Happy Birthday, Samuel Langhorne Clemens

Today is of course the 172th birthday of Mark Twain, who's best known as a writer and author of such classics as The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, 1601, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and the soon-to-be-produced-on-Broadway play, Is He Dead? And my favorite book, Life on the Mississippi. And some others.

A less well known part of Twain's output is his work as an illustrator and artist. In 1903 he wrote "Instructions in Art" for Metropolitan Magazine with his own illustrations, in which he set forth several novel yet cogent theories of Art. Here are some, mostly describing his struggles with technique. I've edited it a bit for space & format, but really, how dare I edit Mark Twain?


The figure (above) symbolizes solemn joy. It is severely Greek, therefore does not call details of drapery or other factitious helps to its aid, but depends wholly upon grace of action and symmetry of contour for its effects. It is intended to be viewed from the south or southeast, and I think that that is best; for while it expresses more and larger joy when viewed from the east or the north, the features of the face are too much foreshortened and wormy when viewed from that point. That thing in the right hand is not a skillet; it is a tambourine.


The next (above) picture is part of an animal, but I do not know the name of it. It is not finished. The front end of it went around a corner before I could get to it.


We will conclude with the portrait of a lady in the style of Raphael (above). Originally I started it out for Queen Elizabeth, but was not able to do the lace hopper her head projects out of, therefore I tried to turn it into Pocahontas, but was again baffled, and was compelled to make further modifications, this time achieving success. By spiritualizing it and turning it into the noble mother of our race and throwing into the countenance the sacred joy which her first tailor-made outfit infuses into her spirit, I was enabled to add to my gallery the best and most winning and eloquent portrait my brush has ever produced.

(Guest blogging by Mark Twain. Top that, Huffington Post. I couldn't find a copy of my favorite Twain drawing; a portrait of the Kaiser he sent unsoliscited to Harper's Weekly. It was of the same quality as the illustrations above, and with it Twain included several endorsements, including one purportedly from the pope, saying "we have nothing like it in the Vatican.")

Who?

There's something I need to know. Are the Whos in How the Grinch Stole Christmas the same as the Whos in Horton Hears a Who? That is, are they microscopic? If so then the Grinch would likewise be teeny-weeny, wouldn't he? Doesn't that somewhat diminish him as a threat, and make the whole story less compelling? I'm sure this has been discussed and settled somewhere on the web and I'm the last to know.

My Second-Favorite Drawing

The above drawing is 15 years old this week. Or last week, I forget. It's the first piece I did for Chris Curry at the New Yorker; she needed a quick drawing of Ross Perot for the last page, quick being it needed to be fedexed for the next day. I did five quick roughs, none bigger than your hand , faxed them, and she said, "This one's good. Don't do a final, just sign it and send it." I wish all my roughs turned out so well. I've tried to hit that sweet spot again, where every loose line fell into place just perfectly and, you know, the looser the better. But it's been all downhill since.

Maybe it just demands a gargoyle-in-embryo face like Ross Perot's to hit that spot again. Whatever happened to him, anyway?

Comics Reporter Blows Lid Off Cul de Sac

Thank you, Tom Spurgeon . Shucks, glad you liked it.

A Thanksgiving Memory, Belatedly

Fifteen years ago last week, my wife, Amy, and I were about to celebrate our first Thanksgiving as a married couple. We were going to serve a large feast on our new plates on our new table in our newly rented home for as many of our extended family as could make it. The night before Thanksgiving we went to a bar with friends and we had a most festive and enjoyable time, I personally enjoying it more than anyone else. When we got home, in hopes of coninuing my festively enjoyable time, I started dancing around like Fred Astaire would if Fred Astaire danced in his socks.

Our house was old and strangely shaped and it was heated by radiators, big iron monsters, all coils and ribs and flanges. The kind of fixture that would give sensitive children nightmares. I, as Fred Astaire would not, executed a kick that planted my foot squarely into the radiator in the hall, good and hard.

Amy, seeing me suddenly rolling around on the floor, thought I was still enjoying myself, until I pulled my sock off. One toe was bent completely back, and since it was the middle one, it looked like my foot was giving me the toe, if you know what I mean. It was indescrabably funny, in a silent-film-comedy-trauma way. And it hurt like "the dickens". The dickens is when the entire output of Charles Dickens-all 15 hardbound novels, plus journalism, letters and ephemera-is simultaneously dropped from a height and hits you.

The folks at the emergency room were extremely helpful and didn't laugh and didn't yell at me when I did some doughnuts with the wheelchair and knocked over the IV stand. But the nurse on duty did tell me an awful story about when he was in the Navy and won a $300 bet that he couldn't pull all the hairs off the top of his foot with tweezers without screaming. And they gave me some Tylenol 3, the kind with codeine, the kind that comes with the warning that not everybody reacts well to codeine.

So that is how I ended uup at the head of our table the next day, Thanksgiving Day, with my mangled foot elevated on another chair, presiding over our first Thanksgiving feast. And that is when, not ten minutes into the meal, I fould out I was one of the people who react badly to codeine. And it was Amy who quickly handed me a bowl, the fancy one that matched our new plates and was fortunately empty, for me to react badly in.

It's been 15 years. The toe's still there, of course, though it's still bent a little funny. The house is gone, or at least so renovated it's unrecognizable, and good riddance; it was an astestos-clad eyesore and a menace.

Somehow, subsequent family holidays have never quite matched that First Thanksgiving for intensitiy of emotion, not the Christmas of the Flaming Oven Mitt, or the Other Thanksgiving When the Fireplace Blew Up, or that Day or Two Before Easter When We Had to Evacuate Because of a Carbon Monoxide Leak That Almost Killed Everybody.

The only downside is that, ever since I broke my toe that night, I've been forced to draw with my hands.

Happy Thanksgiving

As soon as I've finished up some drawings we're escaping to Salem, Ohio for Thanksgiving. My wife's family farm is just outside of Salem, and it's got a huge kitchen that sometimes produces food without human intervention; at some point over the holidays, someone will discover a pie, side dish, casserole, etc. that no one's entirely sure where it came from. Everything else is made by Aunt Marge, with help from whatever spare hands are available. Every time we go there we're thankful for Marge's hospitality, and Uncle Phil's too.

Weather permitting we'll be lolling on the porch after the meal, or at least in front of the fireplace , groaning blissfully. When I get back I'll tell you the Adventure of Our First Thanksgiving as a Married Couple, and what happened that involved a trip to the emergency room and why I still walk funny sometimes.

Till then everybody go somewhere among friends & relatives, eat too much and loll around and groan blissfully. Here's a bonus Cul de Sac for you to enjoy while you do. Grandma is very much my Grandma.

More Thanksgiving Fun!

This week's Poor Almanack. Ha ha! Who knew Thanksgiving was such a fun holiday!

Is It Thanksgiving Yet?

Not quite! But you can pretend it is with this handy Thanksgiving Parade in cartoon form. From about 1999; if I drew it today the Rugrats balloon would probably be Spongebob.

Dream Previews for Next Week

As it's a holiday week, you're going to be busy next week running errands, gathering supplies, seeing the relatives, traveling, etc. etc. So I thought I'd give you an early "heads up" of what to expect in the dream department.

Another Exclusive Preview Available Only Here

This is from an upcoming strip, or a string of strips, wherein Petey faces off against Babies. Reading the strips you'll suddenly realize what feral, terrifying creatures babies can be, especially if they're traveling in packs. This isn't the punchline, so I'm not spoiling anything.

It's Still A-Comin'

This was prettier in color, but here it is in black & white.

Thanksgiving is A-Coming

This is all true, I swear, every word of it. Kids, if you've got a report on Thanksgiving to write, please use this as a source! Then let me know how you did on it, and how the parent-teacher conference went.

What I'm Reading

When I really should be drawing. My favorite story in it so far is about an animated feature that never was, an aborted collaboration between Walt Disney and a young Roald Dahl about Gremlins. That would've been something to see, as I think of Disney's and Dahl's sensibilities as being pretty dissimilar, though both had a good sense of the dark side of a story. Heck, Dahl's stories are about as dark as children's literature gets, and about as funny, too.

I hear that Wes Anderson is doing an animated version of Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox. That might be something to see, too. I wish someone would do George's Marvelous Medicine. And if you're going to animate Dahl, it'd be great to see it done in the style of his long-time illustrator, the great Quentin Blake. His is another name I meant to add to that list of those who inspire me.

Now I gotta go draw, after I read the next article in Hogan's Alley.

Sweeps Week!

Is it time for Sweeps Week yet? I have no idea, but here's a cartoon on it anyway. And a Shark Week is in the works.

Otterloop

Anyone living in the DC area recognize the joke behind the name "Otterloop" (at least I hope they do; it took me forever to get it myself). It's a play on "Outer Loop", the outside, counter-clockwise ring of DC's Beltway. You would most often hear it in a sentence with the word "delays", as in, "Delays on the Outer Loop start at the Springfield Interchange." If you don't live in DC and aren't familiar with the "Outer Loop" be glad, it's usually a nightmare. And the "Springfield Interchange" is even worse.

Looking at the map of the Beltway provided above and comparing it to Mr. Otterloop's head I see a resemblance, kinda. But mostly it looks like an upside-down cartoon dialog balloon.

Family

Here's a panel from a strip that won't be in papers for another month, and since it isn't the punchline I'm not giving anything away. Sometimes people ask if I get ideas from my two daughters and the answer is yes of course, but not directly. Usually things are rearranged for comic effect and filtered to protect the innocent. This, though, is taken almost verbatim from something my wife said to my daughter. I encourage the girls to come up with more comic bits & routines and to say more of the darnedest things, just to help Daddy out with his work. In return we provide them with a household full of eccentrics like James Thurber had, so they'll have material to draw on later in life should they ever take up cartooning or literature. It's the least we can do for each other as a family, I think.

Some Literary Laffs

Tonight I went to a talk on The Graphic Novel in the Classroom with my friend Mike Rhode (see ComicsDC under Nice Places to Visit to the right). Me, I'm all for gettin' kids' noses in them funnybooks, so I say the more of 'em in the classroom the better.

I'm feeling all frisky 'n' literary, so here's this.

I don't speak Italian either

I wish I'd learned how to at some point. From what I can tell, the above is saying something nice about Cul de Sac for which I'm grateful, though I'd like to've seen them translate "Otterloop" into Italian. Mille grazie to Gianfranco Goria for this!

I tried French for a couple of years in middle school, until the teacher finally suggested maybe I'd like to try another language. So I tried German and had an easier time with it. But Italian, that's the language of art, music, love, food. And cartoons! Or as we say, fumetti.

One thing I do know in French is that cul-de-sac means bottom of the bag, and I only know that because Washington Post Genius Editor Pat Myers told me.

Voutch!

Hey, go look at this guy'swork. It's great. And thanks to RC Harvey, who mentioned it on his blog over on gocomics.com.

How would you pronounce Voutch? I'm rhyming it with "couch", but it's French so it's probably more "vooouuusssh". And I wish the images on his site were larger and the type more readable for those of us who squint. Not that I can read French anyway; I got the above image here.

More Names, or, The Place is Getting Crowded

Lyonel Feininger, Ed Koren, J J Sempe, Jim Borgman, Elzie Segar, Frank Willard, Saul Steinberg, William Steig, Barry Blitt, Bruce McCall, John Cuneo, Heinrich Kley, Peter Steiner, Steve Brodner, David Levine, Chuck Jones, Chris Ware, Crockett Johnson, Percy Crosby, Dr. Seuss, Lisbeth Zwerger, Ernest Shepard,...

(click on dailycartoonist at right for some explanation, if necessary)

Peanut Allergies

Here's this week's Poor Almanack. Charlie Brown's head, for all it's simplicity, is hard to draw. And the zigzag is even worse.

Comic Strip Previews

I did this at the beginning of the year. Let's read it and see how well my prognostications panned out.



Yup! Looks like they all came true (I knew that squid would get those Pattersons). Except maybe the last one, but it's only a matter of time before the van pulls up in my driveway and the Pulizter people leap out with a bouquet of helium balloons and the giant novelty check and knock on my door. Or maybe they just push it through the mail slot, I'm not sure. But either way, I'm ready!

Hey Writers!

These are all drawn from real life, except the old guy losing an overshoe in the Metro escalator didn't realize it'd happened until his wife pointed it out. She then turned to me and said, "Isn't life funny?" and I said, "Oh, yeah."

The Pixar Story

On Wednesday I snuck out of work and went downtown with Ann Telnaes to see a documentary called "The Pixar Story". It was produced & directed by Leslie Iwerks, daughter of the great animator Ub Iwerks, and it was showing very briefly in DC to qualify for the Oscars. Ann and I were the only ones in the theater, maybe in the whole theater complex, so we could chat during the show. Ann trained as an animator at CalArts, the school that produced John Lasseter and she knew some of the people in the documentary.

Watching it I was struck by how dicey a business like Pixar can be, how close it is to the verge of collapse from one blockbuster to the next; Toy Story did spectacularly well, but then A Bug's Life had to do even better, and when Toy Story 2 almost fell apart and had to be redone the whole company almost fell apart with it. And Pixar's partnership with Disney was played as a somewhat atonal counterpoint to its ever-changing fortunes. Ann booed when some of the Disney executives were interviewed, especially when the subject was Disney's idiotic switch from 2-D animation to 3-D, when they let go animators with years of experience in classic animation. Now of course Lasseter's in charge of Disney animation so things have changed and We'll See. Disney's always been a company that can put a smile on your face and make you grind your teeth hard enough to loosen a molar at the same time.

It was an interesting film, very much a bouquet to John Lasseter, his cohort of geniuses and their story-telling skills. We bought a little Pixar stock years ago and haven't paid much attention to it, though they do send shareholders a nice poster every year, so maybe I've got a vested interest. I admitted to Ann that I choked up at the end of both Toy Stories and Ratatouille. But then I blubber when the laundry soap works in the TV commercials, just 'cause everybody is so happy about it.

Drop Panels

Drop Panels are the title panels in Sunday strips that are used as filler or dropped because they're filler. The size and shape of a Sunday strip is an arcane science that I haven't figured out yet, I've just used a default 1/4 page size. But there are things you can do with a drop panel, like do a nice drawing or a separate gag or reproduce a sketch like Zits does, and I need to do something more interesting. So I'm coming up with some different title panels, with maybe a little gag in them. Here are a couple of roughs that I like, especially for the scratchy velocity of the line. They're on my to-do list, like finishing this week's strips, mowing the lawn, cleaning up my studio enough that I can walk from one end to the other, and arranging for a lasting worldwide peace based on love & understanding. And maybe tune the banjo if I've got time.

Your Halloween Treat Guide

Filler

Here's something until I think of something better. Like a bridge column or Sudoku.

Columbus, Ohio

If I'd've had my druthers, I'd've gone to the ninth triennial Festival of Cartoon Art at Ohio State in Columbus this weekend. Did anybody here go? Show of hands please (Heath, are you doodling frogs and not paying attention? good, keep it up). I went to the Festival in '86 and stayed with an old friend and his wife then living in Columbus. The highlights for me were: attending a chalktalk by Arnold Roth on the lawn of the Thurber House (above) on a brilliant, sunny day; laughing really hard at a show of old animated cartoons, some of which I'd seen a dozen times but which became irresistably funny when watched with a crowd in an actual theater; recognizing Bill Watterson, attending but not featured, by his name tag and chatting with him for a few minutes; my friend and I laughing really, really hard at an inapropriate moment during a panel discussion and having to leave the room before we suffocated from holding it in, while his wife just said, You guys. I also remember getting a Big Mac that was unique in my experience for not looking like somebody had stepped on it.

Ah, memories. My wife's from Columbus and we sometimes go back there. What a nice town, especially for cartoonists.

Halloween Putto All Grown Up

As Mark Heath has identified our Halloween Putto as master cartoonist Charles Addams and thereby spoiled out plans to string this out for the next four days, we provide an "After" photo of our Halloween Putto. Isn't he jolly yet sinister? Roz Chast did a great spread on Addams for the New Yorker a few years back, about how she'd sit and read his cartoon collections in the library while her parents were busy there and how Addams' work inspired her. I remember looking through one of his books in my seventh grade classroom where it was shelved among the art books. I could look at those warmly grey-toned little masterpieces over and over. Though when the Addams Family showed up on TV it didn't do much for me. Idiot that I was, I liked the Munsters more.

Halloween Putto

Here's something appropriate for Halloween. Can you guess who he is?

I'm not in Kansas City anymore

I'm back, and I'm pooped, but it's a good kinda pooped. Above is a photo of the area where my syndicate has their offices; they're in the building at right, where you see two towers with lit up points on top, they occupy three floors of the right-hand building. The area with all the lights is called Country Club Plaza, a great place to stroll around and window shop. As most of the stores are high-end boutiques window shopping is about as far as I got. But there is a Barnes & Noble and I bought the Michaelis Schulz bio there to read on the plane and the Rest is Noise by Alex Ross to read sometime later. I stayed in the building at top far right, the square glass thing, it's a Marriot Something and it was hosting a convention of guys in ballcaps who backslapped anyone who came near. If you look closely enough you'll see me waving out of a 16th floor window. Either that or I'm inside the hotel room at the little desk finishing up dailies for Thanksgiving week so I can hand them in this morning, before I ride out to the airport.


Around the corner from the hotel is the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, with a terrific collection and a good cafe tucked into a free-flowing yet compact building that looks like it might take off like a silver aircraft, but didn't. The piece above by Tom Otterness called Crying Giant sits out on the lawn. The feet make me happy.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Dream Spoiler Alert

Hope this doesn't ruin things for anybody.