Making some changes

I have decided to make some changes. I will not be publishing Tomversation daily anymore. I think I need to go into another direction, namely, to find a home for Tomversation, where I can get the readers I need. I also need to stop giving away the milk for free, you know, I need to be paid for my work. I work and work to publish daily, but only a handful of people see the work. I have to change that.

So as I pursue other directions, I'll still blog here, but the daily cartoons will not be there. I will publish at The Huffington Post and Open Salon and various other places when I have a cartoon that I feel is worthy, but as for daily publication, I need to work on something else regarding that.

I'll be in touch through this blog, but I have some ideas up my sleeve, some ideas that may save the cartooning industry as the newspaper industry dies off. Which it seems to be doing to itself, simply by not playing up to younger readers and catering to their older readers, who are dying off. So as the readers die off, so do the newspapers little by little. The newspapers and syndicates don't seem to be doing anything to engage younger people who prefer to get their news and entertainment digitally, but what do I know?

What I do know is that I am going to work on some projects that cater to the youth of our world since that seems to be the sensible thing to do.

A visit from a friend

See this little guy? He joined my friends and I for lunch yesterday. It was very mystical. A few years ago I had a white dove land outside my office window and sit there for about 12 hours. He arrived about 11 am and disappeared about 11 pm. I saw this as some sign of peace, prosperity, good luck or something like that.

Yesterday, I was with friends for lunch on Lincoln Road in South Beach. We ordered lunch at the Van Dyke Cafe and before the bird arrived at our table, we had a weird thing happen -- my friend John's iced tea fell over, only it didn't fall all the way over. It literally stopped in mid air like at a 45 degree angle, and then righted itself up! There were three of us there and we all witnessed it!

Picture it, John wasn't even touching the glass, he went to grab it to take a drink and as he got close, the glass leaned over, as if to fall over, as if pushed. Then just as easily as it "fell over" it righted itself up! Some unforeseen force did that.

Right after that, this little bird came over. He jumped onto the back of the chair next to me and he stayed there for almost our whole meal. He left for a bit, maybe five minutes, and then returned. But for the whole hour or so that we were there, he was there. He wasn't looking for food, I don't think, as he never went for any crumbs or any of the food near or on the table. He just was there. Sitting, enjoying our company.

I saw this as a sign, similar to the white dove's visit a few years back. I don't know what it meant, but it was comforting. I know that I read somewhere that for Gemini's (I'm one, it was my birthday the other day), there is a "big shift coming," which started on May 20. So I see this visit from the bird related to that.

We'll see.

Multiple "Personalities"

I've started a little project called "Personalities." They are small cartoon icons of people doing their thing -- usually their profession. I had the idea about a year ago, I had used little icons of myself on business cards to make them stand out and thought they would be cool for everyone.

The Personalities can be used for business cards, stationery and even Facebook and Twitter icons, which I notice that many people seem to be doing with them.

The little guy at the drawing table is me. The fashionista below is my friend Gigi, with her ubiquitous cell phone and animal print dress, and the big sunglasses and bangs give her away, if you know her.

These are not caricatures, which can easily be made with computer programs, they are icons, which capture the essence of the person and their career. The faces are generic, but you can still know who the person is when they use the icon on their personal social media or printing.

Personalities are only $19.99 ea, I ask for details on a form, i.e. hair color, sex, profession, you know, things that will help me in creating the image. Sales have been consistent and people seem to love seeing themselves as the little icons.
More details on Personalities here: www.tomfalco.com/personalities.htm  

Stealing their newspaper but didn't know it

I realized today that I have been taking one of my neighbors' New York Times on Sundays for the past month or so. I didn't realize we had a #203 in our building. Sometimes they leave extra papers and I thought that is what the paper was since it would always be laying there at the end of the day without anyone claiming it.

Strange since we only have 14 units in the building and I was the president for six years, so you would think I would know if we had a unit #203 or not. It's all the way at the front, away from the rest of the units. Now I know. I'll have to go out and buy the NYT now.

My new favorite thing (this week)

Have you tried this new Philadelphia Indulgence chocolate cream cheese? It's my new favorite thing.

I think you're supposed to eat it with strawberries and things like that but I just eat it with the spoon, right out of the container. It's rich, so I eat maybe one tablespoon at a sitting, I don't eat the whole thing at once.

I think it would be perfect as the makings in a chocolate cheesecake. But right out of the container is ok with me.

Doodle.ly likes me

The website, Doodle.ly, where you can actually doodle online, likes my doodles. They featured me in their weekly Spotlight this week here. Below is one of my doodles.

Adele redo

This is the cartoon running today, the Adele redo because the last time it ran, it was a bit confusing. I think it is a bit clearer now, what I wanted to say.

I think people aren't getting the joke

This cartoon ran right after the Grammy Awards last weekend and there was not much of a response. I usually get something from people, thumbs up, groans, etc. But the reaction was silence. I think people don't get what "showing off her chops" means, and it could mean that I am saying that Adele is fat, when in reality, I think she is perfect just the way she is.

When someone "shows off their chops," it means they are some hell of a singer. For instance this story in Idol Chatter in USA Today is headlined, "Haley Reinhart shows off her vocal chops."

What I was trying to say in the cartoon is that Lady Gaga, while having an incredible voice, seems to need gimics, while Adele just uses her voice and in the end, she won six awards that night, while Gaga went home awardless. It just happend that Gaga wore actual chops at one awards ceremony in the past and I thought the pun would work.

I hate when I have to explain cartoons, I don't mind at times when people don't get it, but when the majority don't get it and it comes out as an insult, that ain't good. I'll be more conscious of that in the future.

Bad move from NYT regarding editorial cartoonists

It's bad enough that The New York Times has never run a daily comics page, now they have decided to run original editorial cartoons in their Sunday Review section, only they expect the cartoonists to basically work for free and on top of that, they want them to basically have a cartooning contest each week for the open slot(s). Before this, they just picked up syndicated material.

Shame on The New York Times. Why are cartoonists always treated like they are nothing? In the early days of comics, cartoonists were the movie stars of their day. How the mighty have fallen.

More on the New York Times' plan here in The Mad Blog.

Last April, The Village Voice ran a Comics Issue and did not pay the cartoonists until there were many complaints and then they decided to do the right thing.

A friend asked me to do a comic for some local festivals, she never did offer me money and I never spoke about money. I may be part of the problem. I should speak up today and inform her that my services are not free, just like she is paid for producing the festivals, I should be paid for producing comics.

My old friend Arnold; and I don't mean Ziffel

I was searching for something on Google and as is usually the case, something else popped up. I wasn't even looking for anything comic strip related but an old friend from the 1980s popped up -- Arnold!

Arnold was a comic strip, by Kevin McCormick, that ran from 1982 to 1988, I used to read it daily in The Miami Herald, but I had completely forgotten about it. Arnold has to be one of my all time favorite comic stips.

The strip consisted of big nosed, paranoid Arnold and Tommy, his best friend, the third character was Mr. Lester, the teacher. While there were other characters, you never saw them. Arnold was known to yell out AIEEE! at any given moment and this always made me laugh. I guess AIEEE! was his catch phrase, when I think about it.

Arnold was a bit dark and strange (the boy and the strip), but I found it so hilarious and I was so thrilled to see it while searching Google. Two of the Sunday strips are here (please click on them for larger versions) and you can see many more samples in black and white and Sunday color here and here.

I actually remember this top one from when it first ran in 1985. For some reason when I read it, I could clearly remember it from way back. You either hated the Arnold comic strip or loved it. I loved it. I still do.