if one didn't get off at the bottom.]
Actually, I drew it several years ago. I've been so busy lately that I hauled it out of the files, scanned it, touched it up and uploaded it to the site. Then, after all that work (sometimes using an old cartoon takes longer than just drawing a new one from scratch!), I realized that it might be hard to make out the details, but it was too late to do another one, so I left it as is and hoped for the best. I was looking at it on a 24" screen and it was a little small to me, so I could imagine what it'd be like on a small laptop--or, worse yet, a cell phone. Sure enough, some people mentioned that they couldn't make it out and one person thought the woman was male. It's making me rethink the whole approach to doing cartoons. Some of them, I figure they'll be easy to read when they come out in a book, but that doesn't help now, when they're only appearing online. I still have the goal of getting the strip into newspapers, but that'll always be secondary to appearing on the internet, I expect. So cartoons with nice little details may be a bad idea.
I also realized that I sometimes draw the characters smaller than I should in the space I'm using, even as I grumble to myself that I need a bigger area in which to draw, so I'm trying to adjust the way I've always drawn. I'm still grappling with the square vs. strip format, too---doesn't it make more sense to use a square if a lot of readers will be viewing it on a cell phone? As far as T shirts go, I'm not sure. A square can fit nicely on the pocket area of a polo shirt and be relatively discreet, but do most people who wear cartoons on their clothes care about subtlety anyway?
One cartoonist told me, "Do whatever feels natural for the strip. If you tend to do one-panel comics, use a square. Strips tend to be more linear storytelling, with several panels in a strip." I think my natural inclination was always to do a square panel, but my gut has always said, "Do a strip. There are more opportunities in newspapers for strips." So my guts are fighting with my brain, which is bad during flu season.
Anyway, my hope is that all future QlownTown cartoons will be clear enough that you can see everything if you're viewing them on your computer. On iPhones, it may occasionally be an issue, but when that happens, you can check it out at home. Maybe I should offer a special QlownTown magnifying glass in the store...
Actually, I drew it several years ago. I've been so busy lately that I hauled it out of the files, scanned it, touched it up and uploaded it to the site. Then, after all that work (sometimes using an old cartoon takes longer than just drawing a new one from scratch!), I realized that it might be hard to make out the details, but it was too late to do another one, so I left it as is and hoped for the best. I was looking at it on a 24" screen and it was a little small to me, so I could imagine what it'd be like on a small laptop--or, worse yet, a cell phone. Sure enough, some people mentioned that they couldn't make it out and one person thought the woman was male. It's making me rethink the whole approach to doing cartoons. Some of them, I figure they'll be easy to read when they come out in a book, but that doesn't help now, when they're only appearing online. I still have the goal of getting the strip into newspapers, but that'll always be secondary to appearing on the internet, I expect. So cartoons with nice little details may be a bad idea.
I also realized that I sometimes draw the characters smaller than I should in the space I'm using, even as I grumble to myself that I need a bigger area in which to draw, so I'm trying to adjust the way I've always drawn. I'm still grappling with the square vs. strip format, too---doesn't it make more sense to use a square if a lot of readers will be viewing it on a cell phone? As far as T shirts go, I'm not sure. A square can fit nicely on the pocket area of a polo shirt and be relatively discreet, but do most people who wear cartoons on their clothes care about subtlety anyway?
One cartoonist told me, "Do whatever feels natural for the strip. If you tend to do one-panel comics, use a square. Strips tend to be more linear storytelling, with several panels in a strip." I think my natural inclination was always to do a square panel, but my gut has always said, "Do a strip. There are more opportunities in newspapers for strips." So my guts are fighting with my brain, which is bad during flu season.
Anyway, my hope is that all future QlownTown cartoons will be clear enough that you can see everything if you're viewing them on your computer. On iPhones, it may occasionally be an issue, but when that happens, you can check it out at home. Maybe I should offer a special QlownTown magnifying glass in the store...
Friday, October 30, 2009
Hired pen
I've been toying with doing commission work. People have asked me occasionally over the years, and I've done a few things--illustrations for a newspaper article, posters--but when I began this comic strip odyssey, the plan was to just do the strip. It's not that I don't like to draw to serve other people's ideas; it's just that I have a hard time coming up with cartoons for a particular subject. The stuff I do comes from various places: a road sign I see, a funny cartoon by someone else that inspires a new idea, misreading an ad and getting a joke out of what-if-it actually-said-what-I-thought-it-said; but it's almost never based on a premeditated subject: "now I will come up with a strip about babies," for example.
I did come up with an idea for next Sunday's comic which will be based on the show I'm currently rehearsing with a community theater group. I'd been brainstorming for a couple of months, and finally found one that works. I still don't know if it's as funny as some that I've just pulled out the air, but it is a good idea that came from working hard to do something on a particular subject.
Someone wrote me recently that I should ask readers what they do, what they watch, and what they'd like to see in a cartoon. This smacks of cartoons-for-hire to me and goes against my inherently lazy nature, but it would set up a nice challenge. I'd like to see how well I can directly serve the desires of my readers. So go ahead and send me your occupations, your hobbies, your advertising needs, and I'll see what, if anything, I come up with. You can e-mail me at dsmith-weiss@qlowntown.com, or reply in the Comments section of this blog.
I have every strip planned through May 2010, but when I get an idea I really like, I bump some planned strip to May and put the new one in earlier. I've also found that ideas that I wrote down months ago might not seem funny enough when they finally come up in the rotation, so they get dumped for a new concept...so your subject may appear sooner than that.
I did come up with an idea for next Sunday's comic which will be based on the show I'm currently rehearsing with a community theater group. I'd been brainstorming for a couple of months, and finally found one that works. I still don't know if it's as funny as some that I've just pulled out the air, but it is a good idea that came from working hard to do something on a particular subject.
Someone wrote me recently that I should ask readers what they do, what they watch, and what they'd like to see in a cartoon. This smacks of cartoons-for-hire to me and goes against my inherently lazy nature, but it would set up a nice challenge. I'd like to see how well I can directly serve the desires of my readers. So go ahead and send me your occupations, your hobbies, your advertising needs, and I'll see what, if anything, I come up with. You can e-mail me at dsmith-weiss@qlowntown.com, or reply in the Comments section of this blog.
I have every strip planned through May 2010, but when I get an idea I really like, I bump some planned strip to May and put the new one in earlier. I've also found that ideas that I wrote down months ago might not seem funny enough when they finally come up in the rotation, so they get dumped for a new concept...so your subject may appear sooner than that.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Conan
Interesting: Conan the Barbarian is also known as Conan the Cimmerian, making my cartoon yesterday titled "Conan the Seminarian" an even better joke than I originally thought! I had originally planned on "Conan the Librarian" as a title and concept, but as I began to draw it, I wondered if I'd seen it somewhere else. Sure enough, it's an old gag. So I looked for something else that sounded similar to "Barbarian" that would be unlikely for Conan to do. "Contrarian" seemed too hard to draw clearly. I suppose I could've drawn him singing with the Beach Boys and called it "Conan the Barbara Annian", but no.
I was happy that I drew a pretty good Ahnuld-like character on the first try. I hate to re-draw; it seems that each time, you lose a little of the freedom of the original. As it is, I always feel that the final inked drawing loses a little vitality from the initial pencil sketch. I hope as the years go by, the pencil and pen versions become more and more alike.
I was happy that I drew a pretty good Ahnuld-like character on the first try. I hate to re-draw; it seems that each time, you lose a little of the freedom of the original. As it is, I always feel that the final inked drawing loses a little vitality from the initial pencil sketch. I hope as the years go by, the pencil and pen versions become more and more alike.
Oops!
Yesterday's cartoon, which would have been titled "Today's Cartoon" when it was sent to email subscribers, didn't get uploaded two days ago, so Today's Cartoon for yesterday never got emailed yesterday. I'd hoped to email it today, so the cartoon that was supposed to be Today's
Cartoon yesterday would have effectively been mailed tomorrow, relative to when it was supposed to go out. Confused?
All it means is that the system doesn't provide a way to manually email the daily cartoon. If I miss the deadline, it ain't gonna happen. Of course, once the strip is in newspapers, I'll be providing them three to four weeks in advance, so no little glitches like this will occur. Imagine if cartoonists were only a day ahead on providing cartoons to papers: there might be days when there'd be blank spaces on the comics page, then other days when there'd be extra pages. Wouldn't work.
That's a big reason the strip isn't in any newspapers yet. The time spent on getting the calendar ready, drawing the strip, and doing the other stuff that fills up my daily life makes it hard to get four to six weeks ahead. I also tend to do more coloring and adding textures, photos, and other background stuff to the cartoons to make them interesting--and to entertain myself.
My big "gimmick" that I'd planned from the start for this strip was to use words as textures in the background. For example, the "Kathy" strip on 5/18/09 featured grass along the bottom that was made from the words GRASSGRASSGRASS running along the bottom. Today's strip (meaning today's, on October 22nd) has the words WOODWOODWOOD as a texture on the bar top. I was going to use a photo of real wood grain, but I've done that before, and the words, while a little time-consuming, are fun to use. I worry that they won't be legible on small monitors, but they're there for some people at least, and it amuses me.
That reminds me: I have an old Beatles cartoon that I drew years ago that I should've used on 9/9/09. It's kind of outdated, except when the Beatles are in the news--as they were that day with the release on all their CDs, remastered. I could've used 99999999 as a texture! (If you don't get the reference, it's to Revolution 9 on the White Album.)
Once the site is opened up to your comments--that's coming on a future update of the site--we can see how many people, if any, are noticing the worded textures. In the meantime, feel free to comment here on the blog. Of course, the blog will get a makeover at some point, too, to make it more interesting to look at. But for now, I'm concentrating on the calendar, website changes, the play for which I'm in rehearsals, the house I'm designing, and trying to get ahead on the daily cartoons...so we don't have another yesterday/today/tomorrow occurrence.
Hey, the Beatles released an album in the US years ago called "Yesterday..and Today", and did songs called "Yesterday" and "Tomorrow Never Knows"--so this rambling blog actually all ties together!
Cartoon yesterday would have effectively been mailed tomorrow, relative to when it was supposed to go out. Confused?
All it means is that the system doesn't provide a way to manually email the daily cartoon. If I miss the deadline, it ain't gonna happen. Of course, once the strip is in newspapers, I'll be providing them three to four weeks in advance, so no little glitches like this will occur. Imagine if cartoonists were only a day ahead on providing cartoons to papers: there might be days when there'd be blank spaces on the comics page, then other days when there'd be extra pages. Wouldn't work.
That's a big reason the strip isn't in any newspapers yet. The time spent on getting the calendar ready, drawing the strip, and doing the other stuff that fills up my daily life makes it hard to get four to six weeks ahead. I also tend to do more coloring and adding textures, photos, and other background stuff to the cartoons to make them interesting--and to entertain myself.
My big "gimmick" that I'd planned from the start for this strip was to use words as textures in the background. For example, the "Kathy" strip on 5/18/09 featured grass along the bottom that was made from the words GRASSGRASSGRASS running along the bottom. Today's strip (meaning today's, on October 22nd) has the words WOODWOODWOOD as a texture on the bar top. I was going to use a photo of real wood grain, but I've done that before, and the words, while a little time-consuming, are fun to use. I worry that they won't be legible on small monitors, but they're there for some people at least, and it amuses me.
That reminds me: I have an old Beatles cartoon that I drew years ago that I should've used on 9/9/09. It's kind of outdated, except when the Beatles are in the news--as they were that day with the release on all their CDs, remastered. I could've used 99999999 as a texture! (If you don't get the reference, it's to Revolution 9 on the White Album.)
Once the site is opened up to your comments--that's coming on a future update of the site--we can see how many people, if any, are noticing the worded textures. In the meantime, feel free to comment here on the blog. Of course, the blog will get a makeover at some point, too, to make it more interesting to look at. But for now, I'm concentrating on the calendar, website changes, the play for which I'm in rehearsals, the house I'm designing, and trying to get ahead on the daily cartoons...so we don't have another yesterday/today/tomorrow occurrence.
Hey, the Beatles released an album in the US years ago called "Yesterday..and Today", and did songs called "Yesterday" and "Tomorrow Never Knows"--so this rambling blog actually all ties together!
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Coulrophobia
Yes, there is a word for an excessive or irrational fear of clowns: coulrophobia. I figured there must be a word for it, so I looked it up. Sure enough. Coulrophobia.
I was getting my teeth cleaned today, and the hygienist told me she'd checked out the site a few times, but that she doesn't like clowns. Now, disliking and fearing are different things, but the issue is the same: there are people who don't want to read the strip simply because it's about clowns. I suppose it's no different than someone not wanting to read Garfield because he or she hates cats, or not wanting to watch Yogi Bear cartoons because he/she is afraid of bears. But it's frustrating. I decided to do a strip about clowns because no one else was doing that. And I decided to make them everyday people--that is, put them in offices, factories, shops, rather than in a circus--because I wanted to use them simply as a vehicle for humor. The whole "life is a circus" metaphor.
Yes, they live in tents (which have framed doors and windows, not canvas flaps), but that's a play on our world if it were inhabited by clowns, just like the stone houses and real-pig garbage disposals in the Flintstones. Maybe if these people got to know the strip, they'd feel better. I do plan at some point to start using the same characters and give them names, but that requires drawing them the same each time, and that seems like a bit of a burden. No one ever said Gary Larson should have the same cast of characters!...although I'll concede that there was frequently the familiar cow, fat kid with glasses, fat woman with glasses, etc. Anyway, maybe having a familiar clown named Rupert or Elvis or whatever will enable coulrophobics to embrace (figuratively, not literally!) the denizens of QlownTown.
Hey, maybe I could actually cure some clown-haters or -fearers by exposing them to clowns that they might see as often as, or even more frequently than, their favorite uncle Howie. Familiarity breeds contentment, sometimes. Therapy through the funnies.
In the meantime, if you're telling anyone about QlownTown and they say, "Oh, but I hate/am afraid of clowns", explain to them that these guys are a harmless vehicle for delivering the same off-the-wall, insightful, literate humor that other cartoonists--some of whom may be among his or her favorites--do. Once they start appearing in newspapers, they'll frequently be in black and white anyway. Maybe that will be less threatening or offensive. But it's the 21st century. Isn't it about time we accepted all people of color...even if it's just makeup?
I was getting my teeth cleaned today, and the hygienist told me she'd checked out the site a few times, but that she doesn't like clowns. Now, disliking and fearing are different things, but the issue is the same: there are people who don't want to read the strip simply because it's about clowns. I suppose it's no different than someone not wanting to read Garfield because he or she hates cats, or not wanting to watch Yogi Bear cartoons because he/she is afraid of bears. But it's frustrating. I decided to do a strip about clowns because no one else was doing that. And I decided to make them everyday people--that is, put them in offices, factories, shops, rather than in a circus--because I wanted to use them simply as a vehicle for humor. The whole "life is a circus" metaphor.
Yes, they live in tents (which have framed doors and windows, not canvas flaps), but that's a play on our world if it were inhabited by clowns, just like the stone houses and real-pig garbage disposals in the Flintstones. Maybe if these people got to know the strip, they'd feel better. I do plan at some point to start using the same characters and give them names, but that requires drawing them the same each time, and that seems like a bit of a burden. No one ever said Gary Larson should have the same cast of characters!...although I'll concede that there was frequently the familiar cow, fat kid with glasses, fat woman with glasses, etc. Anyway, maybe having a familiar clown named Rupert or Elvis or whatever will enable coulrophobics to embrace (figuratively, not literally!) the denizens of QlownTown.
Hey, maybe I could actually cure some clown-haters or -fearers by exposing them to clowns that they might see as often as, or even more frequently than, their favorite uncle Howie. Familiarity breeds contentment, sometimes. Therapy through the funnies.
In the meantime, if you're telling anyone about QlownTown and they say, "Oh, but I hate/am afraid of clowns", explain to them that these guys are a harmless vehicle for delivering the same off-the-wall, insightful, literate humor that other cartoonists--some of whom may be among his or her favorites--do. Once they start appearing in newspapers, they'll frequently be in black and white anyway. Maybe that will be less threatening or offensive. But it's the 21st century. Isn't it about time we accepted all people of color...even if it's just makeup?
Monday, October 12, 2009
Normal
I was talking with Sarah, my web czar, about one of the most popular items in the QlownTown store, the "Find the normal guy" poster. It's a full-color version of the teal-and-aqua background that appears on the QT website. There is one person in the whole thing who isn't a clown--he is clearly an "average" person with no makeup or silly clothes. The object, as the title suggests, is to find that person, a la "Where's Waldo?", in the midst of a coven of clowns. (An embarrassment of clowns? A buffoonery? This may be fodder for a future blog...)
Now, Sarah writes a lot in her blog about labels, expectations, assumptions. As soon as I said "normal" I realized that it might seem like one of those labels people apply that is, at best, a judgment. I explained that within the context of QlownTown, "normal" was not so much a subjective label as a way to differentiate one from a clown. Sarah didn't seem to be concerned anyway, but it did strike me that I had used the word normal without thinking about its implications.
I try to avoid using the word normal unless I'm sure that it applies to an irrefutable truth. For instance, a round orange is normal; a square orange would not be normal. I've seen some that are grown in boxes so they're square, and they look pretty cool, but I wouldn't consider them normal. As used on the poster, "normal" is arguably a bad thing---he certainly doesn't fit in. And it's also a satirical or irreverent use of the word. If you accept that you're in QlownTown, you should realize that the normally non-normal is normal, and the word normal becomes something else.
The potential for someone to mistake the word on the poster as a judgment is part of the adventure that is political correctness. And despite the fact that yes, there are times when being PC can go over the line, it's generally a good idea to try to be super-aware of what a word or phrase will mean to others. A friend once said, "Political correctness is just common sense." So is that statement. If "Redskins" was originally a pejorative term for American Indians, they certainly have the right now to be offended by the name of the Washington football team. How one resolves that issue after decades of established usage is not a simple issue, but being annoyed by the hassle of dealing with it doesn't make it a non-issue.
We take small steps. Our local high school football team is the Tomahawks. They used to do a chopping hatchet move and chant "woo-woo-woo-woo" in pseudo-Indian, and that's a easy thing to get rid of. (I haven't been to a game in several years, but I hope and assume that the "war chant" has been dropped.) They're usually referred to as the 'Hawks, and maybe someday the name will be officially changed.
But back to normal. I bet no one has looked at that and said, "Who is he to judge who's normal?". This preemptive essay on the use may be stirring up something that no one ever thought about. My urge to address it once I thought about it, however, was the same reaction most sensitve people would have.
It's normal.
Now, Sarah writes a lot in her blog about labels, expectations, assumptions. As soon as I said "normal" I realized that it might seem like one of those labels people apply that is, at best, a judgment. I explained that within the context of QlownTown, "normal" was not so much a subjective label as a way to differentiate one from a clown. Sarah didn't seem to be concerned anyway, but it did strike me that I had used the word normal without thinking about its implications.
I try to avoid using the word normal unless I'm sure that it applies to an irrefutable truth. For instance, a round orange is normal; a square orange would not be normal. I've seen some that are grown in boxes so they're square, and they look pretty cool, but I wouldn't consider them normal. As used on the poster, "normal" is arguably a bad thing---he certainly doesn't fit in. And it's also a satirical or irreverent use of the word. If you accept that you're in QlownTown, you should realize that the normally non-normal is normal, and the word normal becomes something else.
The potential for someone to mistake the word on the poster as a judgment is part of the adventure that is political correctness. And despite the fact that yes, there are times when being PC can go over the line, it's generally a good idea to try to be super-aware of what a word or phrase will mean to others. A friend once said, "Political correctness is just common sense." So is that statement. If "Redskins" was originally a pejorative term for American Indians, they certainly have the right now to be offended by the name of the Washington football team. How one resolves that issue after decades of established usage is not a simple issue, but being annoyed by the hassle of dealing with it doesn't make it a non-issue.
We take small steps. Our local high school football team is the Tomahawks. They used to do a chopping hatchet move and chant "woo-woo-woo-woo" in pseudo-Indian, and that's a easy thing to get rid of. (I haven't been to a game in several years, but I hope and assume that the "war chant" has been dropped.) They're usually referred to as the 'Hawks, and maybe someday the name will be officially changed.
But back to normal. I bet no one has looked at that and said, "Who is he to judge who's normal?". This preemptive essay on the use may be stirring up something that no one ever thought about. My urge to address it once I thought about it, however, was the same reaction most sensitve people would have.
It's normal.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Criticizing fellow cartoonists
This is a touchy subject. Some cartoonists are very outspoken about whose work they don't respect. Bill Griffith, for example, who draws the comic strip "Zippy", has said he hates Dilbert, that it isn't funny at all. Whenever I think about criticizing anyone else's work, though, I always think, "What if I'm at some gathering and I meet the person whose work I've trashed?" How do you say hi to that person without feeling awkward? And what if they've read what you said and bring it up?
Now, I don't worry about retaliation. If I say something bad about your work and you come back with a similar criticism, it may be just retribution, or you may have never liked my stuff anyway and just decided to speak up because I did. It might hurt, but it doesn't make my opinion of what I do any different. I may even take some of the criticism to heart and try to make improvements. But I'm concerned about turning off readers who like QlownTown but may decide they don't like it if they don't like my opinions. I'm wussy that way.
Having said all that, I do confess a personal dislike for cutesy cartoons that don't really have a strong punchline. Family Circus often features cute jokes that don't make me laugh. I know I do the occasional clunker myself, but an abundance of unfunny comics makes me wish they'd work harder. Polls evidently show that that's one of the most popular strips, so what can I say? But cute without clever just seems like a greeting card. Likewise, "Rose is Rose" is one of the best-drawn strips out there and so I read it every day, but it traffics in a sweet, cute style of humor when I think the brilliant artwork deserves smarter stuff. Again, popularity 1, me 0...ah, what do I know?
There are also a couple of pet strips I could name that never make me laugh, yet they've been around for years. I recently decided that I do like Garfield, however. I've read a lot of criticism about how it's the same five or six gags all the time, but I still laugh out loud occasionally. In today's strip, Odie starts to drown in his own drool, a surrealistic sight that could only make sense in a cartoon.
And I think Dilbert is always funny, almost always very funny, and deserves the popularity it enjoys. So my own tastes do sometimes mesh with the prevailing view.
I hope that when I'm at the Reuben awards (the comics industry "Academy Awards") someday, either accepting an award or wishing I'd at least been nominated and wondering how I even got invited, that anyone I've mentioned will forgive me, shake my hand, and say something nicer than "Congratulations. But just so you know, your stuff makes me barf."
Now, I don't worry about retaliation. If I say something bad about your work and you come back with a similar criticism, it may be just retribution, or you may have never liked my stuff anyway and just decided to speak up because I did. It might hurt, but it doesn't make my opinion of what I do any different. I may even take some of the criticism to heart and try to make improvements. But I'm concerned about turning off readers who like QlownTown but may decide they don't like it if they don't like my opinions. I'm wussy that way.
Having said all that, I do confess a personal dislike for cutesy cartoons that don't really have a strong punchline. Family Circus often features cute jokes that don't make me laugh. I know I do the occasional clunker myself, but an abundance of unfunny comics makes me wish they'd work harder. Polls evidently show that that's one of the most popular strips, so what can I say? But cute without clever just seems like a greeting card. Likewise, "Rose is Rose" is one of the best-drawn strips out there and so I read it every day, but it traffics in a sweet, cute style of humor when I think the brilliant artwork deserves smarter stuff. Again, popularity 1, me 0...ah, what do I know?
There are also a couple of pet strips I could name that never make me laugh, yet they've been around for years. I recently decided that I do like Garfield, however. I've read a lot of criticism about how it's the same five or six gags all the time, but I still laugh out loud occasionally. In today's strip, Odie starts to drown in his own drool, a surrealistic sight that could only make sense in a cartoon.
And I think Dilbert is always funny, almost always very funny, and deserves the popularity it enjoys. So my own tastes do sometimes mesh with the prevailing view.
I hope that when I'm at the Reuben awards (the comics industry "Academy Awards") someday, either accepting an award or wishing I'd at least been nominated and wondering how I even got invited, that anyone I've mentioned will forgive me, shake my hand, and say something nicer than "Congratulations. But just so you know, your stuff makes me barf."
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Synchronicity
What a coincidence! Mark Parisi, who draws "Off the Mark", did a cartoon today about the Mona Lisa, the same day I did one! Different punchlines, and I think both were very funny, so no harm done.
What I find happens more often is that another cartoonist will draw the same idea I'm planning to do later. Mike Peters has been an especially frustrating guy in this respect. He did about a half dozen strips that I had planned on over the months that I was waiting for the site to launch. "The Hatchback of Notre Dame;" a puppet complaining that his parents/puppeteer were "too manipulative;" and the list goes on. It's no one's fault; two people just come up with the same brilliant idea at the same time! (For awhile, however, I harbored a secret suspicion that someone was finding out about my ideas and sending them to Mike...even though I've never met him.)
As I've said here before, I have every day's cartoon planned through the beginning of next May. I figure that one or two of those ideas, of which I may have conceived a year or more earlier, will appear in a similar form in someone else's strip before I get to use them. So goes the cartoon world. I did manage to convert the "manipulation" cartoon into one where the puppet says, "I've had it up to here"---which was funny, but not as good as the manipulation gag. Sometimes reworking the original idea can be funnier, though--today's cartoon was supposed to feature Leonardo da Vinci with his shirt sticking out of his zipper. While I pondered how to draw that without making it look obscene (I was thinking a plaid or checked shirt), I decided to check online to see what he would have worn. "Flowing robes" was the answer, so I switched to toilet paper stuck to his shoe, which I think is funnier anyway--especially since they didn't have toilets back then. At least not the white porcelain type I show in the next room.
I have a Picasso cartoon planned, and every time I see a Picasso appear in the comics (which isn't often), I think I should get going and put mine out quick. But then some other idea might get bumped and be done by someone else first, so I can't really stress about it. There are enough jokes to go around--I just hate it when one of the really good ones gets snapped up by someone else first. Today, we did 'em at the same time, and they were different takes on the subject--proof that create(ive) minds think alike.
What I find happens more often is that another cartoonist will draw the same idea I'm planning to do later. Mike Peters has been an especially frustrating guy in this respect. He did about a half dozen strips that I had planned on over the months that I was waiting for the site to launch. "The Hatchback of Notre Dame;" a puppet complaining that his parents/puppeteer were "too manipulative;" and the list goes on. It's no one's fault; two people just come up with the same brilliant idea at the same time! (For awhile, however, I harbored a secret suspicion that someone was finding out about my ideas and sending them to Mike...even though I've never met him.)
As I've said here before, I have every day's cartoon planned through the beginning of next May. I figure that one or two of those ideas, of which I may have conceived a year or more earlier, will appear in a similar form in someone else's strip before I get to use them. So goes the cartoon world. I did manage to convert the "manipulation" cartoon into one where the puppet says, "I've had it up to here"---which was funny, but not as good as the manipulation gag. Sometimes reworking the original idea can be funnier, though--today's cartoon was supposed to feature Leonardo da Vinci with his shirt sticking out of his zipper. While I pondered how to draw that without making it look obscene (I was thinking a plaid or checked shirt), I decided to check online to see what he would have worn. "Flowing robes" was the answer, so I switched to toilet paper stuck to his shoe, which I think is funnier anyway--especially since they didn't have toilets back then. At least not the white porcelain type I show in the next room.
I have a Picasso cartoon planned, and every time I see a Picasso appear in the comics (which isn't often), I think I should get going and put mine out quick. But then some other idea might get bumped and be done by someone else first, so I can't really stress about it. There are enough jokes to go around--I just hate it when one of the really good ones gets snapped up by someone else first. Today, we did 'em at the same time, and they were different takes on the subject--proof that create(ive) minds think alike.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Airlines
I got back from a trip to California a couple of weeks ago, and was struck, as I always am when I fly, by how impractical the off-loading procedure is on an airplane. Obviously, first class gets off first--that's a given. But why is it that the masses at the back of Coach have to wait as each row, one-by-one, gets their carry-ons down from the overhead bins, working from front to back? I would propose several steps to improve getting off the plane.
1) Anyone who has a connecting flight for which they only have, say, a half an hour to meet, would be allowed off first. This could be verified by the flight attendants so no one cheats--the rest of the passengers could spend the extra time this might take getting their luggage down. It's the airline's fault that these people have a tight schedule anyway, so they should be responsible for making it easier for those passengers. I have actually missed a connecting flight because I had to wait for the plane to unload, and I'm annoyed that the airlines don't inform their flight attendants when someone has a short layover and have them call those people to the front of the plane first.
2) Anyone who had no carry-ons or has their luggage already in hand would be allowed off next. Again, no cheating: if you have to get it out of the overhead, you don't get in on this round--even if you're quick.
3) Next, anyone who gets their luggage down during the previous two steps would be allowed off. These would generally be people on the aisle, but they might be traveling with others whose luggage they could also retrieve. And no standing in the aisle while you gather your belongings; remember, this is a courtesy system, and you should stay the hell out of the way.
4) Last would be the remaining passengers: this group would not be delaying people who were in a hurry or were more organized than they. There is invariably a jam where someone who has sat in their seat for the first several minutes of unloading sees that it is his or her row's "turn" and finally gets out, moves into the aisle, blocking the way, and proceeds to get his/her overhead stuff down while the rest of the passengers wait.
I suspect that plane disembarkations that take twenty minutes to a half an hour could be reduced to fifteen minutes or less via this method. Why no one at any airline has ever instituted this is a mystery. They must know that travelers experience a lot of frustration with air travel. Wouldn't this be a simple, no cost way to improve that experience? And in doing so, an airline would help to foment good manners and create a positive public image in the process; sort of a Please-treat-each-other-with-respect-because-we-do" message.
I have no power to change this. The one means at my disposal to perhaps spread the word a little, besides this blog, is that I can do a cartoon about it. I don't have one in mind yet, but there will be one. Oh yeah, count on it.
And if nothing ever changes, at least I can say I got a strip out of my frustration. Maybe, when that comic comes out, you could print copies and leave them all over airplanes. Sort of a change-by-cartoon campaign.
1) Anyone who has a connecting flight for which they only have, say, a half an hour to meet, would be allowed off first. This could be verified by the flight attendants so no one cheats--the rest of the passengers could spend the extra time this might take getting their luggage down. It's the airline's fault that these people have a tight schedule anyway, so they should be responsible for making it easier for those passengers. I have actually missed a connecting flight because I had to wait for the plane to unload, and I'm annoyed that the airlines don't inform their flight attendants when someone has a short layover and have them call those people to the front of the plane first.
2) Anyone who had no carry-ons or has their luggage already in hand would be allowed off next. Again, no cheating: if you have to get it out of the overhead, you don't get in on this round--even if you're quick.
3) Next, anyone who gets their luggage down during the previous two steps would be allowed off. These would generally be people on the aisle, but they might be traveling with others whose luggage they could also retrieve. And no standing in the aisle while you gather your belongings; remember, this is a courtesy system, and you should stay the hell out of the way.
4) Last would be the remaining passengers: this group would not be delaying people who were in a hurry or were more organized than they. There is invariably a jam where someone who has sat in their seat for the first several minutes of unloading sees that it is his or her row's "turn" and finally gets out, moves into the aisle, blocking the way, and proceeds to get his/her overhead stuff down while the rest of the passengers wait.
I suspect that plane disembarkations that take twenty minutes to a half an hour could be reduced to fifteen minutes or less via this method. Why no one at any airline has ever instituted this is a mystery. They must know that travelers experience a lot of frustration with air travel. Wouldn't this be a simple, no cost way to improve that experience? And in doing so, an airline would help to foment good manners and create a positive public image in the process; sort of a Please-treat-each-other-with-respect-because-we-do" message.
I have no power to change this. The one means at my disposal to perhaps spread the word a little, besides this blog, is that I can do a cartoon about it. I don't have one in mind yet, but there will be one. Oh yeah, count on it.
And if nothing ever changes, at least I can say I got a strip out of my frustration. Maybe, when that comic comes out, you could print copies and leave them all over airplanes. Sort of a change-by-cartoon campaign.
Friday, October 2, 2009
New things
Wow! What an exciting phone call! I just got off the phone with my new net guru, Sarah. She and I will be making lots of changes, big and small, to QlownTown in the coming months. And QlownTown will be living on its third server in less than a year soon, but it takes time to move an entire town.
One idea Sarah threw out was: do I put photos or cartoons of myself on the website and/or blog, instead of the cartoon character who now appears there? (We're planning to put up more than one image of me.) I said that one possible advantage of cartoons is that no one can see how old I am, or what color, orientation, weight, show size or astrological sign I am. (Okay, I admit you can't tell a person's astrological sign from a photo--unless they're wearing a big "Leo" medallion.) You can believe that I'm whatever you'd like: a twenty-two-year-old bearded artist type, or a fat, nearsighted old man with a kindly demeanor, or a voluptuous Lithuanian woman who happens to have a man's name and would be the perfect life partner for you. Whatever category suits your idea of someone you'd like.
A photo, of course, puts a human face to the person who appears sometimes erudite, sometimes offbeat, and occasionally just silly/stupid through the comics he writes and draws. And, I could take a bunch of photos at once and be done with it, in less time than it takes to draw multiple cartoons.
There's also the option of posting a photo, but changing it every few months to a photo of someone else so you never know who's the real I*...but that would just be messing with people with whom I want to make a connection. There's a part of me that wants to do the strip with no boundaries, to say "damn" when the cartoon character is saying "damn", instead of writing #%@!...but I really like the idea of welcoming almost everyone and alienating almost no one. I hope to do it while avoiding cutesy, heartwarming, gee-life-is-really-like-that-isn't-it cartoons (names will not be named here, but there are daily strips that require no clever thought to conceive that are getting too much space in newspapers); but I want to build a community of people who visit the strip, or whom the strip visits via email, on a regular basis. People who like the strip will generally assume they'd like me if they met me, so what do I present to them?
I ask you: as a reader of the strip [if you're not, go check out the website right now; I can wait while you do], what do you think you'd prefer?
* That's the erudite part of me, not using "me".
One idea Sarah threw out was: do I put photos or cartoons of myself on the website and/or blog, instead of the cartoon character who now appears there? (We're planning to put up more than one image of me.) I said that one possible advantage of cartoons is that no one can see how old I am, or what color, orientation, weight, show size or astrological sign I am. (Okay, I admit you can't tell a person's astrological sign from a photo--unless they're wearing a big "Leo" medallion.) You can believe that I'm whatever you'd like: a twenty-two-year-old bearded artist type, or a fat, nearsighted old man with a kindly demeanor, or a voluptuous Lithuanian woman who happens to have a man's name and would be the perfect life partner for you. Whatever category suits your idea of someone you'd like.
A photo, of course, puts a human face to the person who appears sometimes erudite, sometimes offbeat, and occasionally just silly/stupid through the comics he writes and draws. And, I could take a bunch of photos at once and be done with it, in less time than it takes to draw multiple cartoons.
There's also the option of posting a photo, but changing it every few months to a photo of someone else so you never know who's the real I*...but that would just be messing with people with whom I want to make a connection. There's a part of me that wants to do the strip with no boundaries, to say "damn" when the cartoon character is saying "damn", instead of writing #%@!...but I really like the idea of welcoming almost everyone and alienating almost no one. I hope to do it while avoiding cutesy, heartwarming, gee-life-is-really-like-that-isn't-it cartoons (names will not be named here, but there are daily strips that require no clever thought to conceive that are getting too much space in newspapers); but I want to build a community of people who visit the strip, or whom the strip visits via email, on a regular basis. People who like the strip will generally assume they'd like me if they met me, so what do I present to them?
I ask you: as a reader of the strip [if you're not, go check out the website right now; I can wait while you do], what do you think you'd prefer?
* That's the erudite part of me, not using "me".
Thursday, September 10, 2009
New things Happening
I began the process of switching servers yesterday. This will allow me to update stuff on the site more quickly and make some relatively big changes on the format of the site. I have plans to expand the offerings in the store, including more items on which the cartoons will be available and some altogether new media; to add a guide so you can look up old cartoons by subject---now that we're six months into the site being online, there are enough cartoons to do that, and I've been cataloging them for that very reason; and to eventually offer forums for reader input, in the form of "write-your-own" captions, comments on the daily cartoon and more.
This will be made possible by my hiring of an old friend, Sarah Dopp, who is much more internet-savvy than I and does this stuff for a living. I don't know why it took so many months of reading her online comments to realize that she might have better insights into web marketing. She and I had a wonderful adventure together years ago and I've always enjoyed and respected her. The coolest thing is that she's as excited about the strip as I am, and excited people bring more to a project!
I'm also working on the 2010 calendar, which is, predictably, behind schedule. I'm trying to find a program that will let me lay out a calendar month with the month, dates and day names in whatever font I want, and allow me to do it forever, rather than starting with someone else's template each year. Suggestions are welcome--but I use a Mac, so no Windows or Word, please!
I accidentally wrote over one cartoon that I thought I might use for the calendar; it was in a high-res, color-separated format, but after I messed that up, I had to pull a lower-quality version from another file to save in the "high res" file. It'll be fine for a book, but blowing it up to calendar size would really require rescanning and recoloring the whole thing, which had already taken the better part of a day. Grrr!!
Still, it's nice to be at a point where I can look at what's been happening the past six months and decide what I want to change or add based on that. I originally envisioned this whole thing as me just drawing my cartoons and the website being a simple means to present them, but the site now seems to have the potential to grow and do a lot more. We'll see where we are six months from now. I expect there'll be a book by then, but who knows what the site will include?
This will be made possible by my hiring of an old friend, Sarah Dopp, who is much more internet-savvy than I and does this stuff for a living. I don't know why it took so many months of reading her online comments to realize that she might have better insights into web marketing. She and I had a wonderful adventure together years ago and I've always enjoyed and respected her. The coolest thing is that she's as excited about the strip as I am, and excited people bring more to a project!
I'm also working on the 2010 calendar, which is, predictably, behind schedule. I'm trying to find a program that will let me lay out a calendar month with the month, dates and day names in whatever font I want, and allow me to do it forever, rather than starting with someone else's template each year. Suggestions are welcome--but I use a Mac, so no Windows or Word, please!
I accidentally wrote over one cartoon that I thought I might use for the calendar; it was in a high-res, color-separated format, but after I messed that up, I had to pull a lower-quality version from another file to save in the "high res" file. It'll be fine for a book, but blowing it up to calendar size would really require rescanning and recoloring the whole thing, which had already taken the better part of a day. Grrr!!
Still, it's nice to be at a point where I can look at what's been happening the past six months and decide what I want to change or add based on that. I originally envisioned this whole thing as me just drawing my cartoons and the website being a simple means to present them, but the site now seems to have the potential to grow and do a lot more. We'll see where we are six months from now. I expect there'll be a book by then, but who knows what the site will include?
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Ahead of schedule
I now have every cartoon written till the middle of March 2010. Not drawn, but scripted. I know what cartoon will appear every day till then. (I actually have more ideas sketched, but they haven't been assigned dates yet.) I came up with a Valentine's Day joke which is already scheduled for February 14th, for example. There are several Halloween strips planned for October. A week or more of Christmas cartoons for December.
It feels good to know what will appear when, although I continue to juggle them. There was a recession joke that I was going to plug into March 2010, but then I realized that maybe the economy will have recovered sufficiently by then (hey, it could happen) to make the punchline dated, so I moved it to September of this year. I'm not worried about that fast a recovery!
Sometimes when I'm drawing, I'll come upon an idea that seemed funny when I entered it a month or so earlier, but when faced with drawing it out, I decide that it doesn't work as well as I initially thought...so I either bump it to a later date when I hope to revisit it and find a way to make it funnier, or jettison the idea altogether and put another one in its place. This is a big advantage of planning 'way in advance. Of course, there are always the Six Stages of Idea Development that come into play:
1. Initial Idea is conceived and quickly sketched or written down. I actually prefer some of these quick scribbles to the more laboriously-drawn final versions. At this time, I generally find the idea hilarious, a sure-fire winner, and give myself many kudos.
2. Revisiting the Idea: a week, a month or however much later the idea is again encountered as I open my list prepare to draw it. This is a second chance to decide if it's really funny, or if the seed is there but needs development, or if I was stupid to originally believe the idea had any promise at all.
3. Penciling: The concept has passed muster, and the initial pencil drawing is executed. Here is where I may begin to seriously doubt the hilarity of the concept.
4. Inking: More doubt arises, as I've lived with the idea for several hours, and it's not funny to me at all any more. Here I remind myself that I'm too close, too far into it, to realize that it really is good. (Occasionally, I'm still happy with the idea at this point. Then it's a real keeper!)
5. Scanning and coloring: Now it begins to seem funny again. It may just be coloring someone's nose red or their hair purple or their shoes yellow that makes me smile, but I begin to feel good as the final product takes shape.
6. Uploading to the site: At this point, I'm either going to have to wait, hopefully, for someone to write to assure me that it was indeed a comic masterpiece, or I'm satisfied with the end result already and hate to move on to the next one, where I have to repeat the whole process.
It can also be called Six Degrees of Exasperation.
But there's never the pressure of not knowing what I'll be drawing two or three weeks from now. I hope I can always be several months ahead, because it takes a lot of stress out of the process. The only stress this does cause is when I have what I think is a boffo cartoon and it isn't scheduled for a couple of months. I want people to see it now! Sometimes I'll switch a couple of strips for that very reason. Kind of like a little kid who can't wait to show his new toy in Show and Tell.
I hope I always feel like I'm a kid doing Show and Tell.
It feels good to know what will appear when, although I continue to juggle them. There was a recession joke that I was going to plug into March 2010, but then I realized that maybe the economy will have recovered sufficiently by then (hey, it could happen) to make the punchline dated, so I moved it to September of this year. I'm not worried about that fast a recovery!
Sometimes when I'm drawing, I'll come upon an idea that seemed funny when I entered it a month or so earlier, but when faced with drawing it out, I decide that it doesn't work as well as I initially thought...so I either bump it to a later date when I hope to revisit it and find a way to make it funnier, or jettison the idea altogether and put another one in its place. This is a big advantage of planning 'way in advance. Of course, there are always the Six Stages of Idea Development that come into play:
1. Initial Idea is conceived and quickly sketched or written down. I actually prefer some of these quick scribbles to the more laboriously-drawn final versions. At this time, I generally find the idea hilarious, a sure-fire winner, and give myself many kudos.
2. Revisiting the Idea: a week, a month or however much later the idea is again encountered as I open my list prepare to draw it. This is a second chance to decide if it's really funny, or if the seed is there but needs development, or if I was stupid to originally believe the idea had any promise at all.
3. Penciling: The concept has passed muster, and the initial pencil drawing is executed. Here is where I may begin to seriously doubt the hilarity of the concept.
4. Inking: More doubt arises, as I've lived with the idea for several hours, and it's not funny to me at all any more. Here I remind myself that I'm too close, too far into it, to realize that it really is good. (Occasionally, I'm still happy with the idea at this point. Then it's a real keeper!)
5. Scanning and coloring: Now it begins to seem funny again. It may just be coloring someone's nose red or their hair purple or their shoes yellow that makes me smile, but I begin to feel good as the final product takes shape.
6. Uploading to the site: At this point, I'm either going to have to wait, hopefully, for someone to write to assure me that it was indeed a comic masterpiece, or I'm satisfied with the end result already and hate to move on to the next one, where I have to repeat the whole process.
It can also be called Six Degrees of Exasperation.
But there's never the pressure of not knowing what I'll be drawing two or three weeks from now. I hope I can always be several months ahead, because it takes a lot of stress out of the process. The only stress this does cause is when I have what I think is a boffo cartoon and it isn't scheduled for a couple of months. I want people to see it now! Sometimes I'll switch a couple of strips for that very reason. Kind of like a little kid who can't wait to show his new toy in Show and Tell.
I hope I always feel like I'm a kid doing Show and Tell.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Why Q?
Dave P. emailed me, asking why QlownTown is spelled with a Q. There are several answers: some legitimate, some whimsical. At the time I conceived of the idea, there was already a website called Clowntown: it featured games for kids. It has since disappeared, but the name is still owned by someone else. Consequently, I began looking at other names: Clown Acres, Clown City, Circus World. But Clowntown still appealed to me the most. I've always disliked the misspelling of "C" words with "K"--it just seems Korny to me. But "Q"--ah, Q. No one uses Q much. It would place my strip or site in a more distinctive place if someone were searching sites alphabetically, or looking for a strip on a site that listed them that way. And, once I dropped the anticipated "U" after the Q, it became even more distinctive.
Pronunciation didn't worry me. The Beatles took a common word and made their spelling the dominant version: at least to people of certain ages, if you say "beetles", they'll think of the band first. People will learn the spelling and pronunciation of a word if they see it often enough. Besides, "Iraq" ends in Q and no one thinks it's pronounced "Irack-qway" or "Irack-qwuh".
QlownTown could be trademarked, and so I did. That was important, because as word gets out, evil claim-jumpers can steal a title. If someone with a "Clowntown" or "Clown Town" or other, similar business name complains at some point, my feature has now been established. Besides, there's room for multiple companies named "Acme", as long as they don't create confusion among the products. Businesses in Maine" using the term "Mainely" number in the dozens, at least.
It's also memorable. Once you know how to pronounce it, you're likely to remember it with the Q. It's easier than Albuquerque, certainly. English has never been known as a language devoid of odd or inexplicable spellings.
The original version of the "Origin of QlownTown" essay on the website---which ran to about eight pages and was therefore severely edited---explained that the native people in the area which became settled by clowns was "QlownTown," a term that translated as "place where silly people live". While this is of course made up (there isn't really a QlownTown, folks--they're cartoon characters), it's nonetheless a sensible explanation in the reality of the characters' world.
I also wanted an offbeat spelling because the strip is offbeat. I hope it's closer to The Far Side than to, say, Family Circus. I'm not interested in cute. Witty, clever, literate perhaps (as literate as one can be while drawing clowns). Acerbic, occasionally. I'd rather have someone say "I don't get it" or have to look something up than say "Awww, that was so sweeeeet". I'm actually working on a Family Circus parody. Oddly, Family Circus was the most popular strip in one survey, suggesting that I'm barking up the wrong tent--but one does what one believes in. (Note to those who are as grammatically anal as I: I know the previous sentence should end with "one does that in which one believes", but sometimes, you gotta say it without too much pretension.)
Anyway, back to the why of Q: once I settled on Q, I liked the wacky spelling. It looks normal to me now, and that's the real goal of the strip: to create a world in which the offbeat seems normal. Except for occasional strips, the daily jokes are not about them being clowns; they're about the characters being wrong, or mistaken, or hapless--just like real life for the rest of us.
Funny, though--it's gotta be funny. And I think Q is funny.
Pronunciation didn't worry me. The Beatles took a common word and made their spelling the dominant version: at least to people of certain ages, if you say "beetles", they'll think of the band first. People will learn the spelling and pronunciation of a word if they see it often enough. Besides, "Iraq" ends in Q and no one thinks it's pronounced "Irack-qway" or "Irack-qwuh".
QlownTown could be trademarked, and so I did. That was important, because as word gets out, evil claim-jumpers can steal a title. If someone with a "Clowntown" or "Clown Town" or other, similar business name complains at some point, my feature has now been established. Besides, there's room for multiple companies named "Acme", as long as they don't create confusion among the products. Businesses in Maine" using the term "Mainely" number in the dozens, at least.
It's also memorable. Once you know how to pronounce it, you're likely to remember it with the Q. It's easier than Albuquerque, certainly. English has never been known as a language devoid of odd or inexplicable spellings.
The original version of the "Origin of QlownTown" essay on the website---which ran to about eight pages and was therefore severely edited---explained that the native people in the area which became settled by clowns was "QlownTown," a term that translated as "place where silly people live". While this is of course made up (there isn't really a QlownTown, folks--they're cartoon characters), it's nonetheless a sensible explanation in the reality of the characters' world.
I also wanted an offbeat spelling because the strip is offbeat. I hope it's closer to The Far Side than to, say, Family Circus. I'm not interested in cute. Witty, clever, literate perhaps (as literate as one can be while drawing clowns). Acerbic, occasionally. I'd rather have someone say "I don't get it" or have to look something up than say "Awww, that was so sweeeeet". I'm actually working on a Family Circus parody. Oddly, Family Circus was the most popular strip in one survey, suggesting that I'm barking up the wrong tent--but one does what one believes in. (Note to those who are as grammatically anal as I: I know the previous sentence should end with "one does that in which one believes", but sometimes, you gotta say it without too much pretension.)
Anyway, back to the why of Q: once I settled on Q, I liked the wacky spelling. It looks normal to me now, and that's the real goal of the strip: to create a world in which the offbeat seems normal. Except for occasional strips, the daily jokes are not about them being clowns; they're about the characters being wrong, or mistaken, or hapless--just like real life for the rest of us.
Funny, though--it's gotta be funny. And I think Q is funny.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Ah, the wonder of the internet
When I began on the journey that has resulted in QlownTown, my simple goal was to draw cartoons every day, post them on the internet, and make enough money at it to feel comfortable. I have since realized that I really need to set up an RSS option, a Twitter feed, and a bunch of other things that I still haven't done yet. You can, however, subscribe to this blog by clicking on the Subscribe option at the bottom of the page. If enough people subscribe, I'll make sure I blog more often.
I'm also tied up right now choosing cartoons for submitting to newspapers. I will of course refer them to the website, but they want 4-6 weeks of strips printed on paper (just like the old days!). I'm taking ideas from people now about what their favorite QlownTown cartoons have been. Based on feedback so far, I know the Sunday strip, Imminent Collision, will be in there, along with Evolvolation; Bottles of Beer; Alien, the QlownTown version; and (one of my personal favorites) the Ash and Elmo twins. Looking at the descriptions of other strips, I've found "offbeat" to be a frequently-used word which also describes what I try to achieve. Thirty years ago, there were no offbeat strips...now they're everywhere. But only mine features clowns!
Composing the cover letter to go with these collections is always a challenge; I don't want to send out a dozen packets, then realize I left out the word "wry" or whatever word seems to communicate something distinctive I was trying to get through to the editors reading the letter.
So the ongoing struggle is always the same: get things done that aren't Drawing Cartoons. I know that the more successful the strip becomes, the less time I'll be able to dedicate to just doing that, but the alternatives are much less attractive.
I'm also tied up right now choosing cartoons for submitting to newspapers. I will of course refer them to the website, but they want 4-6 weeks of strips printed on paper (just like the old days!). I'm taking ideas from people now about what their favorite QlownTown cartoons have been. Based on feedback so far, I know the Sunday strip, Imminent Collision, will be in there, along with Evolvolation; Bottles of Beer; Alien, the QlownTown version; and (one of my personal favorites) the Ash and Elmo twins. Looking at the descriptions of other strips, I've found "offbeat" to be a frequently-used word which also describes what I try to achieve. Thirty years ago, there were no offbeat strips...now they're everywhere. But only mine features clowns!
Composing the cover letter to go with these collections is always a challenge; I don't want to send out a dozen packets, then realize I left out the word "wry" or whatever word seems to communicate something distinctive I was trying to get through to the editors reading the letter.
So the ongoing struggle is always the same: get things done that aren't Drawing Cartoons. I know that the more successful the strip becomes, the less time I'll be able to dedicate to just doing that, but the alternatives are much less attractive.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Today is Take Your Pants for a Walk Day. (Of course, you know that if you've printed out the the July 2009 calendar from the FREE page at QlownTown.com.)
I don't know who comes up with these holidays. I may have to start one of my own. Maybe March 6th should be QlownTown Day. After all, that's the day QlownTown debuted, and it's in a month when people tend to be depressed and tired of winter (at least here in the Northeast), so a ridiculous holiday would fit well there. I don't know if I just announce it and it becomes so, or if there's a Holiday Clearing Board somewhere. I may just put it on the 2010 calendar and proclaim it to be official. The worst that could happen is that someone proclaims it Not QlownTown Day, but then that would imply that every other day was QlownTown Day, so it would work to my advantage anyway, wouldn't it?
I sent all the rest of the 2009 calendar months to my web guy to place on the FREE page of QlownTown. The 2010 calendar has been bumped to September (I'd planned to start printing it in August). The 2010 won't be free. The 2009 calendar has been, because the site, which was supposed to launch in late October 2008, was delayed by the bonehead who put the site together for me, and by the time it appeared, no one was looking to buy a 2009 calendar. I'd already laid out the pages, so I've been posting them for free. That was three or four full days of work down the tubes in terms of earning money off the calendar, but at least the response to the free pages has been positive--and maybe it'll push sales of next year's calendars. (Not-so-subtle plug)
If you have any suggestions for which cartoons should appear on the 2010 calendar (or suggestions for original cartoon ideas), send 'em to me at dsmith-weiss@qlowntown.com.
Now I'm going to walk my pants into the kitchen. It's lunchtime. It's always best to eat lunch with your pants on--especially if it's a hot lunch.
I don't know who comes up with these holidays. I may have to start one of my own. Maybe March 6th should be QlownTown Day. After all, that's the day QlownTown debuted, and it's in a month when people tend to be depressed and tired of winter (at least here in the Northeast), so a ridiculous holiday would fit well there. I don't know if I just announce it and it becomes so, or if there's a Holiday Clearing Board somewhere. I may just put it on the 2010 calendar and proclaim it to be official. The worst that could happen is that someone proclaims it Not QlownTown Day, but then that would imply that every other day was QlownTown Day, so it would work to my advantage anyway, wouldn't it?
I sent all the rest of the 2009 calendar months to my web guy to place on the FREE page of QlownTown. The 2010 calendar has been bumped to September (I'd planned to start printing it in August). The 2010 won't be free. The 2009 calendar has been, because the site, which was supposed to launch in late October 2008, was delayed by the bonehead who put the site together for me, and by the time it appeared, no one was looking to buy a 2009 calendar. I'd already laid out the pages, so I've been posting them for free. That was three or four full days of work down the tubes in terms of earning money off the calendar, but at least the response to the free pages has been positive--and maybe it'll push sales of next year's calendars. (Not-so-subtle plug)
If you have any suggestions for which cartoons should appear on the 2010 calendar (or suggestions for original cartoon ideas), send 'em to me at dsmith-weiss@qlowntown.com.
Now I'm going to walk my pants into the kitchen. It's lunchtime. It's always best to eat lunch with your pants on--especially if it's a hot lunch.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Power of subscription
It occurred to me today that I can use the extra forum of the message that accompanies the daily cartoon email that I send to members (subscribers) to explain potentially confusing comics. Tomorrow's cartoon features a reference to a Rolling Stones song that not everyone may pick up on. People who just check out the site might not get the joke, but if you have signed up for a (FREE!!!) membership, you'll get instructions on how to figure it out. I've learned that some people don't realize that one can sign up for free and it'll get them the cartoon every day via email. I'm in the process of learning how to edit the site myself, and when I'm proficient at that, there'll be some changes to tell people they can sign up for free, with no strings, no need to tell us your age, shoe size, hobby proclivities or birth date (although if you include your birthday when you sign up, you may get a birthday wish at some point). I originally conceived of the site as bursting forth full grown at the beginning, with maybe a major overhaul every few years, but now I'd like to make small tweaks on a pretty regular basis. This does, of course, run counter to my original plan of just drawing cartoons and shipping merchandise with as little other work as possible, but hey! things change.
I like doing cartoons that not everyone may get sometimes. I did one a few months ago about two seagulls meeting in a bar which featured a post-punchline in French. I didn't translate it for anyone. One person said that a woman in her office spoke French, so they all enjoyed it. Another person looked it up online (the internet can make almost any reference decipherable, unless it's just a bad cartoon). The joke worked fine without knowing what the gull said, but her French was kind of an extra gift for those who cared or wanted to figure it out.
Speaking of bad comics, there's a website, www.comicsidontunderstand.com, that deals with those cartoons that one or another person just doesn't get. I look forward to appearing on the site--not because I hope to do a strip that can't be understood, but because it's free advertising. Feel free to submit any QlownTown strips that you find confusing--I won't mind. There's also an "Ewww!" award for icky cartoons at Comics I Don't Understand, and I suppose my "muscle shirt made of real muscles" cartoon could've been submitted for that.
By the way, anyone who downloaded the July calendar from the FREE page on the QlownTown website may have noticed that yesterday was Hammock Day. Hope you took some time to hang around in one.
I like doing cartoons that not everyone may get sometimes. I did one a few months ago about two seagulls meeting in a bar which featured a post-punchline in French. I didn't translate it for anyone. One person said that a woman in her office spoke French, so they all enjoyed it. Another person looked it up online (the internet can make almost any reference decipherable, unless it's just a bad cartoon). The joke worked fine without knowing what the gull said, but her French was kind of an extra gift for those who cared or wanted to figure it out.
Speaking of bad comics, there's a website, www.comicsidontunderstand.com, that deals with those cartoons that one or another person just doesn't get. I look forward to appearing on the site--not because I hope to do a strip that can't be understood, but because it's free advertising. Feel free to submit any QlownTown strips that you find confusing--I won't mind. There's also an "Ewww!" award for icky cartoons at Comics I Don't Understand, and I suppose my "muscle shirt made of real muscles" cartoon could've been submitted for that.
By the way, anyone who downloaded the July calendar from the FREE page on the QlownTown website may have noticed that yesterday was Hammock Day. Hope you took some time to hang around in one.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Rain
This is the first blog in over a month. When I first decided to do a blog, I figured I'd be writing four to six a week. I mean, I have plenty of opinions on the things I read, encounter or hear about in my day-to-day. But once the blog had been established, I was so wrapped up in frustration over the shabby work that my former web guy was doing, the blogs became more rants, so I waited till I had a new guy. By that time, I'd lost the flow of writing.
What inspired me to write again was an odd, delightful and unexpected experience with my cat and my computer. We have two large dogs living with us temporarily, and the cats have been pretty much hermits in the master bedroom or outdoors for a month or so, with the exception of daily visits to my office from Lucy, the friendly one. Midge, the other cat, only appears every couple of days.
Last night, Lucy finally came into the living room and sat down and allowed herself to be patted just a few feet from one of the dogs. This was a breakthrough. (The dogs are locked in their room upstairs during the day, so this is when Lucy has been showing up on my desk. )
Just now, she came in from the rain and brushed against the computer screen in her latest attempt to distract me from my work and demand attention. This left about two dozen droplets of water on the screen, which glow like multicolored crystals from the light of the screen behind them. On an overcast day, following many previous overcast days, this was cause for rejoicing, a bright and tiny show of beauty in the midst of cabin fever and boredom!
And now, as I write this, the final drop has dried out, and my screen is again a flat slab of words and formatted graphics. But now I know that I can carefully apply several drops of water to the screen and enjoy my own little light show. I hesitate to suggest this for anyone else, because the electrons on the screen might react with a wet fingertip and cause, if not major damage, some small discomfort or electronic failure. (I don't know this stuff. That's why I draw cartoons instead of programming space shuttles.)
But it's nice to know, as the rain pours down in a metaphorical cloud of misery, that there are little miracles of light waiting on a wet cat.
What inspired me to write again was an odd, delightful and unexpected experience with my cat and my computer. We have two large dogs living with us temporarily, and the cats have been pretty much hermits in the master bedroom or outdoors for a month or so, with the exception of daily visits to my office from Lucy, the friendly one. Midge, the other cat, only appears every couple of days.
Last night, Lucy finally came into the living room and sat down and allowed herself to be patted just a few feet from one of the dogs. This was a breakthrough. (The dogs are locked in their room upstairs during the day, so this is when Lucy has been showing up on my desk. )
Just now, she came in from the rain and brushed against the computer screen in her latest attempt to distract me from my work and demand attention. This left about two dozen droplets of water on the screen, which glow like multicolored crystals from the light of the screen behind them. On an overcast day, following many previous overcast days, this was cause for rejoicing, a bright and tiny show of beauty in the midst of cabin fever and boredom!
And now, as I write this, the final drop has dried out, and my screen is again a flat slab of words and formatted graphics. But now I know that I can carefully apply several drops of water to the screen and enjoy my own little light show. I hesitate to suggest this for anyone else, because the electrons on the screen might react with a wet fingertip and cause, if not major damage, some small discomfort or electronic failure. (I don't know this stuff. That's why I draw cartoons instead of programming space shuttles.)
But it's nice to know, as the rain pours down in a metaphorical cloud of misery, that there are little miracles of light waiting on a wet cat.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Hurtin'
I decided this past weekend would be "Other People" weekend. I'd agreed to help other people on various projects, so on Friday, I decided not to do anything on the comic strip and instead did some planning for my cousin Norm's new deck, and then did drawings for a passive solar collector and an efficient house framing technique and sent them off to Re-Member, a group that I've worked with on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Saturday, Norm rented a two-man hole digger, which has a gas engine with four long handles coming out the sides. A heavy (80 lbs.? 100 lbs.? By the end of the day, it feels like a thousand.) steel auger hangs down from there and spins into the soil. You each hold two handles and assume that the auger will just dig into the earth easily. Not when there are lots of rocks! It got caught repeatedly under the edge of rocks, at which point we'd have to wiggle it back and forth and try with all our might to lift it out when it was finally freed. It would buck and toss us around when it hit an immovable object, and sometimes we'd see a big rock coming to the surface and then it would just disappear back into the hole, followed quickly by a yank on the handles. To get down to the required four-foot depth, you also need to add a (heavy) extension rod between the auger and the engine, making it even more top-heavy and harder to lift. By the end of the day, I had three broken blisters on my palms and a number of bruises and scrapes on one arm from when I backed into a hole and fell down and the machine came down on top of me. We were both sweaty, exhausted, tired, sore...yet had a sense of accomplishment. Good times!
When I got home and into the shower, my hands hurt so much that I washed almost my entire body using just my little shaving brush, because I could grip that with my fingertips and not get too much soap into the raw blisters. I shampooed using my fingertips, because the mint shampoo that normally makes my scalp tingle wonderfully also made the blisters tingle horribly.
Waking up sore on Sunday, I went over to my son and daughter-in-law's house to help them and her dad wire and re-frame their kitchen. As long as I was concentrating on doing something I felt fine, but if I stopped to rest, I'd notice how painful my hands and arms and pretty much everything was. So, on a day that I had thought I would ideally liked to have sat around doing nothing, I was grateful for a chance to work at something distracting. And at the end, I had a real sense of accomplishment.
Today I'm still sore, but my hands are not in constant pain and I don't have a half a box of Band-Aids on anymore. The cartoons may look a little amateurish for the next week or so (yes, even more so than usual!), as I am working with something more akin to a lobster claw than a human hand right now. (Oh--I also forgot to put on sunscreen or wear a hat on Saturday, but somehow avoided even a mild sunburn. I guess that's some sort of good karma payoff.)
Once the pain wears off, I'm sure I'll figure out a way to get a funny cartoon out of all this. And Norm has already sent me a funny clown cartoon by another cartoonist off of which I may be able to spin another idea. So two days of hard work could result in two strips. That's almost like working on QlownTown for the two days I didn't!
Saturday, Norm rented a two-man hole digger, which has a gas engine with four long handles coming out the sides. A heavy (80 lbs.? 100 lbs.? By the end of the day, it feels like a thousand.) steel auger hangs down from there and spins into the soil. You each hold two handles and assume that the auger will just dig into the earth easily. Not when there are lots of rocks! It got caught repeatedly under the edge of rocks, at which point we'd have to wiggle it back and forth and try with all our might to lift it out when it was finally freed. It would buck and toss us around when it hit an immovable object, and sometimes we'd see a big rock coming to the surface and then it would just disappear back into the hole, followed quickly by a yank on the handles. To get down to the required four-foot depth, you also need to add a (heavy) extension rod between the auger and the engine, making it even more top-heavy and harder to lift. By the end of the day, I had three broken blisters on my palms and a number of bruises and scrapes on one arm from when I backed into a hole and fell down and the machine came down on top of me. We were both sweaty, exhausted, tired, sore...yet had a sense of accomplishment. Good times!
When I got home and into the shower, my hands hurt so much that I washed almost my entire body using just my little shaving brush, because I could grip that with my fingertips and not get too much soap into the raw blisters. I shampooed using my fingertips, because the mint shampoo that normally makes my scalp tingle wonderfully also made the blisters tingle horribly.
Waking up sore on Sunday, I went over to my son and daughter-in-law's house to help them and her dad wire and re-frame their kitchen. As long as I was concentrating on doing something I felt fine, but if I stopped to rest, I'd notice how painful my hands and arms and pretty much everything was. So, on a day that I had thought I would ideally liked to have sat around doing nothing, I was grateful for a chance to work at something distracting. And at the end, I had a real sense of accomplishment.
Today I'm still sore, but my hands are not in constant pain and I don't have a half a box of Band-Aids on anymore. The cartoons may look a little amateurish for the next week or so (yes, even more so than usual!), as I am working with something more akin to a lobster claw than a human hand right now. (Oh--I also forgot to put on sunscreen or wear a hat on Saturday, but somehow avoided even a mild sunburn. I guess that's some sort of good karma payoff.)
Once the pain wears off, I'm sure I'll figure out a way to get a funny cartoon out of all this. And Norm has already sent me a funny clown cartoon by another cartoonist off of which I may be able to spin another idea. So two days of hard work could result in two strips. That's almost like working on QlownTown for the two days I didn't!
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Ideas
I just put up a new comment on my Facebook page: "I wish I had a frigate, because it's a friggin' nice day". After posting it, I envisioned a cartoon featuring an old British Navy commodore on his poop deck saying "What a friggin' nice day".
This is something I encounter on a pretty frequent basis: If I--or someone else--says something funny, should I save it for a QlownTown cartoon? Do I jot down every funny thing I encounter?
No. I recognize that while I've made a choice to do this comic strip, I can't expect to save all the humor I encounter in life for the strip. I've already cataloged every strip I'll be doing through the end of 2009, anyway---so I don't have to stress about ideas. (At least not yet; we'll see how I am a year or five from now.)
Some things that I hear are very funny in the context of what's happening, anyway, not funny enough for a one-shot cartoon. [The strip may evolve over time into a more situational strip like For Better or For Worse or Monty, but I really like the punch of a self-contained comic. You don't need to know Mr. Binkles (yes, there will be regular characters in QlownTown soon, and they will have names) to laugh when smoke comes out of his stovepipe hat when he's grilling burgers, or know the two bears with clothes strewn about the forest floor around them who comment that "that was a grisly encounter".] Some things in my life are very funny and I/we laugh out loud, but they're a part of life and belong to me, not to my website. Real life is for living, not doing one's job all the time.
I'll admit that sometimes, when I come up with something that really tickles the person I'm talking to (or vice versa), I'll pull out my trusty phone/PDA/camera/jet pack and jot down the idea; but more often than not, I come up with ideas as a regular practice, as part of my workday. I sit at my desk, read the paper and online stuff, and sketch out ideas as they hit me. After all, who can complain about thinking up humorous stuff being part of your job?
So, for now at least, the frigate/friggin' joke will just remain a Facebook comment. Now, in a year or five from now...
This is something I encounter on a pretty frequent basis: If I--or someone else--says something funny, should I save it for a QlownTown cartoon? Do I jot down every funny thing I encounter?
No. I recognize that while I've made a choice to do this comic strip, I can't expect to save all the humor I encounter in life for the strip. I've already cataloged every strip I'll be doing through the end of 2009, anyway---so I don't have to stress about ideas. (At least not yet; we'll see how I am a year or five from now.)
Some things that I hear are very funny in the context of what's happening, anyway, not funny enough for a one-shot cartoon. [The strip may evolve over time into a more situational strip like For Better or For Worse or Monty, but I really like the punch of a self-contained comic. You don't need to know Mr. Binkles (yes, there will be regular characters in QlownTown soon, and they will have names) to laugh when smoke comes out of his stovepipe hat when he's grilling burgers, or know the two bears with clothes strewn about the forest floor around them who comment that "that was a grisly encounter".] Some things in my life are very funny and I/we laugh out loud, but they're a part of life and belong to me, not to my website. Real life is for living, not doing one's job all the time.
I'll admit that sometimes, when I come up with something that really tickles the person I'm talking to (or vice versa), I'll pull out my trusty phone/PDA/camera/jet pack and jot down the idea; but more often than not, I come up with ideas as a regular practice, as part of my workday. I sit at my desk, read the paper and online stuff, and sketch out ideas as they hit me. After all, who can complain about thinking up humorous stuff being part of your job?
So, for now at least, the frigate/friggin' joke will just remain a Facebook comment. Now, in a year or five from now...
Monday, May 11, 2009
Optimism
I recently commented on Facebook that I was finding it difficult to write a totally optimistic song without sounding maudlin or corny. For every Walking On Sunshine or Shiny Happy People, there are a dozen Afternoon Delights or Everything Is Beautifuls. A friend asked if that was because I was a "cynical old fart". I replied that indeed I was; but another friend corrected me. Point well taken. Yes, I am actually an overly optimistic optimist.
It's appropriate than I've wound up drawing cartoons. I'm better at coming up with a funny moment than an ongoing tale of tragedy and woe. If I had to come up with ongoing storylines all the time, I'd go crazy. The first real storyline that I'm planning for QlownTown involves a trip by some of the characters to work on a Indian reservation. It will deal will injustice, poverty and frustration, yet I plan to end every day's strip with a humorous moment. It may be humor born of sarcasm over a ridiculously wrong policy or a bitter humor that informs (one hopes) while it amuses, but I think I can find those funny moments in the pain that appears overwhelming from the outside. Even in my conscious goal of teaching people about the things I earned working on "The Rez" for a week, there's a conscious goal to amuse in the process. There's the old saying, "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar". (Of course, the two together make a nice vinaigrette, and I hope that's how the series turns out.)
It's appropriate than I've wound up drawing cartoons. I'm better at coming up with a funny moment than an ongoing tale of tragedy and woe. If I had to come up with ongoing storylines all the time, I'd go crazy. The first real storyline that I'm planning for QlownTown involves a trip by some of the characters to work on a Indian reservation. It will deal will injustice, poverty and frustration, yet I plan to end every day's strip with a humorous moment. It may be humor born of sarcasm over a ridiculously wrong policy or a bitter humor that informs (one hopes) while it amuses, but I think I can find those funny moments in the pain that appears overwhelming from the outside. Even in my conscious goal of teaching people about the things I earned working on "The Rez" for a week, there's a conscious goal to amuse in the process. There's the old saying, "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar". (Of course, the two together make a nice vinaigrette, and I hope that's how the series turns out.)
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Mission trip[
I just returned from a week on the Oglala Lakota Indian Reservation on South Dakota. It was a week of eye-opening lessons. The standard questions like "Why don't they just move away?" or "Why don't they just pull themselves up by their bootstraps?" become ridiculous when you've seen the conditions there. A combination of spiritual beliefs (isn't America supposed to promise freedom of religion?) and severe poverty exacerbates the problems. The US has violated every treaty it ever signed with the Indians, and yet we wonder why they can't dig themselves out of the rut we've put them in. We guaranteed to protect them--a compromise since we took away their lands just because we wanted them. There are no easy answers, but there are steps that can be taken. I'll try to educate anyone who will listen a bit over the next year...through blogs and, I hope, through cartoons.
The organization we worked with, Re-Member, is doing great work. A large part of that is to educate volunteers so we can spread the word. It was fun to watch people who were skeptical and who nonetheless took the trip with us change their attitude as they learned more.
Re-Member is also educating the people on the Rez to realize that some outsiders try to do right by them. Unfortunately, we're still in the minority on that. In a nation with a black president, increasingly equal treatment of women, and forward-moving attitudes on civil unions and/or same-sex marriage, we still treat the people who were here before us worse than we treat our pets. These are not "noble Indians", nor are they lazy. They are people, like you or me, who are in a financial morass not of their making.
Let's hope that we can correct this in this century.
The organization we worked with, Re-Member, is doing great work. A large part of that is to educate volunteers so we can spread the word. It was fun to watch people who were skeptical and who nonetheless took the trip with us change their attitude as they learned more.
Re-Member is also educating the people on the Rez to realize that some outsiders try to do right by them. Unfortunately, we're still in the minority on that. In a nation with a black president, increasingly equal treatment of women, and forward-moving attitudes on civil unions and/or same-sex marriage, we still treat the people who were here before us worse than we treat our pets. These are not "noble Indians", nor are they lazy. They are people, like you or me, who are in a financial morass not of their making.
Let's hope that we can correct this in this century.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Grey's Anatomy
Okay, I admit it. I like Grey's Anatomy. Critics complain that it's sometimes exasperating, too soap-opera-ish, too unrealistic. But what I like, and I realized it last night, is the slow process by which characters grow and learn to accept each other. This part of the show is realistic. A self-centered, obnoxious person in real life doesn't suddenly become lovable and understanding. He or she may soften and become less rigid as time goes by, but there's always the seed of what they were at their core.
Last night, Meredith, the somewhat damaged, fragile title character who has a half-sister, Lexie, whom she didn't even know about for years, last night told Lexie, "You're my sister. You're in my wedding (party)." It took about two TV seasons for her to come around from resenting, hating and ignoring this woman for having their father around all the years she was growing up (he had left Meredith and her mother when she was young and started a whole new family) to actually bonding with her as a sister. It was a true Kodak moment. (For those too young to know what this is, look it up.)
I realize, as I reread the previous paragraphs, that it sounds like a muddled, silly soap opera. And I suppose it is. But it's also frequently funny, making me laugh at the same time I'm moved by a tragic turn of events. The nature of a dramatic TV show based on characters more than situations is such that those characters will go through more, and bigger, changes than regular people. It almost unavoidable over multiple seasons. Most of us don't have interesting enough lives to adapt into a year-after-year TV show. But the enjoyable thing in a series is when those little a-ha or uplifting moments occur when you don't expect them. In an episode in which two friends of 20 years were feuding, a doctor held a dying six-year-old in her arms for hours while the father was off trying to raise money for a hopeless shot at a cure instead of being with his child, a father cut off a trust fund for his daughter because she announced she was gay--and happy, and a doctor with a 5% chance of beating terminal cancer plunged into the depths of chemo therapy, my favorite moment was when a very flawed woman accepted her sister as if it had always been thus. A simple moment topped all the drama.
Lest I seem too much of a softie, however, I also like The Office and 30 Rock, two shows that largely revel in the absence of true, heartfelt emotions.
Last night, Meredith, the somewhat damaged, fragile title character who has a half-sister, Lexie, whom she didn't even know about for years, last night told Lexie, "You're my sister. You're in my wedding (party)." It took about two TV seasons for her to come around from resenting, hating and ignoring this woman for having their father around all the years she was growing up (he had left Meredith and her mother when she was young and started a whole new family) to actually bonding with her as a sister. It was a true Kodak moment. (For those too young to know what this is, look it up.)
I realize, as I reread the previous paragraphs, that it sounds like a muddled, silly soap opera. And I suppose it is. But it's also frequently funny, making me laugh at the same time I'm moved by a tragic turn of events. The nature of a dramatic TV show based on characters more than situations is such that those characters will go through more, and bigger, changes than regular people. It almost unavoidable over multiple seasons. Most of us don't have interesting enough lives to adapt into a year-after-year TV show. But the enjoyable thing in a series is when those little a-ha or uplifting moments occur when you don't expect them. In an episode in which two friends of 20 years were feuding, a doctor held a dying six-year-old in her arms for hours while the father was off trying to raise money for a hopeless shot at a cure instead of being with his child, a father cut off a trust fund for his daughter because she announced she was gay--and happy, and a doctor with a 5% chance of beating terminal cancer plunged into the depths of chemo therapy, my favorite moment was when a very flawed woman accepted her sister as if it had always been thus. A simple moment topped all the drama.
Lest I seem too much of a softie, however, I also like The Office and 30 Rock, two shows that largely revel in the absence of true, heartfelt emotions.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Earth Day
Well, it's here. One of my favorite days of the year. Partly because it's in the spring, and partly because it's meaning more to more people now than it has for years.
I remember the first one, around 1970. A lot of my classmates walked miles to school instead of driving or riding. It made a difference, but just for that one day. A lot of those same people grew up to buy large, gas-guzzling cars, move into big, poorly-insulated houses, and generally ignore the idea of caring for the environment. Too bad people didn't care about building better cars and buildings 'way back when the topic was raised so long ago. Think of the hundreds of thousands of houses that have built to what would now be sub-code standards, and the millions of gallons of extra gas used that have helped raise the current price of gas and pollute the planet.
Still, it's finally fashionable to care. One good thing I've read is that part of the stimulus plan will include making improvements to existing homes to make them more energy efficient. This is a case where creating jobs has multiple good effects: people get work and income, others save money, and the planet will be cleaner in the long run, which benefits us all. And people like me don't get quite so cranky.
So, on Earth Day, do something extra special and helpful that you wouldn't normally do. If you only do it one day, it makes a difference. And if it makes you think the next time, it could make a difference for a long time.
I remember the first one, around 1970. A lot of my classmates walked miles to school instead of driving or riding. It made a difference, but just for that one day. A lot of those same people grew up to buy large, gas-guzzling cars, move into big, poorly-insulated houses, and generally ignore the idea of caring for the environment. Too bad people didn't care about building better cars and buildings 'way back when the topic was raised so long ago. Think of the hundreds of thousands of houses that have built to what would now be sub-code standards, and the millions of gallons of extra gas used that have helped raise the current price of gas and pollute the planet.
Still, it's finally fashionable to care. One good thing I've read is that part of the stimulus plan will include making improvements to existing homes to make them more energy efficient. This is a case where creating jobs has multiple good effects: people get work and income, others save money, and the planet will be cleaner in the long run, which benefits us all. And people like me don't get quite so cranky.
So, on Earth Day, do something extra special and helpful that you wouldn't normally do. If you only do it one day, it makes a difference. And if it makes you think the next time, it could make a difference for a long time.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Overlap
I finished acting in a local play this weekend. Rehearsals, memorizing and set building consumed a lot of my time. And, of course, we had to go out for food and drinks after each show! The weekend's performances were well-received, but there generally follows a Monday letdown. This year, however, I have next week's trip to South Dakota to work on the Pine Ridge reservation to look forward to, so there's the excitement and anticipation of that to counteract any potential letdown. That, and the need to draw and prep more cartoons to make up for the lost week of very little drawing, scanning and coloring. I work several weeks ahead, but falling behind now will mean I'm behind several weeks down the line. So I don't have to worry about this week being a downer--just another exciting week. After a week where the play was the thing, it's nice to get back to concentrating on this bunch of clowns! (Not to imply that the actors and techies were a bunch of clowns--they also wore makeup, but they were all professional and skilled. Well, the actors wore makeup, not the technicians, except the women might have, but that would be normal makeup---never mind.)
Since several QlownTown subscribers who will also be going on the trip won't get to see next week's cartoons--there's no internet on the res--I'll print copies and post them daily on a bulletin board there for those who are used to reading them every morning (except for the last few days and some last week, as our server undergoes updating and repairs). It'll be fun to be physically posting these cartoons in real time, since they're usually posted electronically several weeks ahead and go out automatically with no control or effort on my part. Sometimes, someone will tell me in person that they liked that day's cartoon, and I have to ask them what it was; there's a slight disconnect between me and the current strip. Next week, I'll deal with my own cartoons in the same time frame as my readers.
Since several QlownTown subscribers who will also be going on the trip won't get to see next week's cartoons--there's no internet on the res--I'll print copies and post them daily on a bulletin board there for those who are used to reading them every morning (except for the last few days and some last week, as our server undergoes updating and repairs). It'll be fun to be physically posting these cartoons in real time, since they're usually posted electronically several weeks ahead and go out automatically with no control or effort on my part. Sometimes, someone will tell me in person that they liked that day's cartoon, and I have to ask them what it was; there's a slight disconnect between me and the current strip. Next week, I'll deal with my own cartoons in the same time frame as my readers.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
We're ba-a-ack!
I guess the email snafu got fixed--at least for now. I received my emailed cartoon today, and I assume all the other members did as well. I gave me a big lift, first because I like the absurdity of the cartoon, and second, because I thought it wouldn't be fixed till next week.
I pondered whether to make the attacker naked or not. I originally drew the cartoon when I was planning to present the dailies in black and white, so drawing clothes never mattered. Then, when I colored it, I thought, "Man, that guy is naked!" I thought of adding some clothes and smudging them to indicate movement, but since the humor in the cartoon is really based on the absurdity of the situation, I figured why not keep him nekkid? Makes him even crazier. I may be the first person to draw a widely-distributed naked clown. Maybe that's not such a wonderful distinction.
The cartoon was inspired by a true-life typo in an email that our website editor sent to the employees where I used to work. There were some changes being made to the site, and some pages would be unavailable for awhile. She wanted us to warn customers whom we might send to the site that this would be happening. She ended, "Please excuse the incontinence".
I wrote back that some people might be disappointed, but I didn't think they'd have that strong a reaction.
I pondered whether to make the attacker naked or not. I originally drew the cartoon when I was planning to present the dailies in black and white, so drawing clothes never mattered. Then, when I colored it, I thought, "Man, that guy is naked!" I thought of adding some clothes and smudging them to indicate movement, but since the humor in the cartoon is really based on the absurdity of the situation, I figured why not keep him nekkid? Makes him even crazier. I may be the first person to draw a widely-distributed naked clown. Maybe that's not such a wonderful distinction.
The cartoon was inspired by a true-life typo in an email that our website editor sent to the employees where I used to work. There were some changes being made to the site, and some pages would be unavailable for awhile. She wanted us to warn customers whom we might send to the site that this would be happening. She ended, "Please excuse the incontinence".
I wrote back that some people might be disappointed, but I didn't think they'd have that strong a reaction.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Problems
There have been no new Daily Cartoons sent out the last three days. This follows a couple of days of the site being partially down after someone hacked into the server. (Coincidentally, I had asked, several weeks ago, for a full copy of the site from my server provider, since a friend's site had disappeared completely after their server went down. I still haven't received my copy.)
I've emailed my provider for the past several days, but he hasn't replied. I tried calling him, but his answering machine picked up, so I couldn't talk to him. I was going to leave a message, but his mailbox was supposedly full, so I couldn't leave a message, either. I receive the daily emails along with all you members, and that's when I get to experience my own first-hand response to the strip. I pencil, ink, scan and color it, and at the end of that process, I can't always see objectively how it's turned out. But getting it in an email in the morning, I can gauge a more gut reaction, and say, "I should've done this differently" or I really like that detail" or, heaven forbid, "Oops. That wasn't as funny as I thought it was".
All this about the website problems is to explain that if anything else goes wrong, you were warned. I assumed (silly me) that when a website goes online, the server will provide a reasonable level of service. I hope that this will all get straightened out and you'll receive uninterrupted service from now on. Until then, I'm trying to come up with a funny cartoon about this. It doesn't seem very humorous right now, but maybe I can at least get a cartoon out of the frustration.
On the lighter side, this is a side benefit of drawing a comic strip. When something goes wrong, it can be fodder for a joke. An opportunity to make lemonade from lemons. Or mashed potatoes from potato heads.
I've emailed my provider for the past several days, but he hasn't replied. I tried calling him, but his answering machine picked up, so I couldn't talk to him. I was going to leave a message, but his mailbox was supposedly full, so I couldn't leave a message, either. I receive the daily emails along with all you members, and that's when I get to experience my own first-hand response to the strip. I pencil, ink, scan and color it, and at the end of that process, I can't always see objectively how it's turned out. But getting it in an email in the morning, I can gauge a more gut reaction, and say, "I should've done this differently" or I really like that detail" or, heaven forbid, "Oops. That wasn't as funny as I thought it was".
All this about the website problems is to explain that if anything else goes wrong, you were warned. I assumed (silly me) that when a website goes online, the server will provide a reasonable level of service. I hope that this will all get straightened out and you'll receive uninterrupted service from now on. Until then, I'm trying to come up with a funny cartoon about this. It doesn't seem very humorous right now, but maybe I can at least get a cartoon out of the frustration.
On the lighter side, this is a side benefit of drawing a comic strip. When something goes wrong, it can be fodder for a joke. An opportunity to make lemonade from lemons. Or mashed potatoes from potato heads.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Comic strips as a daily ritual
I just looked through the several comic strips I subscribe to or check regularly online. I get about two dozen emailed to me, and have bookmarked several more. Sometimes I'm busy in the morning and just want to get to work, and it seems as if looking through them will just waste my time; but then I remind myself that I need to come up with a new cartoon myself every day, and I am frequently inspired by other artists' work. (Sometimes I am bummed by other artists' work, however--in the year it took to develop the strip and site, Mother Goose and Grimm featured four or five cartoon ideas I had already drawn! Occasionally, I can twist the gag into something new, but sometimes, as with our mutual Hatchback of Notre Dame, there's nothing more to be done with it.) I came up with two new ideas based on other people's stuff today, so reading comics actually becomes Constructive Work for me!
But I read one today, on the Argyle Sweater site, about a black sheep with a clogged dryer lint filter, that just made me laugh. I do these strips because I enjoy a good cartoon, where the art, concept and wording all come together. I find too often that there's something I don't like about a cartoon I've done--usually something in the execution of the drawing itself--but when I feel I've nailed it on all counts, I get a rush of satisfaction. For example, there's a bear cartoon coming up next week that I actually like as much as I like other people's work. See if you agree. Then buy it on a shirt, or a mousepad, or a mug. I may do that myself.
The fun part for me--okay, one of the many fun parts--is when I realize that some part of my formal education is actually being put to use in my work. When I went to art school, I learned about composition, and when I was a theater major taking Directing, I also learned about setting a scene onstage. Sometimes, when I'm trying to decide how to illustrate a situation, I'll find myself using that training to compose the scene. It surprises me when I realize that being an art student, and then a theater student--both of which so often lead to careers in completely unrelated fields--actually help me with my work. It's as if my education actually paid off! This is normal for people who studied medicine, law, teaching, etc., but for a lot of us artsy-fartsy and/or liberal arts types, it can be a revelation.
(Interesting digression: I just had to inform my computer's Spellcheck that "fartsy" is a real word. There's probably a cartoon in there somewhere.)
I have to clean my office for Easter. See, I work in a room adjacent to the dining room, and we're having company Sunday. I like to maintain a certain level of messiness in my office--I know where things are, and when I come up with a new idea, it goes onto the appropriate pile. It's good for an office, bad for company. Draping sheets over everything won't cut it, so into boxes, drawers and cabinets go all the stuff. Then Monday, I'll have to figure out where everything is. That might result in a cartoon, too. If you see an office-cleaning cartoon in a couple of months, you heard about it here first. And if Mike Peters does the same thing in Mother Goose and Grimm first, boy, will I be bummed!
But I read one today, on the Argyle Sweater site, about a black sheep with a clogged dryer lint filter, that just made me laugh. I do these strips because I enjoy a good cartoon, where the art, concept and wording all come together. I find too often that there's something I don't like about a cartoon I've done--usually something in the execution of the drawing itself--but when I feel I've nailed it on all counts, I get a rush of satisfaction. For example, there's a bear cartoon coming up next week that I actually like as much as I like other people's work. See if you agree. Then buy it on a shirt, or a mousepad, or a mug. I may do that myself.
The fun part for me--okay, one of the many fun parts--is when I realize that some part of my formal education is actually being put to use in my work. When I went to art school, I learned about composition, and when I was a theater major taking Directing, I also learned about setting a scene onstage. Sometimes, when I'm trying to decide how to illustrate a situation, I'll find myself using that training to compose the scene. It surprises me when I realize that being an art student, and then a theater student--both of which so often lead to careers in completely unrelated fields--actually help me with my work. It's as if my education actually paid off! This is normal for people who studied medicine, law, teaching, etc., but for a lot of us artsy-fartsy and/or liberal arts types, it can be a revelation.
(Interesting digression: I just had to inform my computer's Spellcheck that "fartsy" is a real word. There's probably a cartoon in there somewhere.)
I have to clean my office for Easter. See, I work in a room adjacent to the dining room, and we're having company Sunday. I like to maintain a certain level of messiness in my office--I know where things are, and when I come up with a new idea, it goes onto the appropriate pile. It's good for an office, bad for company. Draping sheets over everything won't cut it, so into boxes, drawers and cabinets go all the stuff. Then Monday, I'll have to figure out where everything is. That might result in a cartoon, too. If you see an office-cleaning cartoon in a couple of months, you heard about it here first. And if Mike Peters does the same thing in Mother Goose and Grimm first, boy, will I be bummed!
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Radio interview
I just finished my first interview on the radio since launching the website. It was actually a lot of fun. I had to remember not to make my answers too long--I know I can run on talking about stuff that I'm interested in. But the host, Bruce Arnold, said I did great, and with luck, I'll pick up more members and/or visitors. So far, I think Rich from New Mexico is the farthest-away subscriber, but on the Internet that means nothing anyway. Still, once I can say I have members in 50 states, that'll be something.
Now, Phase One of my Master Plan was getting the site online. Phase Two will be to get the strip into newspapers. In terms of income, papers aren't worth a lot, but in terms of getting people to check out the website, they work well as advertising. Note the button on the Home page where you can contact your local paper and tell them you want to see QlownTown in it--please use it! There are other phases as well, but these first two are enough for the first year or so. I have ideas for all sorts of cool products based on the strip, but those will have to wait.
I was cleaning out some files on the computer yesterday, wondering if I should delete the outlines for website pages. I'll save the sketches, because I had a teacher in art school who told us to save everything we ever do, just in case, but I, like a fool, threw out many pads of drawings that I now wish I could add to the archives. Not that they were brilliant stuff, but some people (like me) like to see the arc of an artist's journey, so to speak. Now part of me says Clear out some stuff because it takes up a lot of memory, but another voice says You'll be happy someday when you print your ten-year retrospective book. I plan to do the strip for at least fifteen years; that works out to about 5,475 cartoons. I've planned ahead, so now I only have about 5,200 cartoons to go and I can retire. I can see why a lot of cartoonists say the pressure to produce can get intense, but I'm hoping I can stay ahead of it. I mean, it just seems wrong to be stressed if you're drawing cartoons! I've always drawn them to relieve stress.
Speaking of which, I'm feeling that I'd better get back to work.
Now, Phase One of my Master Plan was getting the site online. Phase Two will be to get the strip into newspapers. In terms of income, papers aren't worth a lot, but in terms of getting people to check out the website, they work well as advertising. Note the button on the Home page where you can contact your local paper and tell them you want to see QlownTown in it--please use it! There are other phases as well, but these first two are enough for the first year or so. I have ideas for all sorts of cool products based on the strip, but those will have to wait.
I was cleaning out some files on the computer yesterday, wondering if I should delete the outlines for website pages. I'll save the sketches, because I had a teacher in art school who told us to save everything we ever do, just in case, but I, like a fool, threw out many pads of drawings that I now wish I could add to the archives. Not that they were brilliant stuff, but some people (like me) like to see the arc of an artist's journey, so to speak. Now part of me says Clear out some stuff because it takes up a lot of memory, but another voice says You'll be happy someday when you print your ten-year retrospective book. I plan to do the strip for at least fifteen years; that works out to about 5,475 cartoons. I've planned ahead, so now I only have about 5,200 cartoons to go and I can retire. I can see why a lot of cartoonists say the pressure to produce can get intense, but I'm hoping I can stay ahead of it. I mean, it just seems wrong to be stressed if you're drawing cartoons! I've always drawn them to relieve stress.
Speaking of which, I'm feeling that I'd better get back to work.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Spring
It's sunny and 44 degrees outside, and there is now more ground than snow showing. I have started thinking about buying peat moss and driveway coating, raking and reseeding the lawn, and starting seedlings. I need an electric blanket to heat the seed flats. Whenever I've tried starting seeds without one, they get leggy or moldy and die. You'd think someone would have an old electric blanket I could buy or have, but no one has responded to my Facebook request. I guess Facebook can't provide all we need. It has reassured me that I actually have friends and am married, but some things you just have to hunt down elsewhere.
Like land. We are also thinking about moving, finding a piece of land and building a new house. In the past, I've always built or restored our houses myself, but now I'm too busy and we're old enough that my wife would like our house completed before we die, which I'm afraid means I have to trust others to do the bulk of the work. I may reserve a few projects like interior pocket shutters on the windows for myself, but the house realistically needs to be in move-in condition before we do move in. This is normal for most people, but for us it's new territory. My wife has been good enough to accept my taking on more than I can finish myself in the past; it's time for me to return the favor.
If I find that electric blanket, I'll try not to sew any rips or tears. That would be one more project.
Like land. We are also thinking about moving, finding a piece of land and building a new house. In the past, I've always built or restored our houses myself, but now I'm too busy and we're old enough that my wife would like our house completed before we die, which I'm afraid means I have to trust others to do the bulk of the work. I may reserve a few projects like interior pocket shutters on the windows for myself, but the house realistically needs to be in move-in condition before we do move in. This is normal for most people, but for us it's new territory. My wife has been good enough to accept my taking on more than I can finish myself in the past; it's time for me to return the favor.
If I find that electric blanket, I'll try not to sew any rips or tears. That would be one more project.
Friday, March 13, 2009
TV shows
My wife and I enjoy Chuck, the TV show about a computer nerd who gets sucked into the world of spies and intrigue when a secret government "superfile" gets implanted in his brain. It's kind of retro; a little bit Get Smart, a little Mission:Impossible. But the characters are all well-played--even those that started out two-dimensional have developed into interesting people. Now I hear that Chuck is in trouble. Not the character--the series. Viewership is off.
This happens to us on a pretty regular basis. We loved Space-Above and Beyond, a show back in the eighties (I think) that was sort of like a 40's war movie set in the future. And Cop Rock--a "drama" where cops and robbers would burst into song. It featured several new songs every week, and was actually a lot of fun. And Firefly, which was cancelled and evolved into the movie Serenity, which also stumbled. Eli Stone was a recent casualty, and while I read that the producers knew it was going to be dropped in time to resolve the story lines in the characters' lives, no final wrap up episode ever appeared.
There have been others over the years, and they always seem to be the slightly quirky ones. While The Bachelor and According to Jim last for years, our beloved little favorites seem to frequently fizzle out before their time. When we hear that one of our new favorites is in danger, we're torn between making sure we see every week to enjoy it while we can, or trying to break free before the end. We always wind up sticking with it, though, watching the final episode with a feeling of frustration. Of course, we know this was a good show and the public at large was mistaken. No show we ever like is really mediocre.
I'm not complaining to teach a lesson or make a point. It's Friday and I just feel like complaining. Well, maybe there is a point. Watch Chuck. Chuck is charming, Sarah the spy is sexy, Casey the other spy is wonderfully irascible, and the various secondary characters are a wonderful ensemble. I've thought of copying down the names of all the sponsors' brands, then writing to tell them I bought their products because I saw them on Chuck, but that would just be more frustrating if the show is canceled, because then I will have wasted extra time for naught. Tell you what: if you don't watch Chuck, please write to the sponsors for me. That way, it may save the show and you'll have done a good deed. Thank you.
This happens to us on a pretty regular basis. We loved Space-Above and Beyond, a show back in the eighties (I think) that was sort of like a 40's war movie set in the future. And Cop Rock--a "drama" where cops and robbers would burst into song. It featured several new songs every week, and was actually a lot of fun. And Firefly, which was cancelled and evolved into the movie Serenity, which also stumbled. Eli Stone was a recent casualty, and while I read that the producers knew it was going to be dropped in time to resolve the story lines in the characters' lives, no final wrap up episode ever appeared.
There have been others over the years, and they always seem to be the slightly quirky ones. While The Bachelor and According to Jim last for years, our beloved little favorites seem to frequently fizzle out before their time. When we hear that one of our new favorites is in danger, we're torn between making sure we see every week to enjoy it while we can, or trying to break free before the end. We always wind up sticking with it, though, watching the final episode with a feeling of frustration. Of course, we know this was a good show and the public at large was mistaken. No show we ever like is really mediocre.
I'm not complaining to teach a lesson or make a point. It's Friday and I just feel like complaining. Well, maybe there is a point. Watch Chuck. Chuck is charming, Sarah the spy is sexy, Casey the other spy is wonderfully irascible, and the various secondary characters are a wonderful ensemble. I've thought of copying down the names of all the sponsors' brands, then writing to tell them I bought their products because I saw them on Chuck, but that would just be more frustrating if the show is canceled, because then I will have wasted extra time for naught. Tell you what: if you don't watch Chuck, please write to the sponsors for me. That way, it may save the show and you'll have done a good deed. Thank you.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
QlownTown online
QlownTown has arrived! The site is up and running, and the response has been overwhelming. I thought I'd feel somewhat ambivalent when it finally went live, since it took so long to get there. But the moment I was told that everything was ready and I could announce, I was thrilled! The whole day was spent excitedly sending out e-mails and Facebook announcements. One of my favorite e-mails of all those I received in response to the announcement was "Qongratulations". I've tried to avoid overusing Q as a replacement for C or K, so I was amused to see it appear where I wouldn't have thought to put it. I wrote back, "very qlever".
Now I want to write a QlownTown song, and maybe do a video for uTube. I already have the first two lines: "Everybody sing and dance/kick your partner in the pants." I mean this to be in the butt, not front, so don't start injuring other people in the name of QlownTown.
I'd like to animate it, but that'd be a lot of work--something which I try to avoid if possible. But dressing people up as clowns and taping them would be a lot, too. I may just draw stills to illustrate the tune. I predict a one-year turnaround...glaciers and I move slowly.
Someone commented that she likes the colorful look of the cartoons. I had actually noticed that they were brighter than most, and thought about trying to tone them down. You see, as I go along coloring them, I do whatever color seems appropriate for the item I'm filling in, rather than choosing an overall theme first. And drawing clowns, it seems only natural to do a red nose, orange hair, loud clothes. If it's a clown house, shouldn't the floors be purple, or the walls be pink? So it often winds up bright. But I decided it's nice to have that distinctive feature.
When it came to coloring the "Clown mobsters" cartoon, however, I realized it was still in black and white (I scan the ink drawings in grayscale, then switch to color mode), and decided that particular strip looked best in b&w--the whole noir look. Of course, the pies in the violin case might not obviously appear to be pies to some people, but I'll take that chance. And as time goes by, if I'm behind schedule, I may just leave a cartoon black and white...but coloring them is a lot of fun.
I guess in some ways I've never progressed beyond the little kid with crayons and a coloring book. If I am someday able to hire someone to color them for me, won't that be a cool job to get paid to do? There's probably a cartoon in that.
Speaking of cartoon ideas, if you have any suggestions, please post or email me. I'd love to do strips that apply to particular occupations, services, sports, etc. I can't pay, but you'll get to see your idea online if it's used. You could even buy it on a T shirt or whatever, and tell people it's a professionally-drawn custom cartoon that was done for you from your idea.
Now I want to write a QlownTown song, and maybe do a video for uTube. I already have the first two lines: "Everybody sing and dance/kick your partner in the pants." I mean this to be in the butt, not front, so don't start injuring other people in the name of QlownTown.
I'd like to animate it, but that'd be a lot of work--something which I try to avoid if possible. But dressing people up as clowns and taping them would be a lot, too. I may just draw stills to illustrate the tune. I predict a one-year turnaround...glaciers and I move slowly.
Someone commented that she likes the colorful look of the cartoons. I had actually noticed that they were brighter than most, and thought about trying to tone them down. You see, as I go along coloring them, I do whatever color seems appropriate for the item I'm filling in, rather than choosing an overall theme first. And drawing clowns, it seems only natural to do a red nose, orange hair, loud clothes. If it's a clown house, shouldn't the floors be purple, or the walls be pink? So it often winds up bright. But I decided it's nice to have that distinctive feature.
When it came to coloring the "Clown mobsters" cartoon, however, I realized it was still in black and white (I scan the ink drawings in grayscale, then switch to color mode), and decided that particular strip looked best in b&w--the whole noir look. Of course, the pies in the violin case might not obviously appear to be pies to some people, but I'll take that chance. And as time goes by, if I'm behind schedule, I may just leave a cartoon black and white...but coloring them is a lot of fun.
I guess in some ways I've never progressed beyond the little kid with crayons and a coloring book. If I am someday able to hire someone to color them for me, won't that be a cool job to get paid to do? There's probably a cartoon in that.
Speaking of cartoon ideas, if you have any suggestions, please post or email me. I'd love to do strips that apply to particular occupations, services, sports, etc. I can't pay, but you'll get to see your idea online if it's used. You could even buy it on a T shirt or whatever, and tell people it's a professionally-drawn custom cartoon that was done for you from your idea.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Launch!
Okay, you've read this before. (If not, you can check previous posts and read it now.) But this time I think I mean it: the QlownTown site (www.qlowntown.com) will officially launch online on Friday, March 6th, THIS YEAR! That means that you will see a new cartoon every day from then until the end of time, or until I run out of ideas and shoot myself.
Coming up with new ideas doesn't worry me, because I have about a year's worth now, having been generating ideas the whole year this has been in development (and even before that). Of course, there may be days when you'll read one and say, "He had a year to plan and this is the best he could come up with?*" But, in the words of Maine humorist Tim Sample, "If you don't laugh, it's not because it isn't funny...it's because you don't get it." Of course, that may be true of Maine humor, which can sometimes be, as many regional styles are, distinct and peculiar (I personally love it, and have a slight whistle in my S's to this day because I spent so much time trying to get that whistle when doing a Downeast accent), but may not be true of your average everyday comic strip humor.
So if you think a cartoon's not funny, let me know. If it's because you don't know a critical part of the joke (for example, if a character speaks in French with no translation or you never heard of Puddintane), look it up on the Internet first. I'm still amazed at how I can type in a long sentence, like "How do I change the rear wiper on a Toyota Prius?" and will get links to sites with pictures, instructions and other information I didn't even know I wanted. There's also a site I love www.ComicsIDontUnderstand.com, where people post comics they, well, don't understand. Then a number of people will write in with explanations, critiques, etc. Any exposure is good exposure, within reason, so if you don't get one of mine, send it to them.
And speaking of exposure--oh, what a smooooth segue!---once you've visited the site, PLEASE tell everyone you know about it. Send emails, call them on the phone, accost them on the street, put posters on their front doors, send flaming arrows with the web address on the shaft into their yards--just get the word out. It's been a year-long process, and the payoff will be if I can get thousands, ultimately tens of thousands of people reading the strip...well, that, and get them to buy merchandise related to the strip. But for now, please spread the word...that's Phase One of my plan for Qlown Domination.
I recently marked down the original art from what it was going to be, because I had priced it at the value I anticipate a year or two from now, but of course it may not be worth that much yet. So I see the original art as a good investment. Remember, there's only one piece of original art for each strip, so when the first one's gone, they all are!
See you on Friday!
*Grammatically speaking, this sentence should actually end with "...up with which he could come?", but that sounds somehow inappropriate.
Coming up with new ideas doesn't worry me, because I have about a year's worth now, having been generating ideas the whole year this has been in development (and even before that). Of course, there may be days when you'll read one and say, "He had a year to plan and this is the best he could come up with?*" But, in the words of Maine humorist Tim Sample, "If you don't laugh, it's not because it isn't funny...it's because you don't get it." Of course, that may be true of Maine humor, which can sometimes be, as many regional styles are, distinct and peculiar (I personally love it, and have a slight whistle in my S's to this day because I spent so much time trying to get that whistle when doing a Downeast accent), but may not be true of your average everyday comic strip humor.
So if you think a cartoon's not funny, let me know. If it's because you don't know a critical part of the joke (for example, if a character speaks in French with no translation or you never heard of Puddintane), look it up on the Internet first. I'm still amazed at how I can type in a long sentence, like "How do I change the rear wiper on a Toyota Prius?" and will get links to sites with pictures, instructions and other information I didn't even know I wanted. There's also a site I love www.ComicsIDontUnderstand.com, where people post comics they, well, don't understand. Then a number of people will write in with explanations, critiques, etc. Any exposure is good exposure, within reason, so if you don't get one of mine, send it to them.
And speaking of exposure--oh, what a smooooth segue!---once you've visited the site, PLEASE tell everyone you know about it. Send emails, call them on the phone, accost them on the street, put posters on their front doors, send flaming arrows with the web address on the shaft into their yards--just get the word out. It's been a year-long process, and the payoff will be if I can get thousands, ultimately tens of thousands of people reading the strip...well, that, and get them to buy merchandise related to the strip. But for now, please spread the word...that's Phase One of my plan for Qlown Domination.
I recently marked down the original art from what it was going to be, because I had priced it at the value I anticipate a year or two from now, but of course it may not be worth that much yet. So I see the original art as a good investment. Remember, there's only one piece of original art for each strip, so when the first one's gone, they all are!
See you on Friday!
*Grammatically speaking, this sentence should actually end with "...up with which he could come?", but that sounds somehow inappropriate.
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