Autodrivelalia

This is one I've wanted to draw for a while now, but I couldn't figure out quite how to do it, or if it'd be something that anyone would recognize. A daily strip about daily lives is obviously dealing with the quotidian, the mundane and homely, and the hard part can be teasing out the unexpected, unnoticed and weird from all that day-to-day stuff without making it unrecognizable.
That was unnecessary exposition to lead into a personal admission: I make silly noises when I'm driving, sometimes silly faces, too. And I don't think I'm alone in this (Hi, Paul!). I once heard a radio announcer say that on the way to work every morning he'd sing the Modern Major General patter song from Pirates of Penzance, just to loosen up his face and get his tongue going. He at least had some reason to do it, but me, I just babble, sing, talk in accents, parrot radio commercials, even do bbrrrm bbrrrm car sounds. It doesn't affect my driving, on the contrary, I'm sure it makes me more alert and speeds up my reflexes.
There, I've said it and I'm proud.

Hello!

To Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Frank, Ngoc, Kevin, Claire, Mark, Mark, Marc, Joost, Mary, Istvan, Brendan, Raina, Dave, Keith, Libby, Dustin, Van, Dave, Jen, Warren, Andrew, Charles, Joe, Matt, Rob, John, Zack, John, Brian, Chris, Trade, TJ, Matt, LInda, Jason, Jason, Joel, Abby, Magnolia, Calla, Paul, Jackie, Nell, David, Greg, Drew, Casey & Matt. Good to see you all at SPX!
If I've left your name off the list, please remind me.

SPX!

Just a reminder. I'll be there both days hanging around. I'll sell anybody a book who can find me. On Sunday at 5, I'll talk with Mike Rhode, mostly about our kids.

Poetry Slam

Michael Cavna at the Washington Post's Comic Riffs blog thinks I know about poetry . Here's my fragmentary entry-

There once was a rodent named Danders,
Who spoke in a voice like George Sanders,

And that's all I got.

Walk Like Groucho Day

This is a repeat of a post from a year ago. 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!


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

Old Glamor Job

About 17 years ago I got a call to do a cover for one of a series of Honeymooners VHS tapes. What made the job particlarly cool was that it was art directed by Lou Dorfsman (a legend in the field), the other illustrators doing covers were some of my heroes (Hirschfeld, Brodner, Burke...), the money was swell (they bought the originals) and coolest of all there was no deadline (within reason).

So they sent me the tape I was to illustrate, something about Ed Norton sleepwalking and dreaming about his dog. Unfortunately the tape was the wrong one, and I'd never watched much Honeymooners (though I'd seen the cartoons with the Honeymooner mice several times). But I found enough photos that I could fake up a scene okay; Norton sleepwalking, dreamed-of dog, and annoyed Kramden. Here's the first skech I did, just a quick one of Kramden & Norton. I like the Norton, though from the little pen mark over Kramden's head you can see that Lou Dorfsman chose the Kramden. This was back when roughs were exchanged leisurely with a client via FedEx, or carrier pigeon, or footmen with velvet cushions. However we did it, I eventually came up with a usable sketch.



Here's the final, and the first thing you'll notice is that I slightly mismeasured the height, leaving some dead space between the focus of the illustration and the main type, but nobody minded. I did it in alkyd paint, which is somewhat like oil but it dries faster and it's a little more tar-like in consistency, and it's a little less aesthetically pleasing, if you're into that. Despite there being no firm deadline and despite the fast-drying quality of the paint, two hours before FedEx closed on the day before it was due I was down on the floor spraying the finished illustration with half-a-can of Krylon in hopes of forcing the paint to dry. I understand Norman Rockwell worked the same way.



The last cool things about the job were that the original went into a museum in New York City, I forget what it's called but it's full of TV stuff, and when the complete series of VHS tapes was released Leonard Maltin showed several of the covers on Entertainment Tonight, and not only showed mine but said my name out loud on TV (along with Hirschfeld, Brodner, etc). That was when my career peaked. The most I could hope for now is a mention by Pat O'Brian on Access Hollywood, and who wants that?

Faces

Often when I'm drawing faces I find myself mimicking the expression that I'm trying to convey. Like today I did a string of roughs with Mrs. Otterloop going from nonplussed to dawning comprehension to full awareness, and my face kept going from slack to alert in sympathetic response. Nothing too hammy, just enough that I could feel it while I drew it. Animators do it purposefully, and even keep a mirror handy so they can model for their drawings. I once read a hilarious account of Goofy's animator jumping out of his chair and lurching around the studio with that slap-footed Goofy walk, working his adam's apple and everything, then throwing himself back in the chair and drawing what he'd just done. It's the same process that kids use when they make kkkkapppcccccccchhhh noises when drawing battleground explosions. And I'm sure fine artists do it in the privacy of their studio. I'll bet Picasso yanked his face around to the point of malocclusion when he was in his cubist period. His girlfriend of the moment probably told him to quit it before his face stuck like that, too.

Saturday's Almanack

This was the Almanack for last weekend. I'm not sure if it makes sense. I was going to do a map of the National Book Festival, but I got bored with the sketch I had for it and started this about five hours before deadline. Which should be plenty of time, but I didn't realize what I was doing until I lettered the last line. I think the idea was to compare Astronomy, Astrology and Economics just to see which had the most sway over events. I think Astrology won.

Exciting Book Signing Event Thing

I'll be sigining copies of Cul de Sac at the Politics & Prose booth at the Crafty Bastards Arts & Crafts Fair this Sunday at 1 pm. The fair is at the Marie Reed Learning Center in at 18th St. and Wyoming Ave., NW, in the Adams Morgan neighborhood in DC. Those are the two most information-stuffed sentences I've ever typed, but if you need more, go here.

Update: Hello and thanks to those who came by, chatted, bought a book, or all three. It was a hoot, and thanks to my hosts Mike, András and Chad & family.

First Anniversary Special Offer

Today is this blog's first anniversary, having opened with the memorable, oft-quoted post Okay, Now What? on September 24th back in 2007. In recognition of this important milestone I'm announcing this unique, one-time offer, which I'll be repeating as often as I deem necessary.

Now that the Cul de Sac book seems to be generally available, the thousands/many/several/both of you who've ordered it may want to have it defaced in some way. And I'd like to help you out! If you'd like me to sign my name on your book, please email me through the "My Complete Profile" link to your right ->, I'll provide my address, you send me your book (with a sase), I'll sign it, I'll send it back to you, you'll open it up and say "jeez, that took forever". What could be easier than that?

But wait! It gets more complicated! To make your book's inscription even more personalized, I'm offering this selection of autographs for you to choose from, each one a work of art in itself! Just look-


1. Otterloop Bold Distended 2. Otterloop Grotesque 3. Palmer Method 4. Otterloop Hasty 5, Otterloop Serif Formal 6. Otterloop Extra-Hasty Verging on Sloppy 7. Otterloop Slapdash Bold 8. Otterloop Fancypants 9. Otterloop Wrong-End-of-the-Pen 10. Otterloop Corroding (genuine iron gall ink) 11. Otterloop Erratum (discontinued).

FOLIAGE!

Here, you may need this. For those of you outside the DC-MD-VA area, I'm sorry, you're on your own.

FALL!

Yesterday was the first day of Fall and I didn't even notice, mostly because I didn't even step outside. It's perpetually summer in my studio, of course.

I see Mother Nature as Hermione Gingold in the Music Man, particularly where she's immitating a Grecian urn.

Toddler's Roundtable

This is another of the proto-Cul de Sacs from 8 or 9 years ago, back when I could still use a cartoon to make a coherent point. That skill didn't last long, but fortunately comic strips don't need a point. A couple of balloons, maybe an onomatopoeia, a laff, then off you go.

Watch me recycle that lycanthropy joke when I think nobody's looking.

Fontanelle, the Imperiled Infant

This was Oswaldo Twee's first appearance, a year or so before he reappeared to read at the library, much to Alice's dismay. From his reactions here, I don't believe Twee has had much contact with actual children which, from the others I've met, isn't the norm among children's book authors.

Both my daughters read a lot, sometimes too much, like to the point of trying to multitask while reading and subsequently falling down the stairs. This only happened once, but it was memorable, and no harm was done so it was also funny.

(Formerly) Happy Amazon Robot

The Cul de Sac book is now officially listed as "in stock" at Amazon. My thanks to Mark Tatulli for pointing this out to me, as I hadn't checked the Amazon site in almost 15 minutes.

UPDATE: It's now reverted to "ships in 3 to 5 weeks". Next time I see JeFf Bezos I'm going to give him a stern lecture on Not Yanking People Around.

Let's Make Fun of TV Shows!

Since there's nothing easier than making fun of TV shows, I did these. "Flapjack" is the only thing I've ever written that always makes me laugh, but then, nothing's funnier than pancakes. Pancakes are comic gold. And laughing at your own jokes is the lowest form of comedy.

More Dirt

The above is another page taken from the mysterious disappearing Cul de Sac book (which I saw on an actual shelf at a Barnes & Nobles, who seem to've cornered the market on them). And it deals with dirt, which somewhat continues the conversation from the post below.

Back almost 30 years ago I read a short story by the tall-tale sci-fi fabulist R.A. Lafferty called "You Can't Go Back". Like all of Lafferty's work it's hard to describe, but briefly it's about this little rogue moon called the White Cow Moon that will come bobbing over the horizon and float over your head when you blow the White Cow whistle, and how some now-adults who played on it as children visit it for the first time in years. I'm sure I'm misremembering details, but the White Cow Moon disappoints them; the troll who lives in the moon's core looks moth-eaten, the little village is ramshackle, the whole place looks fake, like a beat-up amusement park (like I said it's hard to describe). And I always wanted to steal that idea, of a little untethered moon that shows up sometimes then wanders away. This cartoon is as close as I've gotten, and I even worked cows into it. Alice's final line is thanks to my old editor at the Post, Tom Shroder, who taught me that ending a comic strip with an unexpected tangent is always the most fun.

What Lies Beneath

Yesterday's Cul de Sac had some synchronicity with yesterday's Almanac cartoon, like they were almost the same joke. I didn't plan it that way, unless it was subconsciously, and when I realized they'd meshed I was a little tickled. Embarrassed too, because now it's obvious I've got only a few ideas in rotation and here they've collided.



The Almanac (above) was a retooling of one from 8 or 9 years ago (below). I didn't find the older one till a day after I turned in the newer version, though you can tell I remembered it pretty vividly. I might try doing newruns of old stuff and hope nobobdy recalls them distinctly enough to complain; I'll just white-out dated references and such to make it more germane.

SPX?

So, who all is going to the Small Press Expo in Bethesda (south Rockville) next month (October)? I am, I am! And at some point I'll be signing books (mine).

Un Lavoro Bello II

And now for something completely different- Drawing a Funny Cartoon in 20 Steps, in Italian. My awe-filled thanks for this to Diego Ceresa, the indefatigable genius translator for several comic strips (including Cul de Sac) at Linus Magazine.

Somebody's Very Special Day

Today is the first anniversary of the launch of Cul de Sac as a daily strip, courtesy of the fine folks at Universal Press.

Adrift on the Amazon

The page for the CdS book at Amazon now says "temporarily out of stock", and it lists one used copy for sale on Amazon Marketplace by Snappyshoppe. And it's only $8.29! So I guess it's been shipped to used bookstores. I'll check again later (not that I'm obsessing), but if I were you I'd jump on that.

Oswaldo Twee

I was going to write something lengthy about children's literature but I don't have a whole lot to say. My house is stuffed with children's books, and some of them predate my daughters. I've read a good bit of them, often aloud to an appreciative audience. Oswaldo Twee, the children's author I invented for the strip who produces an endless series of books about Fontanelle the Imperiled Infant, is pretty clearly based on Lemony Snicket, whose works I find alternately entertaining and annoying. I never made it all the way through one of the Unfortunate Events books, though I heard a few on cd and mostly enjoyed the movie version. I'm pretty sure I'd feel the same way about Oswaldo Twee's work, and Alice is even less forgiving.

In the last strip in this series I tried to show how kids will talk in, you know, questions? Like they want to make sure you're listening? So each sentence? Demands a response? Adults sometimes do this too. Or at least, I do. You know?





These are all in that book I mentioned below, too.

Scathing Political Satire

Or as close to scathing political satire as a strip with yacky kids and talking guinea pigs gets. Another free excerpt from the Mystery Date Forthcoming Cul de Sac Book.

Forms of Speech

While we wait to find out the availablility of the Cul de Sac book, here's something from the Richard's Poor Almanac book (which is, of course, easily available, the publisher's demise notwithstanding). This presents vital and timely information, as I'm sure you'll all agreee.

Books Almost. No, Really!

I'm told by my book editor that books should indeed have started shipping from the warehouse to stores, etc, on September 2nd. Amazon has an automatic responder that is easily confused, and when nothing shipped on the original date, September 1st, as it was a national holiday, the responder went berzerk and started spewing misinformation. So, I hope, the Cul de Sac book should be finding its way to your home bookshelf, nightstand, coffee table or little basket of old magazines next to the toilet real soon. Sooner at least than October for crying out loud.
Let me know how it goes, if you would.

Cul-de-Sac the Book! Almost-

Here it is Sepetember 2nd already and the day that Amazon posted as the Cul de Sac book release date is 24 hours behind us. For the thousands/several/both/none of you who inquired about when the book will ship, I can only answer, I dunno, soon?

Till it starts actually flying off the shelves I've got another teaser. But be warned, it's really violent.

Convention Memories

I don't really have any convention memories. But back in the late 80s I approached the Washington Post about maybe going to the Democratic or Republican convention to do some drawings. It didn't work out, which in retrospect is just as well; I don't do my best work with the kind of distractions and deadlines that it would've entailed.

But I did these drawings of George H.W. Bush, as practice, but also because he was and still is just about the most fun politician to draw, short of Richard Nixon. Somebody said years ago that the English produce the most caricature-ready politicians on earth, and GHW Bush seemed to have a face imported from the Sceptered Isle. But it wasn't just the face, it was the facial mannerisms, or espressions he pulled. And the expression is the most important part of a caricature, I think. GW Bush makes some of the same faces but he's more round and baby-faced while his dad is more elongated and tall-headed, and I'll go with drawing angular over doughy any day.

So really this is just another excuse to post old stuff I still like. These were never published, though I plundered them a few times for various freelance jobs. The last pencil sketch below is my favorite of the Bush Suite (as I've just named it) and I used it a coupla times, like in the color piece below it. That was done for either US News & World Report or Mother Jones, I can't remember which, to illustrate Bush's hyperactive mannerisms and, because I gave it to Art Wood back when, it's now held in the Library of Congress with most all the rest of Art's collection.







That last sketch was inspired by a photo of an Iroquois mask that's in my old copy of Gardner's History of Art from college. In doing caricatures you can fall into a rut; the same-old-same-old head, nose, mouth, etc. for a particular subject. I once heard the great caricaturist John Kascht say he was stuck on a job that wasn't coming together the way he wanted, his sketches weren't inspiring him, he was drawing the subject the same old way, he was having a bad day. Then he looked at a crumpled up paper bag lying in his studio and bingo, there was the face (I can't remember whose it was, somebody with crumpled up features). Since hearing that I've always made it a point to leave a lot of trash all over my studio floor, just in case some gum wrapper might suddenly resolve itself into Dick Cheney

Happy Birthday, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

In the late '90s the National Gallery in DC had a big show of the great 19th century French painter J.A.D. Ingres, and I drew this cartoon. I like Ingres' work a lot, with that kind of awe that such perfection of technique inspires, but I've never yet pronounced his name correctly. It's kind of AHNggghh, all the way in the back of the throat, using mostly your tonsils.

So I did this cartoon with that usual feeling of, Who's going to get this? My editor just asked if this guy was real, and was his name spelled right. And the Post printed it, a few people read it, and life went on.

Then some time later I got a call from a curator at the Metropolitan Gallery of Art in New York City. The Ingres show was about to move up there, and she said someone had brought in the Pronouncing Ingres cartoon and passed it around and they'd chuckled at it duirng a meeting, and how'd I feel about them putting it on a T-shirt for their Ingres Show Gift Shop? I said sure, though there wasn't much actual money involved, but you know, I figured the cartoon had found its audience and how cool is that? The curator also invited me up to the opening, which I couldn't make as we had a new baby in the house or I was busy or something.

Then a month or so after that I got a call from an editor at the Wall Street Journal asking if they could reproduce the cartoon, and I said sure, and he said thanks and hung up. A day or two later a friend stopped by with a copy of the WSJ and in it was an opinion piece on the cultural pages excoriating the Met for selling these trashy T-shirts with cartoons using the word "anal" from the low-class Washington Post printed on them. Well! I thought about sending a strongly-worded letter to the editor, but I didn't know exactly what to say, so I never got around to it. Like I said, we had a new baby in the house and I was busy.

The other thing was, I never got the drawing back from the Met, though they did send a T-shirt (the above was redrawn from a copy off the shirt). I let them keep it so I could say that my work is in the permanent collection at the Met.

And today Jean Louise Dominique Ingres would've been 228. Happy Birthday!

Update: below is the opening bit of the WSJ column. It later says, "It's no surprise to learn that the Met's T-shirt originated as a Washington Post cartoon." But does it mention my name? No! Ha ha, I'm glad I'm not bitter! And I only kept the article because I've been too busy to throw it away.

Oops

I forgot to draw a balloon around the words "adult swim" in today's strip. It doesn'st kill it or spoil the joke, but it would've looked sharper to have the words tethered by a balloon. It'd have added more oomph & direction & organic flow & stuff like that.
And I know how it happened. I lettered "adult swim" last, with a Speedball B-3 nib, and the ink was taking forever to dry, and I thought "I'll add the balloon later, after the ink's dried", and I never did.

Handshake

This is for a story in the most recent Atlantic Monthly, just now hitting the newsstands. The article is about bipartisanship; which candidate is most capable of dealing with the other side, and is dealing with the other side still possible? The author, Ronald Brownstein, isn't real optimistic, especially as the campaigns hit the downhill slide into election day and their rhetoric gets more toxic.
I like this drawing ok, it's nice and simple, and it's not often you get to do caricatures of presidential candidates with Mickey Mouse gloves.

Today's Poor Almanack

For a while I've had the idea to do a cartoon about that sound that's used in political attack ads to describe how unsuitable the Other Guy is for elective office. You know, that deep, dark chord like somebody putting both arms down on a piano keyboard, only it's enhanced and overtoned and uglified until it sounds utterly depraved. The TV screen ges darker, the announcer's voice gets ominous, they show a photo of the Other Guy, and you hear this BWRRAANNNGG. And if you're susceptible you don't vote for the other guy.
They've been using that sound for a while, years and years I'd guess. And I've never really heard any comment on it anywhere. So I did this cartoon, which only says part of what I wanted to say, or only says it badly. What I really needed was some kind of chip to actually make the noise, or a better onomatopoetic spelling, or just a better idea to start with.

Petey Buys Some Pants

It's almost Back to School time here in Arlington County, where most schools let out late for the summer and starts up right after Labor Day. And time to buy new pants. This is from a few years ago and, once again, torn from the pages of the Cul de Sac book.

Adrenaland

Long as we're talking about places of enforced mass fun, can I bring up amusement parks? I have a love/hate relationship wih them. I love going to them, mostly for people-watching and fried food, but I really hate rides, unless they're "amusing" rather than "thrilling". We've got four or five parks within driving distance, spread between Hershey Park to the north and KIng's Dominion to the south, and we hit one of them once a year, maybe. We're evenly divided in our interests; my older daughter and I stay on the ground, my wife and younger daughter get on the rides.
I've only been to the Grand Behemoth of amusement parks, Disney World, twice. Once eight years ago with my family and in-laws, and that was a lot of fun, and once, when I was about 25 with some friends, and that was ridiculous, though fun. Both times it was around Thanksgiving, and when we went as a family it was so crowded you couldn't swing a mouse, never mind a cat. But when I went with friends in the early 80s Disney World was, well, not empty, but pretty sparsely attended, so much so that when we got on the Jungle Cruise Ride, it was just the five of us and the tour guide in the little boat.
The tour guide was only slightly younger than us, and we gave him a hard time and kidded around with him because he wouldn't deviate from his script. I don't remember if he actually told the "my mother irons and my father steals" joke, but most of his patter was from one of Henny Youngman's older routines, like he'd been given a list of acceptable jokes that were approved back around 1928.
Finally one of us, probably Dana, was asking the poor guy what it was like working for Disney and his Tour Guide facade cracked. He said (and I'm paraphrasing from memory), "We get an hour break in the employee lounge and the employee lounge is RIGHT NEXT to the Tiki Room, and you go in there and try to relax and you hear this 'Tiki Tiki Tiki' coming through the walls the whole time". I don't know if you've ever seen the Tiki Room, but it's kind of a big nervous breakdown in animatronic form and the thought of these beleagured Disneyites trying to get some R&R anywhere in its vicinity was almost too much to bear. I think we all said wow that's rough, and slapped him on the back or something. But anyway, he shook himself and returned to his Tour Guide duties and when he emptied his pistol blanks into the rubber hippo I think he was mentally taking aim at the damn birds in the Tiki Room.
So like I said, I go to amusement parks to people-watch. Extreme conditions always bring out the most interesting responses. And unrelatedly, the tangle of rollercoasters in the second panel was maybe the most fun thing I've ever gotten to draw.