The Almanack for December 1

Catalogs! How many times have I used that idea? Lots. I'll dig up some more and prove it to you.

Sunday's Cul de Sac

The strip for December 2nd is one of my favorites. I just liked drawing the rough, more than I liked drawing the final. Which is common; when drawing a rough the brain is in a relaxed, liquid state, the jaw is slack, and the hand moves easily. Drawing a final everything tightens up, neatness counts because, mistakes are made and worries form because, you know, People Will See This.

Here's a bit off the end of the rough skech for December 2nd's Cul de Sac. Actually, I did a previous quick rough for it I like even better; it's an almost incoherent tangle of lines. Somday I'll learn to draw cartoons by swinging a canfull of ink, like Jackson Pollock. I'll need a bigger studio.

Note: for some reason when you click on the image it downloads to your computer instead of merely opening in a new window. I don't know why. But please, consider it my unwanted gift to you, with all my best wishes for the Holiday Season.

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.