Tom Spurgeon

Tom Spurgeon writes entertaining, wise and funny posts every day that covers every inch of the wide world of comics. Today, though, he writes at length about something very personal and scary. Here too he's wise and funny and even gently profound in an essay that deals with mortality, his comic collection, the working life and, somehow, the Green Lantern movie.

Today's Cul de Sac, August 14 2011

Ernesto has been barricading himself in a carrel fort in a remote corner of the library for several summers now though this is the first time he's felt compelled to explain why he'd need to. This Sunday strip is the remnant of a string of dailies featuring Ernesto's latest decline and fall. This time he was caught by the Future Adults of America appropriating a box of doughnuts meant for fund-raising and subsequently kicked out. I think he started a competing group but I forget what it was called.

The origami jumping frog is a real thing, even if Ernesto possibly isn't. I like them so much I included one in the first published drawing of Alice (below), though they don't really look much like that. My wife can make them. She used to carry origami paper in her purse and would sometimes make things at an odd time, like when waiting for food in a restaurant. Then we'd all try to make the frogs  jump into someone else's drink glass.

National Book Festival

The Library of Congress has graciously invited me to participate in the National Book Festival, to be held this September 24th and 25th on the National Mall. I'll be joining hundreds of authors like Dave Eggers, Tomie dePaola, Rita Dove, Sherman Alexie, Jonathan Yardley and David McCullough at the dust-choked midway of gaudy tents and stands lining the Mall. There'll be diversions and games of skill galore, like Whack-A-Motif, Dunk an Unreliable Narrator, Guess-Your-Weltanschauung and Skee Ball plus greasy food on a stick, so come on down for two whole days of literary fun!

Seriously, I'm tickled!

Corey Pandolph Steps Up When Thompson Flubs It

The ever-reliable madcap polymath Corey Pandolph generously invites a few CdS characters into The Elderberries for a whole week.

This Week's Cul de Sac, August 1 Through 7, 2011

Here's a whole, solid, brand-new week of Cul de Sacs along with some unnecessary commentary. Last summer Cartoon Camp was taught by Dan Spinnerack (below)

 But this year I wanted someone new, though it might upset some, like Pete(y).

I think I redrew him a dozen times trying to find the right guy.

In his earliest, larval stage he resembled the cartoonist Seth (below) if he was played by an anemic Johnny Depp. I didn't think the public was ready for that quite yet.

Casting the right guy for a part in a comic strip is important. It can be fun, if the right guy shows up, but if he doesn't you have to keep looking till you find him. I wanted someone who looked like he could possibly be related to Dan Spinnerack. Beyond that I wasn't sure. One role that I've always been proud of casting was the bit part of the Fed-UPS driver who gave Mr.Danders a lift back in 2006 -

I keep hoping to work with him again, but the opportunity hasn't presented itself.

After redrawing him a dozen times I eventually I found his face, got him dressed and named him. Six months of touring historic cartoon sites would barely scratch the surface of the Buckeye State's offerings (Ohio license plates bear the motto "Incubator of Cartoonists").

I like the idea of a daily diary comic. Those who do it well make lively, interesting comics out of unexpected choices and juxtapositions of the quotidian. I'm not sure that makes sense; just go read everything by Dustin Harbin and you'll be the richer for it. 

Really I just wanted the kids to have something different to do at Cartoon Camp this year and this seemed like a good direction to wander off on. Andre, Pete and Loris should each respond to it in some amusing way, I hope.

Although Pete might get too tightly focused on the boring, dull and uneventful part and produce a sluggish comic. This can drag a comic strip down and scare away readers, as I'm slowly realizing.

I've never heard windshield wipers say "Wipey". Those on my first car, an '82 Sunbird, went HIRNK-HORNK, but that sounds too much like an oboe onomatopoeia and I don't want to confuse people.

The next week of Cul de Sac is all repeats I'm sorry to say.

Hey, Kids! Unrelated Cicada Comics

I'm happy to hear that 13-year Cicadas are popping up in the South and Midwest, because coincidentally I just scanned some old Poor Almanacs. They all date from 2004, when the most recent infestation of the 17-year variety erupted in the East.

 And here's an early CdS with a cicada theme. it was redone for syndication and reused a month or so ago.  Who knew cicadas were such comedy goldmines? I hope they come back more often!

Today's Cul de Sac, July 27 & 28 2011

Originally I was going to have Camp Blisshaven be a craft camp where kids would make knicknacks and. tchotchkes and other hard-to-spell-things. But I changed it at the 10th hour, which is 60 minutes before the 11th hour, which is when most such important decisions are made. Please note the small injoke that I got a little wrong; the comedy & tragedy masks are based on the Andrews & McMeel logo. The goofier GoComics logo would've been more appropriate.

Theater camp was such an obvious and inevitable choice for Camp Blisshaven, not only for the ripe opportunity for small-kid comedy that it offers, but also for more sentimental reasons. My wife Amy  has worked in theater with kids for quite a few years, starting with my daughters' elementary school, which has a Shakespeare program for fifth graders. The kids spend half the school year working on a Shakespeare play, sometimes a comedy, sometimes a tragedy. It's a cut-down half-hour version with multiple casting, several to a part in the big rolls. The first time we saw a production, when my older daughter was in kindergarten, they did Romeo & Juliet. We didn't know quite what to expect.

A few minutes into the play I was almost suffocating with laughter, and some other emotion that I'm not sure what to call; awed delight, maybe, that peaked during Mercutio's death scene ("A plague on both your houses") after a hugely energetic sword fight. When I was in school we didn't touch Shakespeare till 9th grade, when we read Richard III in English class and looked confused.  But these fifth graders were giving a passionate, lively performance, made irresistibly funny by the fact that they were fifth graders. Also, all of the Juliets were about a foot taller than all the Romeos. It always takes me a few minutes or longer to get into the rhythm of a Shakespeare play, but I remember picking up on this Romeo & Juliet right away. Maybe the brevity of the production helped.

Anyway, Amy started volunteering to help run the production a few years later and got pretty intensively involved. One of the more glamorous skills offered in the program is stage combat, taught by a professional stage combat artist, where the kids learn how to fall, swordplay, do fake hairpulls and other vital life skills. There's even a production stuntman, a kid-size doll Amy made that gets tossed around and man-handled, and spends its offstage life on a chair in our living room. In the last 3 or 4 years Amy's been working at various after-school and summer theater camps too, and my older daughter's first summer job was assisting at one of them.

Surrounded as I am by theater folk, it's inevitable that some of it leaks into the strip. And I didn't even mention that my brother has been the master sound designer at Arena Stage in DC for almost 20 years.

Today's Cul de Sac, July 24 2011

I've done a few Alice-in-the-shrub cartoons and each time I think they'll be easy to draw. Alice sitting amid a mass of leaves, what's difficult about that? But somehow each time I end up getting into the leaf-scribbling a little too intensely and I have to back off and use white to loosen things up and undensify the texture. Next time I'll either use a fatter nib or stand three feet away.

 

Stuff for Sale at Team Cul de Sac!

The following is a post from our brother blog, Team Cul de Sac, which is ably helmed by Mr. Chris Sparks. Take it away, Chris-

Team Cul de Sac Print

This is our limited edition Portfolio 11" x 13.06" print. Signed by Richard Thompson and numbered by the one and only Mike Rhode. This is limited to 25 prints. All proceeds (including any extra shipping charges) will go to Team Cul de Sac. We will be picking prints at random as they are ordered.

The prints are $50.00 each and $15.00 shipping.
I ( Chris Sparks) will also be more than happy to sign the prints.

Team Cul de Sac Fanzine

Above is the Richard Thompson-drawn cover to FAVORITES, a home-grown zine where notable comics critics, artists and bloggers write their individual answers to a single question: “What is my favorite comic, and why?” For an excerpt, see here.

The contributors are an all-star line-up: Derik Badman, Noah Berlatsky, Alex Boney, David Bordwell, Matthew J. Brady, Scott Bukatman, Johanna Draper Carlson, Isaac Cates, Rob Clough, Corey Creekmur, Andrew Farago, Shaenon Garrity, Dustin Harbin, Charles Hatfield, Jeet Heer, Gene Kannenberg Jr., Abhay Khosla, Susan Kirtley, Sean Kleefeld, Costa Koutsoutis, Andrew Mansell, Robert Stanley Martin, Chris Mautner, Joe McCulloch, Ana Merino, Mike Rhode, Jim Rugg, Frank Santoro, Chris Schweizer, Caroline Small, Tom Spurgeon, Ben Towle and Matthias Wivel.

FAVORITES is 40 pages long, and can be ordered via the PayPal button below. The cost is $5.00 plus $1.25 shipping and handling. (All the money that isn’t spent on envelopes and postage will go to Team Cul de Sac, and research into a cure for Parkinson’s disease.) Thank you for your support!

I hope you don't think this place is turning into some kinda rag and bone shop, pushing books (that Amazon sale is still on!) and art and such. We offer only the most select rags and bones. and all for a good cause. Namely, to bring high-quality cartoon entertainment to you, the discerning consumer of high-quality cartoon entertainment!

Today's Cul de Sac for Yesterday

I'd forgotten all about this Sunday strip. Not because I did it so long ago; it was probably drawn only a matter of hours ago. But I did get a nice surprise when it showed up, which doesn't often happen. Usually it's more a feeling of weary recognition, like, oh, you're that one, I'd forgotten about you, you  used to be funny, when did you get so worn-out looking.

This one I like just fine. It's simple enough that I could draw it half-asleep, and probably did. But it's got enough complexity to hold its own and opens the door for further elaboration in future strips. And further elaboration is something that anyone who draws a cartoon every day is always on the lookout for.

More Savings Galore

And now the first Cul de Sac book is only $5.07 on Amazon! Is 507 a prime number? Who picks these prices anyway?

Amazon Sale!

Cul de Sac Golden Treasury a Garland of Classics is only $6.80 on Amazon! Wowee, somebody's losing money on this crazy sale!

Today's Cul de Sac, July 5 2011

Alice has a small history of putting together guidebooks (badgers), but this was mostly an excuse to use a music staff nib to draw something. In this case, water. These nibs aren't hard to find (Barnes & Noble has some in their stationery section) but they're of kind of limited value, unless you want to draw something five times at once. Or line a music staff, if people do that anymore. The nib looks like this-

and it can be a bugger to get all five nibs firing simultaneously. Usually getting just one to behave is all I ask.

Today's Cul de Sac

And while there's time, here's today's strip. Hey, look at that crosshatching, huh? Somebody must have time on his hands to monkey around with that stuff. Though it looks like he hasn't had a new idea in two years.

Fourth of July

Quick, while it's still the Fourth of July, here's an old Cul de Sac from July 2, 2006.

 

 

Today's Cul de Sac for the Last Week or So

We seem to have lost track of what's going on for the last month or two (and this isn't even today's Cul de Sac). Let's partially rectify this by cramming a week's-plus of daily strips into one belated post.

I've got to admit that when I drew this I wasn't too sure what would happen next, or how it would end.

When in doubt on this strip, it usually helps to add Dill.

But here Dill is not of much help.

In fact, he's no help whatsoever. Though his demented wasp bit was fun to draw. it's always good to drop in a little showstopper like this during the week. And lets throw in some more characters.

As some may recall, Alice got a bit of a crush on Andre when they first met last summer

So she's ready to be impressed. And Dill's not ready for anything.

I gave a talk at Heroescon in early June and I mentioned something I figured out about Petey, Andre and Loris during their cartoon camp last summer. Petey's a comic by Chris Ware, Andre's a comic by Jack Kirby and Loris is manga. I had a hard time here not expanding on Andre's warning, like "Great will be my wrath! So says Andre!" and stuff like that. Fortunately I ran out of room.

And Petey comes to a conclusion just in time to miss the whole epic adventure.

Ice Cream on Sunday Again

As today's strip is a repeat, this post is too.

This is the original, slightly different, version of today's Cul de Sac (you'll note I changed Britons to Picts in today's strip for increased historical accuracy). This is drawn from life, as we have a Baskin & Robbins about three blocks from the house, and I've never been able to eat an ice cream cone neatly. I can recall eating an ice cream cone once when I was about six and having my usual trouble with it, and hearing my aunt say to my mom, "How'd he get it in his socks?" It's a skill I've passed on in varying degrees to both my daughters.


Another thing I've always had trouble with is drawing food. When I try to draw it, I end up with a mass of lumps colored brown or green, with red specks. But I do like this drawing of an ice cream cone, drawn for the Diabetes Association about 20 years ago. I like the lumpiness of the background and the textures in the ice cream (pistachio?). I wouldn't care to eat that cone, as I'd probably drop it and kill myself, but also because I'm just not a huge ice cream fan. Usually about halfway through eating it I get bored with it and give it to somebody else. Now pie, that I'll fight you for.

Happy Birthday, Chris Sparks

This is a desk at Andrews & McMeel in Kansas City MO,  and mostly obscured behind that pile of packages is Caty Neis, who works at that desk. Caty's editing the Team Cul de Sac book, a project launched by my friend Chris Sparks, whose birthday is today.

I met Chris mostly by accident at the Charlotte Heroescon in 2008, when he kinda blundered into a room where Tom Spurgeon and I were giving a talk. For scheduling reasons, the rooms had been switched around among the various panels and discussions on the top floor of the Charlotte Convention Center, and our talk was moved into a larger room so all 7 of the attendees could have their own section of 40 chairs or so to sprawl out in. Chris came in a few minutes into the talk, looked around and asked me What do you do? I must have given the right answer because we became good friends, practically family, and when he heard about my Parkinson's deal he decided to take on a project with a goal that'd make a difference.

I've met some interesting and excellent people in the last four or five years and that's the part of this side of the comics business I've enjoyed the most. Few have blundered into my life so gracefully as Chris, and I'm glad he did.

At the Reubens from left to right, me, Caty Neis, John McMeel, Chris Sparks.

Today's Cul de Sac, June 19 2011

For those who can't see it on GoComics, here's today's strip. Kids looking at clouds is one of those little comic strip conventions that pops up now and then because clouds are funny, at least when they look like something else. And people daydreaming out loud is always funny.

Happy Early Bloomsday!

This is an old and lost Poor Almanac from 2004 that was scanned off a newspaper and sent to me by Steve Dutky, who hoped I could find the original. I couldn't, so here's Steve's scan cropped down a little. It's the best I could do and feel free to replace "the Clinton book" with something more timely. So Happy Bloomsday!

My Favorite Part of HeroesCon

These are cookies commissioned and provided by Kathy Parham, ingenious wife of the illustrious Craig Fischer. After dinner on Friday night Craig said they had a surprise dessert planned and took us up to their hotel room then sprang these masterpieces, made by Leila Jackson of Sweet Creatures Bakeshop, on us. I got Mr. Otterloop.

Craig was the moving force behind Favorites, a fanzine that consists of essays written by comics critics, artists and bloggers about their most cherished comic strips, comic books and graphic novels. It debuted at HeroesCon and sells for $5, every penny of which goes to Parkinson's research. Some fine family, those Fischers.

Something to Make You Happy

I know it makes me happy. By the wonderful Karl Kesel. Who'll also be in Charlotte.