The blog of Richard Thompson, caricaturist, creator of "Cul de Sac," and winner of the 2011 Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Kansas City Here I Come


I'm off for a few days to confer, converse and otherwise hobnob with the ladies & gentlemen of the Syndicate who so expertly handle Cul de Sac. (Above: front of the Universal Press offices, with a good view of the reflecting pool and the statue representing the Cherub of Comedy Presenting the Fruits of his Labors to Commerce, Who's Holding a Big Stick. Below: the shed where they put bad cartoonists who miss their deadlines)

I'll be updating remotely, including photos of Syndicate Big Shots, podcasts of us chewing some Big Meals, and of course, live blogging of Big Deals Being Made!

No I won't! I'm lying! I don't know how to do any of those things! You're stuck with this post for the next three days! So let's just all quietly meet back here on Friday. Otay?

Monday, October 22, 2007

A Bigger Book


Anybody reading this? You should be; it's probably a lot more fun to read than the Michaelis Schulz biography and it's definitely more a labor of love. Reading this makes me want to be a strip cartoonist, and write about exotic locales & vertiginous adventures. And it makes me want to learn how to use a brush, and how to spell chiaroscuro without looking it up (I looked it up).

It's National Folksong Month!


Did you know it's National Folksong Month? Well, you're wrong, I don't think it is. Still, here are two lovely folksongs just waiting for you to sing.

Cartoon Roundtable


Another old cartoon, from the days when "Opus" launched. I just like the little bit with Charlie Brown's shirt, which seems an apposite gag seeing as how Schulz is in the news.

I learned the word "apposite" from Alex Hallatt, comic genius behind the strip Arctic Circle (see Moontoon under Nice Places to Visit to your right).

Advertisement disguised as vital information



The statistics above are provided by Amazon.com. I'm not really sure what they mean, but boy, whatever they're describing sounds great, and it's probably a bargain, too.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

No Mitt


So, that drawing of Mitt Romney for the NYer fell through. After they okayed the sketch and I'd finished the color final and was about to email it, I got a call from the AD saying, Yikes, the editor got his copy of Harper's Magazine, and the cover of Harper's features four views of Romney as a bobblehead. My sketch, above, had him as a rotating blur, and the coincidence made everybody uncomfortable, as I can understand. And I didn't have any time to do something new, so alas, much regret and tears all around, and promises to work together again soon (the NYer has some really nice people to work with, a lot more loose and funny to deal with than you'd expect from a weekly, high-pressure magazine). And hello kill fee!

What the heck, posting the sketch of a killed drawing is what blogs are for, man.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Oliphant



I missed a book signing tonight at Politics & Prose by the Mighty Pat Oliphant. The deadlines done got me and I'm lonesome, blue and stuck at home. I owe Pat some massive thanks for many things, not least years of inspiration. And he taught my older daughter how to pick her nose when she was a little over a year old. How can I even begin to pay him back for that? (photo above of Oliphant's Mighty Left Hand at work by Bruce Guthrie, who made it to P&P and reported back)



Everybody! Go buy his book!

A Big Book


Anybody read this and care to comment on it? If you do, could you also cut and paste the text of the book into your comment? It'd make it easier for us cheapskates. Thanks!

I'm disappointed that they didn't make the zigzag on the cover hand-drawn in Schulz's distinctive line instead of so cleanly graphic. It looks like chomping teeth and I'm afraid to buy it.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Dream Spoiler Alert



Hope this doesn't ruin things for anybody.

P J Piehole's


While looking through some old drawings the other day, I was shocked and embarrassed to find that I'd used the same joke twice in cartoons about a year and a half apart. The reference in the cartoon above to P J PIehole's being closed because of obscenities in the Find-a-Word Puzzle was repeated a month or two ago, though not word for word.

I'm especially shocked that the management at Piehole's hadn't cracked down on this problem. And thank heavens it didn't happen in a comic strip; using the same jokes over and over in a comic strip could end a cartoonist's career pretty dang fast.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Guy Mitt Smiley Romney



So I have to draw Mitt Romney for the New Yorker and I find he's tougher to draw than you might think. They liked the sketch I sent them just fine, but Guy Smiley is stuck in my head and it's making it hard to draw Romney not as a Muppet.



As far as I know, Romney Muppetness was first pointed out on the Daily Show a few weeks back, but it may be something everyone was already aware of but me.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

surPRISE!


Thanks to all those who squatted in the darkness of Nick Galifianakis's living room Saturday night waiting for me. The look of shock still hasn't left my face and may be permanent. Thanks a lot. Really.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Chat 'n Chew


So that went pretty well, though the audience seemed dismayed that I appeared to be 3-dimensional. More TK.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Hurry!


You haven't yet, Little Neuro, but time's running out! Those in foreign lands had better leave soon if they want to make it! Tonight at 7:30 at the Writers' Center in Bethesda. Type writers.org into your window up top for more information, news, traffic and weather.

Did I mention there'll be snacks? Well, there will.

Deadline Disaster Fun-Time Literary Limerick

So my big idea for the Almanack cartoon that's due today fell apart into little pieces and I had to think of something else. Which seems to've turned out OK so far, though it could head south any minute.

Seems like a good time for a Literary Limerick!


Though donnish and quite dignified,
Tom Eliot once versified,
On the greenish-tiled wall
Of a men's restroom stall,
He signed it and then flushed with pride.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Poor Almanack for October 7th


Can you find THIS blog in that mass of tiny dots? Hint- it's 23,476th from the bottom right. Can you find YOUR blog? Other hint- it's between mine and the banjo smashers.

I Need This


A Ceramic Phrenology Inkwell, phrenological areas marked in black, mid 19th century, English, excellent condition. Only 536 English pounds (chicken feed in US$). C'mon, all I got for my birthday was a lousy storm door. And Christmas is coming. Halloween, too.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Phooey on the #*@%ing the Deadlines!


I've still got time to put this up (which I swiped from Jim Borgman, who kindly put it up. When I learn how the scanner works I'll return the favor).

The Post runs a column listing restaurants closed because of health code violations, and I sometimes do one of my own. Because, well, because restaurants are inherently funny, and those closed because of health code violations are funnier still! Until you order the fish ceviche.

Crushing Deadlines of Doom


It's that time of the week again again. And I'd so hoped to share my technique for inadvertantly giving yourself a jailhouse tattoo using only a dip pen, some ink and a moment's clumsiness. Maybe later, but till then please enjoy a drawing of Petey looking beleaguered, as always.

Real Estate


This illustrated a Wash Post Magazine story by the genius polymath Joel Achenbach. Briefly, he hit a bunch of open houses on a Sunday, houses for sale in the DC area, each one of varying price and history. And wrote a great piece on what he saw. The former Nixon house is real, as is the asking price. Kind of a cool looking house, in a morbid, slightly creepy way.

My neighborhood is a mix of old houses from the 30s, 40s & 50s and new monstrosities squatting on land previousley occupied by old houses from the 30s, 40s & 50s. Our house is one of the few on the block that hasn't be at least added on to, and boy does it need adding on to. And a new roof, too. For my birthday I'm getting a storm door on the front entrance, so that's taken care of.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Old Cartoon I Still Like


Here's a cartoon that's about 8 years old that I still like. (I tried to post it earlier; if you're getting a blank space let me know, unless you really prefer the blank space, in which case keep it to yourself. Image swiped from Amazon's Look Inside the Book feature despite their evil spells). I might do a cartoon on Edward Hopper this week as there's a show of his stuff downtown that I have yet to see, and this one sprang to mind as inspiration. Or I could just cross out "Norman Rockwell" and write in "Edward Hopper" and hope no one notices. Don't tell.

Embarrassing Technical Difficulty


Apologies for the blank space that appeared instead of a cartoon in a previous and now-deleted post. The image was swiped off of the Look Inside feature at Amazon, and they've got spells protecting their pages that couldn't be broken. Something better will be posted directly, with an actual image.

Till then please enjoy this lo-res grumpy Alice, our go-to girl for embarrassing technical difficulties.

Monday, October 8, 2007

Late Night Nib Talk: My Favorite Nib


Ooh, lookit that baby! The Hunt #101 Imperial nib, excellent for penmanship, copperplate calligraphy, ornamental work and funny cartoons. With its dual shoulder slits, fleur de lys vent hole, compass, and this thing in the stock that tells time, it's a cartoonist's best friend. Unless, of course, the tip is a little bit askew or there's something wrong with the tines, or it's got a little schmutz in the main slit, in which case it's an evil, twisted, deceitful little monster who'll screw up every drawing it puts its point to, dribble ink down the sheet and break your heart. And you know what the difference between a good nib and a bad one is? It's microscopic! You can't see it! But you'll know it the instant you put the nib to paper. And don't get me started on brushes.

Next on Late Night Nib Talk: how to give yourself an inadvertant jailhouse tattoo.

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Step #11 is the Important One


People sometimes ask me How Do You Do It? But for some reason nobody makes it past the 45 minute mark of my answer, where it's just getting interesting. So I drew this 20 step tutorial to cover just the basics. Try it yourself, you'll be shocked and disappointed at just how easy it is.

You can find the version with ads here .

Friday, October 5, 2007

Chat 'n Chew


Next Friday, October 12th, I'm giving a talk at the Writers' Center in Bethesda MD at 7:30 pm. It's timed to coincide with the annual Small Press Expo that weekend also in Bethesda (well, White Flint). I'm posting this a week ahead so you can make plans, or cancel the plans you've made and rearrange your schedule. And those of you in Canada or New Zealand might still find available transportation (or maybe you two could carpool). I've got no idea what I'm going to say yet, and the way I mumble you'll not have much idea what I said, but they're good people at the Writers' Center so come on down. Did I mention it's free?

And Bethesda is like Eating Central, with every block crowded with restaurants elbow to elbow . When we were dating my wife lived smack in the middle of it and around 3 in the afternoon you could hang out her window and inhale the smell of all the grills starting up and thousands of dinners being prepared in every cuisine imaginable.


But no place in Bethesda can compare to the Tastee Diner, which has sat on its corner, opened 24 hours a day, for about 70 years. It's where the waitresses stop and chat, call you Honey, and know what you mean when you ask for a one-eyed bacon cheeseburger. And late at night, early in the morning, you'll see a wider cross section of humanity in its booths than you'd think one planet could hold, never mind one diner.

So here's the deal. After the Writers' Center chat, let's head over to the Tastee Diner for some scrapple or a plate of fries with gravy or one of those milkshakes where they bring you the shake in a glass and the silvery pitcher it was mixed up in too, with some extra shake still in it. I'll need one for sure.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Another old drawing


I thought of this about 20 or more years ago, but it took me about ten to get around to drawing it. The original plan was to come up with a bunch of famous quotations and then illustrate them inappropriately, but I got this far and ran out of ideas. Maybe it's time to find some more quotes and give it another shot. Did this Erasmus guy say anything else funny?

Crushing Deadlines of Doom


I need a dingbat to use as a placeholder for when I can't think of anything funny to post because I have to draw a cartoon, and nothing saps you ability to be funny like having to draw a cartoon. So I'm using this, though he'd work better as a plea for money. Which could happen, too. Anybody got anything funny to add? The only actual joke I know goes on forever and I always forget the part at the end where the punchline happens.

Also, anybody got anything stronger than coffee?

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Mini Golf


It feels like summer here in Northern VA. So let's play mini golf! Or is it putt putt, I'm not clear on the difference.

This is just another example of me foisting old stuff that 's already on my computer onto you, the discerning yet time-wasting blog reader.

Talk to Nick!


Hey everybody, now's your chance! Go to Washington Post Cartoon Genius Nick Galifianakis's online chat and ask him questions, like: how he does it, what he draws with, how's his dog, what's it like to illustrate an advice column, and would he please teach us some cuss words in Greek? His chat is at 1 pm EST at The Art of Nick .

And ask him about his glamorous globe trotting, his years in Hollywood and about the time he found a rubber sink stopper in his plate of eggs benedict at a fancy restaurant in Virginia. No, don't ask him that, just ask him how he got to be such a dang good artist & writer and when is he gonna do a comic strip?

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Still Can't Draw Cheney, Can He?


This is about a year old, but you know, it's really timeless. And I found it on the computer so up it goes! I'm just emptying old drawings onto this thing because nobody saw 'em the first time around. And yeah, the Cheney's still iffy, the Churchill's so-so, but I like the writing. Except there's no N in "symptom".

Monday, October 1, 2007

Walk Like Groucho Day


This is being posted a few hours early, unless you're a few time zones east of here in the middle of the Atlantic. October 2nd is the birthday of Groucho Marx, born Julius Henry Marx in 1890. In celebration, I propose a national Walk Like Groucho Day, to be held on this date annually. Everybody walks like Groucho, or we line 'em up against the wall and Pop goes the weasel!

How do you walk like Groucho? You just squat and scuttle, taking long strides, not as extreme as a duck-walk and not as athletic as a Silly Walk. If you can wear a tail coat that flaps behind you so much the better. I've included this chart which illustrates Newton's 2nd Law of Motion (Force = Mass x acceleration), and shows ground reaction forces measured in various strides and different types of footwear. Please note the looping blue line labeled "Groucho". I'm sure this'll help you a whole lot. The chart was taken from Dr. Chris Kirtley's site Clinical Gait Analysis http://www.univie.ac.at/cga/. (You can't propose a day of national celebration without some kind of scientific & academic support.)

So quick everybody! Squat 'n' Scuttle!

UPDATE:


It's also Wash Post Genius Gene Weingarten's birthday! I detect a theme, and it may not be in the way they walk.

Talking Animals


As today's Cul de Sac features the first syndicated appearance of the guinea pig Mr. Danders, I'd like to talk a bit about talking animals. But I can't think of anything to say except dang, they're fun to draw. If I meet someone around here for the first time and we have the what do you do? conversation and I say, I draw cartoons and they say, which one? I say a couple that appear in the Post and this draws a blank, then they say wait, is it the one with the guinea pig? oh, I love that guinea pig, he's on my refrigerator, in my cubicle, tattooed on my baby's head. Why? It's because everybody loves talking animals, even when they're pompous little things, like Mr. Danders. I've found the key to his character is that nobody calls him anything but "the guinea pig", nobody calls him "Mr. Danders" except for him. It must drive him crazy.

One More Time With The Unsuccessful Cow Noisemaker, Then I'll Shut Up About It


Here are the last two of the sequence that was shot down. Someday maybe you'll read it in the funny pages and vaguely remember it and get mad 'cause it looks like the paper's reprinting old stuff then write a misguided letter to the editor. That's what I'd do. Heck, maybe I will.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Sunday Bonus; Successful Cow Noisemaker


Commentator Ponto mentioned this on a previous post. This one ran in the Post Magazine maybe a year ago. I think we can all feel the dramatic tension here.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Stuff on the floor



We went to a baby party tonight. A friend's daughter turned one and I hadn't been to a party for anyone under the age of fifty in a while. Our daughters go to birthday parties for those who've turned their ages, 9 & 12, but without us. So anyway, being at this baby party in a house with babies made me aware of things on the floor. Here are some things on the floor of my studio.

Lots of drawings.

Lots of rough sketches, copies of sketches, revised rough sketches.

Lots of abandoned inked finals.

Some drawings with watercolors.

Some more in frames, leaning against the wall.

Those sneakers I was looking for that I thought were under the bed.

Lots of books.

A drawer full of Cul roughs I pulled out of my little flatfiles because I couldn't find one of the sheets with the color codes on it. I still haven't found it.

Some money (probably not really; if I convince myself there's some money to be found on the floor it'll give me the impetus to pick stuff up).

Some CDs and a box of sheet music.

A banjo I haven't learned how to play.

A case with my old bagpipes that I've forgotten how to play.

A cat toy (I'm assuming, there's always a cat toy).

Pencils.

A blue gum eraser that bounces under furniture when dropped.

I hope not an Xacto knife.

Some bugs (I'm assuming; I've got a basement studio so there's usually bugs).

A narrow path through all this stuff. I'm clumsy and step on things without meaning to, so maybe I'd better pick up stuff. Plus I hear there's money under it somewhere.

What's on YOUR studio floor?

Friday, September 28, 2007

The Failed Cow Noisemaker


These are two sketches for strips that were rejected. Someday I'll revise them just enough to be unrecognizable, or wait long enough so no one remembers them, and use them again. There's something in the cow noisemaker I find compelling.

Probably Shouldn't Draw


Every once in a while I do an Almanack with a realistic & fully-posable finger puppet that can be cut out and enjoyed by anyone who can weild scissors & tape. Like this one. They're really just self-indulgent failures of the imagination. I can't think of anything else to draw, so I draw a face that's fun to draw, then at the last minute I add a comment at the bottom and hope for the best. I may have gone to the well one time too often and I should quit. But look at that face! Who can resist? And Tom the courier and my friend Mike both say they're fun to cut out and collect, though I haven't tried either. And the kids love 'em, or at least they haven't specifically complained about them.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Can't Draw


On the other hand, I still can't draw Cheney. Even when I try four times.

Can Draw


Here's the only drawing of GWB I've done that I like. It was for Chris Curry at the New Yorker, who's fun to work with. I keep reusing this face in various forms, which is what I'm doing here more or less.

Hollywood Blows It Again



So I have to draw a tiny caricature of Walt Whitman tonight and looking at a picture of him I'm floored by his resemblance to Gabby Hayes. I'm sure I'm the last to notice this. But wouldn't that have been great casting for a 1940s Hollywood biopic?

Now I'll never be able to read Leaves of Grass without hearing Gabby Hayes' voice. Not that I ever read it much, but it's something to look forward to.

A Happy Story with Prawns

Ok, here's a story with no point. I had dinner Tuesday night with several editors from my syndicate, Lisa, Alan & Lee, who were in town.

We randomly chose a restaurant near their hotel, a place called Il Mulino that looked pleasant but not overbearing. It seemed empty but, as we had no reservation, we had to wait a bit. The first thing we noticed was the waitstaff; they wore white tie and there were a lot of them (the waiters, I mean; each had only one white tie visible).

When we were seated and presented with menus the first thing we noticed were the prices, but as the syndicate was paying our shock quickly turned to joy. There followed a procession of waiters, each with one white tie and each bearing a different type of small appetizer thing. A tiny sausage, some kind of relishy stuff, a massive wheel of parmesan off which the waiter carefully picked some bits off for us, etc etc. At one point, just to show off, a waiter came by carrying a large tub of prawns and gave us their whole provenance, their life history, ages, hobbies, just kind of bragging about the prawns (we didn't get any, but they were very nice and seemed to be proud to be in their tub and who wouldn't be?).

So dinner passed like this in a four-hour blur. The restaurant had filled up quickly with well dressed people (though no one topped the white tie) and most of them looked like they were used to restaurants such as this with many of them ordering complicated meals that required several waiters to fix half the food at the table. More used to places with plenty of highchairs and crayons, I rubbernecked like a yokel. One man at the table next to us bore a very close resemblance to Ben Bernanke, it was either him or a Bernanke imitator, who are rife in DC.

By the end of the very excellent meal we were the last people there, and after dessert another waiter (who looked exactly like Prince Harry; I doubt he was, but I'm just sayin') brought us a complementary glass of grappa (raspberry infused no less) poured from this huge tank packed in ice. When we finally left half the staff escorted us outside, telling jokes in various languages all of which were really funny after that grappa and the previous bottle of wine and two beers. The editors poured me into a cab, pressed enough money into my hand to get home, and the next thing I remember I'm typing this.

So my plan is, I'm gonna rent a white tie tux, affect an accent, buy some small boxes of crayons and kids' menu type things with the puzzles and dot-to-dots on them, and sneak into Il Mulino and distribute them to the diners when no one's looking, like between the appetizers and the travelling prawn show. Who's with me on this?

Monday, September 24, 2007