Andertoons Cartoon Blog

Andertoons Company Holiday

I'm taking the day off today.

Three years ago to the day, I quit my day job and became a cartoonist/stay-at-home dad full time.

It's been a wonderful three years, and I'd like to thank everyone – clients, vendors, friends & family – for making it all possible.

See ya tomorrow!

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Again with the Forbes!

I'm in the November 13 issue of Forbes. I could get really used to this...

(Almost forgot! Here's the cartoon!)

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Apple Cherry Pie

This is on my kitchen counter as we speak.

If you're not married to my wife today, I pity you.

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Mauldin Exhibit & a Scolding for the Trib

There's a nice piece in today's Chicago Tribune Magazine about Bill Mauldin.

There are so many great cartoonists past and present I have yet to delve into, and, sadly, Mauldin is still on my to-do list.

The good news is I there's an exhibit of his work right here in Chi-town until the end of the year! It's so rare that something like this is close to me that I'm positively giddy about it!

At the end of the Tribune piece, there's a little thing that disturbs me, however:

The Chicago Tribune currently has no full-time editorial cartoonist on staff, not since the great Jeff MacNelly died at 52 in 2000. I showed some of Mauldin's work to editorial page editor Bruce Dold. He smiled and said, "They don't make 'em like MacNelly and Mauldin anymore."

Would he hire Mauldin if he walked in the door today?

"In a second," said Dold. "In a second."

A note to the Trib:

While another Mauldin or MacNelly might never be, it shouldn't take you six years to find another vital cartoon voice.

MacNelly left some big shoes to fill, but maybe we can find someone who can stuff some newspaper in the toes for a while?

Trib, baby, you know I love ya, but come on. You owe it to the cartoonists that helped make you great to get off your duff and hire someone already.

Technorati Tags: cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons, editorial cartoons, magazines, original art

I Love It When You Speak French!

Tom Richmond's Batsuit blog got me thinking...

If you could dress up as one cartoon/comic character for Halloween, who would it be?

And don't hold back – we don't have to have the costume be practical or economical or, heck, even adhere to the laws of physics!

I'll get things started.

I'd love to be Addams' Gomez. Not the John Astin Gomez...

...and certainly not the Raul Julia Gomez...

but an honest to goodness Addams Gomez:

OK, everyone, now it's your turn. Who would you want to be?

(BTW, I simply MUST get one of these t-shirts!)

Technorati Tags: cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons, Halloween

Follow That Cartoon (Part 6)

Welcome back to Follow That Cartoon! A series of entries in which I track the creation, submission, and, hopefully, the sale of this cartoon:

OK, it's been a while since my last entry, so let's get caught up.

As you might remember this was rejected by Reader's Digest, but it's difficult to complain considering I have two in their November issue.

I did end up sending this to Harvard Business Review toward the end of August, but it's been two months with no reply one way or another.

To be fair, there was a change in cartoon staff, and often it takes a bit to come to grips with the stacks and stacks of cartoons coming in. But I think 60 days is enough time for me to officially send it elsewhere.

Who's the next lucky recipient you ask? Why my good friends at Good Housekeeping!

I put it on the top of the stack too!

I'll letcha know what I hear...

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School Cartoon in Commonweal

Hey, just a heads up that I was in the October 20th issue of Commonweal!

Here's the cartoon:

This is a really really early cartoon of mine. In fact, in my inventory numbering system, it's number four. Yeesh!

Just for fun, here's a similar, more recent, cartoon in both caption and art to compare:

In the first you can see that I used a ruler for the chalkboard. Anymore I don't really worry about straight. I like the character of my slightly askew and wiggly lines much better. Plus it's a heck of a lot faster!

Also, in the first you can see the chalkboard was blackened entirely by hand. Not in the more recent – that's all Photoshop CS2!

The writing on the first board? White pencil. The second? Reversed in Photoshop.

I'm not sure when I gave up on the Charlie Chaplin splayed feet, as seen in #1. But I think you'll agree that #2 looks a lot more natural.

There's more to critique, I'm sure, but I think I can sum it with this – I've come a long way, baby!

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Like Father...

This morning my three-year-old son and I were drawing monsters for Halloween while the baby napped.

Here's mine:

And here's his:

Honestly, I think I like his better!

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Cartoon Cars

So last week my wife's car decided it'd had enough. But money pit though it had become, I'm kinda gonna miss our old '99 Olds Intrigue.

I've said before that I hate drawing cars. There's something about the lines and the angles that, if not done properly, really stick out as amateurish in the final product.

The Olds was a good one for reference because it was just sort of an everyday nothing special kind of car:

See? Honestly, unless I told you it was an Olds, it could be pretty much anything.

Here's one of the cartoons in which I used it for reference.

Here's the new car:

It's an '07 Honda Civic. Still pretty nondescript. I'll lethca know when it makes its way into its first cartoon.

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Andertoons.com Is Back Online

Huzzah, hooray, and... um... huzzah. Again. (ahem...)

Anyway, a big BIG thanks to my dedicated web guys who worked all weekend to get everyone's favorite cartoon website back up and running!

Also, a gigantic thanks to everyone out there who uses the daily cartoons, RSS feeds, cartoon emails and whatnot... I've gotten a ton of supportive and encouraging emails! Thanks so much for your patience and understanding!

Word is we've moved to a much more robust server/host that should alleviate problems like this in the future. I'll give you more details as I get them.

There are a few little bugs with the site:

1. My email is still in limbo, so if you need to get ahold of me, check this post out
2. Although the shopping portion of the site is secure, there's some SSL cert issues to iron out. No biggie.
3. A few thumbnail/larger image issues. Honestly, I'd doubt you'll notice them.

That's about it though.

So, I'm gonna take some more time and really go over the site with a fine toothed HTML comb, and I'd appreciate if anyone out there sees any glaring errors or issues to let me know.

Whew... It's good to be back...

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