Well‚ belated birthday. This blog began seven years ago yesterday (I would have posted then, but it was “Sketch o’the Week” Day!). Over 5.7 million page views (best day ever: 22,199 views), 2,570 total posts, over 9,300 comments, 343 Sunday Mailbag questions answered, 344 Sketches o’the Week posted. We laughed. We cried. I procrastinated on freelance jobs. It’s been fun. Thanks for visiting. READ MORE
I received this email from Amazon.com the other day: We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to notify you that your Associates account will be closed and your Amazon Services LLC Associates Program Operating Agreement will be terminated effective June 30, 2013. This is a direct result of the unconstitutional Minnesota state tax collection legislation passed by the state legislature and signed by Governor Dayton on May 23, 2013, with an effective date of July 1, 2013. As a result, we will no longer pay any advertising fees for customers referred to an Amazon Site after June 30 nor will we accept new applications… READ MORE
The above part of an old MAD piece featuring actor James Gandolfini, who unexpectedly passed away yesterday. What a terrible shame, at 51 he should have had many years of thrilling audiences with his fantastic talent. I drew Gandolfini many times in MAD, including “A MAD Peek Behind the Scenes on the Set of the Sopranos” in MAD 422, “America’s Next Top Mobster” in MAD 482, and a MAD 20 piece in issue 485 where we showed a number of different, and better, ways “The Sopranos” should have ended. Here’s a few of those in tribute to James Gandolfini: The Gallagher Ending The Newhart Ending… READ MORE
I took my three youngest kids to see Man of Steel over Father’s day weekend. Overall, I liked the film quite a bit. I was a little surprised at the volume of angry fanboy reaction online… most seemed to think Christopher Nolan and Zack Synder missed the boat on the character. I read some comments saying Superman was a “homicidal monster”, “soulless” and that there was “no character development”. They must have been watching a different movie than the one I saw. SPOILER ALERT!! I cannot examine the character decisions at the root of this film without revealing major plot moments, since they define the… READ MORE
I’m just getting caught up now a week after getting home from the action-packed whirlwind that is the National Cartoonists Society’s annual Reuben Award Weekend. . . actually almost a whole week for The Lovely Anna and I. It is three days of fun, parties, great speakers, great events, and lots of time to catch up with old friends as well as meet many new ones. It’s just a great time, and always cool to meet many of your heroes of cartooning and find them to be the nicest, most approachable people in the world. Two things I have to mention off the bat is… READ MORE
The Lovely Anna and the Animated Elizabeth at Walt Disney World Bear with me for the set-up to this, because it needs it. Frequent readers of my blog probably know that my oldest child, Elizabeth (23) is autistic…and not the kind of autism where you go to college, write books, appear on “America’s Top Model” or get “cured” by Jenny McCarthy and a gluten-free diet. Elizabeth has the rocking back and forth, hand-flapping, struggling with simple communication type autism. In other words, she won’t be going to college, getting married, having kids or living a “normal” life. She’ll be with us until she or we… READ MORE
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0uTb3HlfFM[/youtube] The Reuben Awards show is one of the highlights of the weekend, and this year emcee Jason Chatfield knocked it out of the park with some extra fun from Tom Gammill and company. Unfortunately it’s hard to see on the video but on those three boards in the back Jason “draws” caricatures of Reuben nominees Rick Kirkman, Stephen Pastis and Brian Crane (via projector magic) and the drawings proceed to sing along with him and heckle him a bit with some fun animations. Very inventive bit. READ MORE
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