Mary Z. Gray

This is my friend Mary Z. Gray on a video from the Washington Post site. My dad worked with Mary on the President's Committee on Mental Retardation back in the 60s and 70s. In 1982, after Mary had become a crack freelancer of humor and travel pieces, she sold a story to the Washington Post Style section and sent along a drawing I did with it. The Post published the story, which wasn't unusual, they'd run Mary's stuff for some time, but they ran the drawing too, thus inadvertently launching my dubious career.


In the video Mary, who's one of the funniest raconteurs I know, talks quite movingly about growing up on Capitol Hill and living above her father's funeral parlor. I'd heard her talk about this before, but never known the address of her old residence. Reading the interview in today's Post Metro section. I turned to B8 at the jump and there was a photo of the house's current incarnation. It's now the Haskell Center, part of the Folger Shakespeare Library where my wife works as a docent.

The full interview with Mary is here

Poll at Comic Riffs

There's a poll over at Mike Cavna's Comic Riffs blog about Cul de Sac's placement in the Sunday Post. My official position is, as long as they keep it away from the obituaries and the tire ads. I'm satisfied.

Mail

In the Great Computer Crash of Aught-9 we lost most all of our old emails and a good chunk of our addresses. If I owe you an email you might want to send me a new one, or send one just to remind me of your address. Emails that include cathartic or uplifting jokes will, of course, receive priority.

AAUUUGH

Our computer just died, after spitting out steam and giant bedsprings. Amy says it doesn't seem able to locate its own hard drive (and it's sitting right there, plain as day). We may have to wipe it and start all over. Or drop it from a height, which'd be more emotionally satisfying. This is being typed on the laptop, which feels flimsy and toy-like.

ABOVE IMAGE SWIPED FROM SOMEONE ELSE'S UNSUSPECTING BLOG

Our Annual Plea

This is a repeat of a post from two years 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.

Defending the Indefensible

On today's Comic Riffs blog, Washington Post cartoonist and editor Michael Cavna solicits comments on Cul de Sac under the heading Defend That Toon. My only comment is, I wish the guy who does Cul de Sac would learn to draw faster.

Coming Soon. Wait! It's Already Here!

October 2nd! That's Groucho Marx's birthday! And what better way to celebrate than by ordering multiple copies of Children At Play?


UPDATE- It's now available! In fact, it may be already on your shelf at home.

Today's Poor Almanack, Almost

I did this for today, Sept 26th, but it didn't make it into the paper because I forgot to tell them I'd have a  cartoon for this week until the very last minute. And I'm not exactly disappointed as this was a kind of late substitute for another related idea.

Today is the National Book Festival down on the Mall and I've done a cartoon on it several times previously, usually a foreshortened panorama with a lot of wacky details and hilarious details. Which is what I had in mind this time. Stuff like:

• Malcolm Gladwell writes a best-seller in under 15 minutes based on an  ineffable concept of your choice - $5.
• Rogue Kindle unfolds into giant robot and destroys all print.
• Something with a big-headed Dan brown
• The Librarian of Congress whatsisname goes around shushing everybody.
• Something else really funny.
• Are endpapers funny? 
• The big finish.

But it didn't really go anywhere, and not for the first time either. So here's this Dan Brown thing instead, and it's not even entirely finished . But next week- something else!

And thanks to Michael Cavna of the Washington Post, whose Comics Riffs blog post cogently explains how the Sunday Cul de Sac has migrated to the Post's Style section. We bid the Washington Post Magazine a fond farewell and thanks for the nurturing, the hospitality and for all the fish!

SPX!

Who's going to SPX 2009? I am, I am! Thanks to the driving skills and good company of the legendary Mike Rhode, I'll be attending as "Press" on Saturday. Anybody else going to be there?

UPDATE-

Agh. I didn't make it there today (Saturday). My apologies, especially to Mike Rhode, and I hope everybody had fun. Maybe tomorrow....

UPDATE 2-

Nope.

Pellonreuna

Behold the Finnish version. It will soon be translated consecutively into Icelandic, Urdu, Hobbitese, Klingon, a private language spoken by a set of poorly-socialized identical twins living in Kansas, then back into English.

Blindtofte

Blindtofte is, of course, Danish for Cul de Sac. At least, I hope it is, because that's what it says real big on the cover of the Danish version of the first book just issued by Carlsen. Who did a lovely job of not just translating but also mimicked my clumsy lettering very nicely too.

Unfortunately, this guy didn't care for it much.

The Great Race

Several Metro stations around DC have glass elevators next to or between escalators, or vice versa. I get them confused too. This ran in the Post Mag in aught-six.

Hopeful Monsters

For years I've had a small semi-obsession with Hector Berlioz, the great French Romantic composer who was pretty obsessive himself. I like his music a lot and I like his face almost more. He had a wide, sharp edged face, piercing eyes and an aquiline nose. as you can tell from the painting below by the (great French Romantic) artist Gustave Courbet (and I wonder what they chatted about during the posing sessions, like, which one was the greatest, Frenchest and most Romantic). Best of all, Berlioz had this great big crest of brick red hair, one of the great haircuts of the Romantic Period (except for this guy).

He had an eventful, triumphant and disappointing life, like most people, at least during the Romantic Period. His music was revolutionary in all kinds of ways and was received with open arms and cold shoulders. A lot of his pieces were kind of hopeful monsters; symphonies that mutate into concertos or oratorios and vice versa, and most of them tell a story.  His most famous work, the Symphonie Fantastique, tells a gruesome story of obsessive love spun out of control, and it's always struck me as being like a movie with a silly plot but really eye-popping special effects.

Whatever, he just seems like a great guy to draw. Even if, on some days (above), he bears an unfortunate resemblance to Robin Williams.

And I'm not the only one to be inspired by Berlioz's face. The above caricature is by the great, somewhat-forgotten sculptor Dantan Jeune, who, while no Daumier, nailed some of the great personages of his day. 

So, you know, lemme at him. I did this little unthinking sketch some years ago and realized, hey, that's him. I had a frame and mat that was just the right size and color for what I wanted to do; a poster-like caricature with just a few flat, bright colors and a yellow background. And with his big red crest of hair maybe my Berlioz would look a bit like the Gallic rooster, as a kind of visual pun that nobody would get but me.

After way to much fussing, this is what I ended up with. They say works of art are not finished but abandoned. I should've quit while I was ahead, but I never got ahead on this one. I love the hair, it's the best watercolor wash I ever did, 5 or 6 layers of various deep reds and maroons, all without a frisket. But somewhere along the way I got panicky on the face and background. I'd seen some of the splashed, vivid work of the painter Deloss McGraw, so I tried splashing gouache on the background, which might've killed it. I don't know. This has been sitting in a drawer for a couple of years, and I'm not sure if I like it or not. I can't find the frame and mat I had for it, so this isn't going on any wall any time soon.

This (above) is pretty close how I'm feeling about it. Which is a lot of emotional baggage for a mere caricature to carry. But like I said, I've got a small semi-obsession. This should help put things in perspective, especially as you'll note, if you watch the whole performance of the Roman Carnival Overture at the link, they've got Basil Fawlty playing tympany.

Seconded

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

Timmy Fretwork

Today's strip reveals that Miss Bliss has become engaged to banjo virtuoso Timmy Fretwork over the summer holiday. Here's Timmy Fretwork's first appearance from an October '04 Post Magazine, which I redrew three years later for the syndicated strip. Mr. Fretwork is based on about five real people.

Little Neuro & the Dragon

Everybody loves to draw dragons, and who am I to be an exception? This is the middle panel of today's strip. If I'm drawing a Sunday like this I'll often think of the central image first, then attach panels on either side, so it'll make sense. This is how the triptych painters of the Northern Renaissance did it too, though it sounds an awful lot like the tail wagging the dragon.

More Rain

Like I said, drawing rain is hard, hough this came out OK. I'm starting to think that naturalism in a comic strip is the refuge of a lazy cartoonist. It'd be more interesting if the rain was funnier.

Awkward Moment

I'd hate to be the one they're all staring at, wouldn't you? That's a lot of cynosure to be the object of (if that's right).

Apotheosis of Alice

Here's a panel from an upcoming Sunday strip. It's pretty much the whole joke, so Whoops! What a give away!

The Iceman Cometh

This is for Amy, who said the Welcome sign made her laugh (and was probably too small to see in the paper).

Crowd Scene

Here's the middle panel of today's CdS. Because if I'm going to draw 500 berzerk toddlers I'm going to show it full-sized.

Rubber Room

Here's an illustration I did for this week's New Yorker. The story's about the Rubber Rooms that the New York school department uses to stash teachers with various complaints against them, where they can stay for months or years, even till retirement. Some of the complaints lodged against them can be fairly mundane, usually involving negligence, but a few were pretty lurid. Like one who was falling down drunk in the classroom.

So this was the first rough I did, which was rejected as being too extreme. Understandably, as it's a little extreme, you know?

Here's the final from the second sketch. I cleaned it up some and photoshopped out some clutter on the desk, The size changed on the page, so they cropped it on top, mimicking the watercolor edge and lowering the word "today". Et voila, an illustration is born. Or made.

2010 Already?

Look what's available at Amazon! Tear the page off each day and store it carefully in a helium-filled tank, for a lifetime of memories!

The extra content on back of each page includes riddles, puzzles, inspiring quotes, daily facts, useful tips for all professions, your lucky numbers, first lessons in Italian, directions for constructing your own trebuchet, addresses & phone numbers of celebrities, the full text of Proust's A Remembrance of Things Past, funnier cartoons by better cartoonists and Messages from the Future supplied by John Glynn. And it's also being offered as a six-page-a-day calendar for those of you with busy lives, or who just like to waste paper.

Click on the image below for a bonus wallpaper version. 

Remembering Elvis

This continues a tradition of running this on the anniversary of his passing, though I usually forget to.

Today's Mail

The FedEx Man brought me early copies of Children At Play, courtesy of Andrews & McMeel Graphic Goddess Caty Neis. Ooh, I hope the jokes are good, 'cause I've forgotten most of them. Review to come.

The image below was scanned off the original painting for the cover. I kinda had in mind that it should look like a parody of the million or so Little Golden Books that floated around my house when I was a kid till all the pages fell out.

Tom's Greatest Dance

It's now Rankopediaed as the Best Comic Strip Ever. Here's why Tom the Dancing Bug so richly merits this vital yet meaningless distinction.

The Pool

This ran in the Post Magazine two years ago and I meant to post it during the week of pool strips (which were, of course, reruns). It's a portrait of every suburban pool I ever frequented, or even (briefly) worked at.

Today's Poor Almanack

This is the first one I've done in about a month. I might be a little out of practice.

Contingencies

While I wait for my memories of San Diego to return, here's a job I did for my friend Bono Mitchell, the Graphic Goddess. When watercolor works, it's the most satisfying medium there is (when it doesn't it's an invitation to homicide). For the ground I used one of my favorite mixes- Daniel Smith Quinacridone Burnt Orange and Grumbacher Terre Verte. The quinacridone is transparent and staining and the terre verte is opaque and sedimentary so you get lots of happy accidents while they fight it out on the paper.

As a bonus, here's a previous cover. To view the full series see this post.

My Big Fancy San Diego Comic Con Report

It was all a happy blur. It might've helped if I'd taken the time to wipe my glasses off, but that would probably have destroyed the mystery, and when you're confronted with 125.000 people, the majority of whom are dressed as Wonder Woman, mystery is what you cling to.

More to come as my memory clears.

Today's Lio

The great Mark Tatulli tells me that the second child from the left in the bottom panel is me, and I believe it because I drew cars all the time when I was a kid. The only detail that he might've gotten wrong is the name; I was called Dickie for a long time. But I'm pretty thankful he didn't use Dickie, 'cause I don't want that getting out in public, no thank you.

Today's Pearls Before Swine

Leaves me speechless with delight. especially as how I can sue for millions and retire in comfort. Thanks, Stephan!

Thank You

For all the enormously kind messages, comments & emails. I didn't mean to leave the preceding post up this long, and now I'm feeling all maudlin and insufferable, like I should be posing for a Parade Magazine cover on facing adversity. And who needs that? I won't bring all this up again unless I need a cheap excuse, like, "this cartoon would've been funnier but, ow, my Parkinson's."

I have to go to San Diego today for 5 days of sensory overload. If I can figure out how, I'll post something from there. We'll see. 

And I owe many of you emails, or worse, which are forthcoming. Meantime, if anybody's got any good jokes please leave them in the comments. 

Some News

When I started this blog two years ago with the kind urging of Mark Heath, I'd intended to pretty much stay out of it. Oh sure, I'd post work and whine about deadlines, and drivel on about pen nibs and other obsessions. But I wouldn't drag too much personal stuff into it, and I'd especially avoid photos of me (the post below and this one notwithstanding). 

That said, I'm going to bend my vague rule a bit, mostly because with this San Diego Funfest looming I feel obliged to go a little public. For the last year or so I've noticed a few odd symptoms; shakiness, hoarseness, silly walks, random clumsiness and the like. So the other day I went to see a neurologist and, after having me me jump through hoops, stand on my head and juggle chain saws, he said I've got Parkinson's. It's a pain in the fundament and it slows me down, but it hasn't really affected my drawing hand at all and it's treatable . And it could be a useful ploy in my ever-losing battle against deadlines.

That's my news and, as I said, I'm passing it along mostly because I'm gong to be more sociable in the next week. And if I drop the chain saw in the middle of a presentation I want you to know why.