My idea for the newspapers

I have an idea for the New York Times. I haven't approached them, and I know they don't run comics, but I see three general interest single panel comics stretching across the bottom of one page on a daily basis, maybe Monday through Friday in the general news section, Section A. I see myself as one of the cartoonists and Tomversation as being one of the comics. I think each one would be 3 inches square stripped across the bottom of a page, they would run in full color and three of us would fill that space daily, me and two other cartoonists.

I think it would be new, unique and cool and something that they had not done before.

I'm always talking with the Miami Herald about being published daily, their main concern is dropping comics. That is their biggest headache. That is the biggest headache for most daily newspapers - dropping one comic for another comic. They don't want to upset a handful of readers. I think they are depriving most of the readers of something new and fresh and probably better and funnier, but that handful of readers (read three) are the ones dictating what is printed on the comics pages. My goal is to change that.

Anyway, I'm just putting this out there into The Universe. 

Take a slug from your jug

Yesterday I had joked about everyone taking a slug of their gin every time someone mentioned Back to the Future, which seemed to be every second of the day. Today, it's the New York Mets, who won the game against the Chicago Cubs last night and they are now on their way to the World Series.

Ironically, there is one degree of separation between the two, because back in the 1980s. the Back to the Future movie predicted that the Cubs would win the World Series in 2015. So they did get close, but no cigar.

I was thinking of trying to use this cartoon in various incarnations with whatever the subject matter would be for the day. Today it's the Mets, yesterday, Back to the Future, what will we be drinking about tomorrow?

The ComicCon ritual comes to town again

It's that time of year again in New York, if you see Batman or one of the Ninja Turtles or Walking Dead heading down the street, it's not early trick-or-treaters, it's the crowd headed to the Jacob Javits Center for New York ComicCon, the annual fall ritual around these parts.

The event is sold out, sorry guys, all I can do is share photos and some of my reactions here, but if you did not purchase tickets now for the non-stop four day event, you're out of luck unless you're willing to deal with scalpers who hang out on 9th Avenue selling what they have. New York Comic Con runs at the Javits Center and other areas around the city from Thursday, October 8, through Sunday, October 11, when it's all things pop culture. New York City becomes Cosplay territory for four days in October.

The last few years, there were a lot of Spider-man cosplayers but this year, I saw a lot of Batman, current and the classic 1960s Batman.

Grumpy Cat was a hit, he slept through it all and didn't appear so grumpy, but plenty of people took his photo and enjoyed seeing him.

I enjoyed watching cartoonist HIllary Price draw at the National Cartoonists Society booth. She does the daily comic strip, Rhymes With Orange.

I'm Surface Pro-ing it now

This is part of the first comic panel I did totally using the Surface Pro 3. I had been using the Wacom Cintiq up until now. I guess I'll still use the Cintiq but I am going to try and cross over to the Surface Pro for most of the time now. 

I transported all my files and I use Mango Studio 4 EX and Photoshop to create on the Surface Pro, just like I did with the Cintiq. I have Manga Studio 5 EX, but I don't like it for some reason, I think there is just too much on the screen and the brushes confuse me. I'm more comfortable with the EX.

I like the Surface Pro because it's portable and it's a computer and a tablet. Two in one, actually three in one if you including the stylus and drawing capabilities.  I could be in Central Park drawing "Paws" now. Love that. It even has a camera, so I can take a photo of me drawing and share it if I like.

Drawing Jacomo

I got a Surface Pro 3 computer and am starting to draw my Paws comic on that. I still have my Wacom Cintiq but I love the new Suface Pro as it's portable and not tethered to the computer. I also love that it's three-in-one -- a laptop computer, a tablet and a I can draw on it.

There is no CD drive so installing programs is a little tricky but I managed quite easily with all of them except for the Manga Studio but after playing with it, I managed to get it going. I'm excited to draw on the go now - on a plane, out at the beach, the park, wherever. 

If newspapers can survive without comics, then ...

Amazing footage on New York's newspaper strike

I  came across this three part You Tube film about the New York City newspapers strike of 1945. It was a 17-day event. It's quite interesting to see how people coped, or didn't cope.

There were an amazing eight daily newspapers in New York at that time and people devoured the papers morning and night. This was before tv and apparently before radio news. Everyone got their news and a lot of their entertainment from daily newspapers and they were addicted to them.

After awhile, people realized during the strike that you could actually get your daily newspaper fix by simply going to the actual newspapers and purchasing the newspaper there. The truckers and delivery people were on strike, so the papers were being printed, just not delivered to the thousands of newsstands and homes. This was the era that Mayor Fiorello Laguardia read the comics to everyone over the radio, describing the goings on in the funny pages.

I find it amazing how many millions of newspapers were published and purchased daily. The New York Daily News alone was selling over 900,000 copies to people who came by the newspaper on foot. People would wait for hours to purchase the daily newspapers. That is 900,000 plus people stepping into the Daily News building to purchase the paper.

The newspapers were: The Sun, The World-Telegram, the Journal American, The Daily News, The Post, the NY Times, the Herald Tribune and the Mirror. Eight dailies. 

So many of the scenes in these films are still there - the Sun building was just restored, it sits near City Hall downtown, and while the Daily News has moved, their building on 42nd Street is still there.

Listen to the numbers as you watch these -- the circulation numbers. Amazing. This was the period when the New York Daily News usually sold 2 million copies a day and over 4 million copies on Sundays.

The 1966 newspaper strike killed so many newspapers in New York City, but at least in 1945, the 17-day strike didn't cause much harm and just proved how addicted people were to their newspapers - the social media of the time.

,

'Paws' up, little monsters

I've been working on "Paws," my new comic panel. It' a redo of Tom the Rabbit and Jacomo the mole, who are both there. Only Tom is called Tombo now and he looks a little different. I've redone a bunch of characters and refreshed the whole thing.

I was calling it Tomversation, but my gag-a-day panel is called that so I needed another name that made more sense for the animal characters in Coconut Cove.

As I've been redoing the comic I've come across old Krazy Kat comic strips, which I always loved, and also King Aroo, which I was not too familiar with. I am in love with King Aroo now, Jack Kent's strip which ran from 1950 to 1965. I love the humor and simple drawings. I bought a couple of compilation books and they drew me right in (no pun intended).

At one point, I thought that Paws might be part Mutts, but my characters aren't that gentle and "real." I'm closer to Krazy Kat and King Aroo, a mixture of the two, perhaps.
My plan is to start publishing daily in the fall, probably October. I'm contacting syndicates now with the work and if I don't hear back, I'll just start my own thing, which is really the way to go these days. I like keeping the panel format because it works very well on social media, especially Instagram.

I'll publish at PawsComic.com daily and other places and I also have been creating a widget that would allow anyone to place Paws on their own website and no cost to them. It will update daily at midnight when the panel updates and after they put the few lines of code in, that's it, nothing more to do. It's free, fresh content, daily.

Please subscribe to this blog for updates and follow on Instagram at "PawsComic" and also Facebook at the Paws site here or at Tomversation on Facebook.

Getting ready for 'Paws'

I've been drawing up a bunch of new Jacomo cartoons. He's one of the stars of my new comic panel called, "Paws." Tom the Rabbit will be back, as Tombo and there are many more characters. It's sort of the same as past comics, but a lot different. I've been studying George Herriman and Krazy Kat for inspiration. I want that sort of feel for the comic, you know, a lot of outdoor landscapes and adventures.

I wrestled with the idea of a comic strip or a panel. I've always loved panels and I feel that with social media, the panel works best, especially for Instagram. Also, I've created a widget that I'll introduce that will allow anyone to place the Paws comic on their own website and have it update daily automatically.

Stay tooned.

10 things you didn't know about Countess Luann

Ten with Tom
10 questions in 10 minutes

Countess Luann de Lesseps is one of the Real Housewives of New York City, a favorite and an integral part of the Bravo tv show. Every season there seems to be a break-out star and this season I think it's the Countess. I had a chance to ask the Countess my "10 With Tom" questions. Here they are.

If you weren't part of the Real Housewives of NYC, which other franchise would you like to be a part of?  
Beverly Hills because I love L.A. and California.

You are spending the summer in the Big Brother house. Who would you take to the end with you as the final two? Ramona, Sonja or Bethenny?  
Bethenny, because she is so clever and Sonja because she is so much fun.

Celebrity Crush?  
Hugh Grant

Who would you like to see come back to Real Housewives of NYC? Someone that was a cast member in the past?
Kelly Bensimon

Quinoa or steak? 
I like to be healthy but I love steak.

Which comic strip would you like to crawl into and spend the day?  
Garfield, because I like whiskers.

Do you drink Skinny Girl when not being filmed? 
Yes I do. Skinny Girl Cucumber Infused Vodka is my fave.

Best neighborhood in NYC?  
Upper West Side, the parks are gorgeous

Have you read Ramona's memoir yet? Will you? 
I'm living life on the Ramonacoaster, but yes, I will get to read her book.

Money can't buy you class and what else?   
Real friends.

Thank you Countess.

Besides working on Bravo tv's "Real Housewives of New York," which can be seen through August, Luann's Countess Collection line of apparel is featured on Evine.com she she will appear on Evine Live with her newest collection on August 25. Her song "Girl Code" can be found on iTunes and Spotify. In the fall Countess Luann will launch a line of jewelry as well as infused vodkas. For all Luann info, visit luanndelesseps.com and follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @countessluann.

I published this comic panel a couple of years ago. The Countess saw it and re-tweeted it. I knew she had a good sense of humor then.

Cartoonist Stephan Pastis - 10 random questions

I got the chance to ask Stephan Pastis, creator of the comic strip, Pearls Before Swine, the Ten With Tom questions today. Stephan has one of the most popular comic strips around, his tipping point was when Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, noticed his work and mentioned it in a blog post. The rest is history. His online readership went through the roof overnight.

He recently won the 2015 Reuben Award for best newspaper comic strip. I'm trying to follow in his footsteps with my comics, so it truly was an honor doing Ten With Tom with Stephan.

Stephan, courtesy of CakeKitty.com

Do people mistake you for Seth Macfarlane?

I've heard that before, but the one I hear more is Robert Downey, Jr.  I even had a restaurant owner in Dublin, Ireland tell me what an honor it was to have Robert Downey, Jr. in her restaurant. I told her that I appreciated it, but that I didn't like to be disturbed while dining.  

Why do you create your comics 7 months in advance, why so far ahead?

I'm anal retentive.  I need to relax.





Are you recognized on the street?

Almost never. Except as Robert Downey Jr. in Dublin.

What are a few of your favorite classic newspaper comics from your childhood?

Far Side
Calvin and Hobbes
Peanuts
Bloom County

Flintstones or Scooby Do?

Scooby. There's always someone trying to scare away prospective house buyers by filling it with fake ghosts and/or monsters. Knowing that the ghost thing is a sham, I could probably get a great deal on real estate.

Which comic strip would you like to crawl into and spend the day?

Krazy Kat. Lots of peyote and throwing bricks at others.

Dick Tracy or Little Orphan Annie?

It wouldn't be Annie. Her lack of pupils would be disturbing, particularly if you fell in love. You could never look into her eyes. 

What section of the printed daily newspaper today should be eliminated to add more comics?

Many of the comics.

Without looking, what color is Olive Oyl's dress?

Top half of her is red. Bottom half of her is black.  Both halves are probably stained by spinach.

Do you think you'll ever go digital in creating Pearls Before Swine? Why? 

No. Too lazy to learn. Plus, it doesn't seem like something Robert Downey Jr. would do. 


Thank you Stephan!

You can enjoy Pearls Before Swine daily at GoComics here: www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine

Is Bloom County back?

Is Berkeley Breathed back producing Bloom County? These two photos were all over social media this morning .

The first shows Berkeley digitally drawing "Bloom County 2015" and the second one is the final product with Opus and Milo, 25 years later.

Bloom County ran for 9 years (from 1980 to 1989), it seems so much longer.


Donald Trump may be the reason for the return. This was an exchange under Berkeley's Facebook photo: 

Larry Warshall (a fan): Dear Mr. Breathed.With Donald Trump returning to the Political Spectum, I believe it is only fitting. I have missed you guys.

Berkeley Breathed: This creator can’t precisely deny that the chap you mention had nothing to do with it.

The copyright on the image is Berkeley Breathed and not a syndicate, so no one is sure yet whether it will be printed in newspapers or just appear online.

Last June, Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes" creator, returned to the comics pages by drawing a few panels in Stephan Pastis' "Pearls Before Swine." So now all that's missing for a come back is Gary Larson and "The Far Side."

It's really nice to see so much attention returning to the comics pages.

Kickstarting the Sunday Comics

Ten with Tom
10 questions in 10 minutes

Remember spreading the full color Sunday comics across the floor and and enjoying the large scale format? It's one of the big pleasures of a time gone by. While Sunday newspapers run the Sunday comics, they aren't as big and bold as they once were. Gone are the days when the New York Daily News came wrapped in the comics, with Dick Tracy staring you in the face. Now they're lost among the pull out ads and such.

It's a big part of Americana that's disappearing or at least shrinking to a minuscule degree.

But now, there is something new coming from Marc Goldner and Rachel Korsen, it's called "The Sunday Comics." It's an actual newspaper printed with over 200 pages with work by over 200 cartoonists. I'm proud to be one of them!

Marc Goldner and Rachel Korsen

I asked Marc my Ten With Tom questions about him and the project:

With comics all or mostly moving to digital, what made you decide to use paper and ink for this project? 

Growing up we all loved comics, still to this day we go to the comic shop every week. There
is just something special about getting to hold a comic and flip through the pages. That magic is
lost when you read on a small screen. We felt that there will always be a desire to hold these
comics in your hands and to enjoy them the way they were made. We also wanted to give
artists the opportunity to create work that pushes their boundaries on a giant size page to come
up with original and innovative stories for our readers. Getting a comic delivered to your door is
something that’s been lost nowadays. There are very few industries that ever truly disappear,
provided they offer something meaningful and inspiring that aligns with the people’s interests
and its passion.

America has spent the past 100
years falling in love with the Sunday Comics section on paper, and there’s no reason to think
that the love affair should, or ever needs, to stop.

What are some of your favorite Sunday comics from your childhood?

Honestly, I’ve loved them all. Each strip has had their moment in my eyes, but I’ll never forget
the first time I ever opened up a newspaper. I got to feast my eyes on Dennis the Menace and Garfield. It’s actually pretty funny because I’ve come to learn that I’m super allergic to cats but
Garfield’s love of lasagna managed to stay with me, in fact it’s what I had for dinner tonight! One
of the most exciting parts for me was learning we would get to have original Garfields in The
Sunday Comics! Dennis on the other hand, was someone I just related to, my parents always
called me their little menace so that stuck! Everyone still says I’m that same kid.

How often will Sunday Comics be published? Is it a one time deal or monthly, yearly?

The Sunday Comics will be an ongoing publication for years to come. Our first issue is a giant
sized masterpiece we’ve been working on for over a year that’s currently live on Kickstarter. After
our debut, we will be releasing weekly issues.

Which comic strip would you like to crawl into and spend the day? 

Well, as a kid there were a few I would've crawled into, but nowadays strips are so small I
don't think I could even get a foot in. If I had to pick one after now working on The Sunday
Comics for this long I think I could. I’ve gotten to meet some of my idols. Recently Rachel Korsen,
one of the founders, and I got to spend the night with Ron Ferdinand and his family when we
went to visit him in upstate New York. We didn’t only get to crawl into where Ron has been creating
Dennis The Menace comics for the last 29 years, but we got to go inside a creative genius’
studio and were able to spend the day with the “man behind” and witness the creations I imagined
as a kid!

Which is your favorite: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram?

I’d have to say Facebook. I’ve been on it for almost ten years now. I remember being one of
the earliest adopters and inviting my whole High School to join when they first opened it to the
public. I look at The Sunday Comics as something that is at this “early adopter stage”. It’s a publication
that people can get in on the ground floor to witness our first steps.

Flintstones or Scooby Doo?

This is one of the tougher ones because I really loved them both so much. With The Flintstones,
I fell in love with bowling, cars, and pools (although I still can’t swim) through the show.
My favorite episode is still the Flintstones crossover with the Jetsons. Scooby Doo introduced
me to Golden Graham Scooby Snacks that I still buy every week, monsters, and mystery. It’s
because of some of these early animation television shows that one of my dreams is to make
our company into something much bigger than just comics alone! I guess the answer’s both.

Last movie you saw? 

Last time we went to the movies we saw a double feature. First, we saw “Tomorrowland." The
message of this film really spoke to me illustrating how a grim future can be instantly turned
around. Look at retro products that have been saved like Vinyl. If these films showed
us something, it’s that anything’s possible.

Katzenjammer Kids or Andy Gump? 

We have to be honest here, none of us grew up with these in our local papers. Of that time
period, we can share our love for Winsor McCay. Little Nemo was one of the most instrumental
influences to The Sunday Comics. It was actually the first movie that ever gave me a nightmare. Nemo comics are something that I fell in love with. Seeing how dreams can be created and then
just vanish in an instant was eye opening to me.

Without looking, what color is Olive Oyl's dress? 

This one’s too easy, but I love the test! You should’ve asked me about her tattoo instead. Kidding,
I think it’s almost a sort of a trick question. The black and white version of Popeye, Olive
obviously had a grayish tone dress, but when it moved to color we saw that gray morph into a
black & red dress. Shoes on the other hand…

What section of the printed daily newspaper today should be eliminated to add more comics? 

What I’m going to say now I know some people are coming after us with a pitchfork and
some picket signs but honestly, all of them. The comics section is the only section that’s better
on paper. Just look at the financial sections, now that everything is in real time those one day
delays make printed news irrelevant. Comics on the other hand are timeless, they are works of
art that can be enjoyed without a ticking clock.

Thank you Marc, we think alike on so many of these items.

Marc's kickstarter campaign was started to raise $75,000 to make Sunday Comics a reality. You can donate and/or get more info here. 

When the newspaper editor condones plagiarism

I've had my comics plagiarized and also my news and feature articles over the years. For many years a local reporter with a daily newspaper stole my stuff and republished it  word for word, in many cases, and I've had established cartoonists lift my work, redraw it, and make it theirs, so this crowdsource site caught my eye. It's about a cartoonist with the Montgomery County Sentinel in Maryland who has been stealing other cartoonists' work. The name of the cartoonist, William Charles, is obviously made up and many feel that the editor of the newspaper himself, Brian Karem, is doing the dirty work. The comics have since been removed, but how can this have even happened once and been allowed to continue for years?

I reached out to Brian and he agreed to answer a few questions, but then told me that they answered the questions in the past and they would not answer. You can see the few questions I asked him below.

Look at these two cartoons here. The top one is the ripoff signed Wm. Charles, the original is below it, by Johnny Hankins.

Look at this parachute cartoon. The original one is the top one. The one below is the ripoff.

The crowdsource site is ongoing and new comics are added as they are found. This problem seems to have started in 2013 and has gone on through 2015. Brian says that the cartoonist was an unpaid contributor. Interestingly enough, William Charles was a cartoonist in the Revolutionary era and the signature on the cartoons in the Sentinel is his signature.

I know someone who does this with cartoons, a doctor of all people, he thinks there is nothing wrong with taking someone's cartoon and manipulating it and then sending it out to friends or an email list or whatever it is he does. I've told him it is wrong, he doesn't think so.

Fake above, real by Jeff Parker, below.

Fake is the top one, real is the bottom one. I really can't understand the consciousness of someone who would deliberately whiteout the signature of the original and then put his own text over it. What is he thinking? I can picture him sleazily hunched over the drawing table with a razor blade and grin, doing his thing, of course, he's doing it with Photoshop on a computer, but the razor blade image is in my head. 

I asked Brian, the Montgomery County Sentinel editor about this. He did not answer. He agreed to. But I guess he didn't like the questions.

I asked him:

1) Is there a real William Charles doing this or is this a made up name?

2) You do realize that the newspaper has lost all credibility and even the news stories are suspect now?


3) Are you William Charles? 

You can see more of the cartoons here: netcontribute.com/sentinel/

No frick'n way!

Recently the Frick Museum in New York City had a plan to eliminate the elevated lawn out front on 5th Avenue with the beautiful magnolia trees, and build a six story addition to the museum in that area. New Yorkers went nuts and the Frick board backed down. A museum official said it wasn't going to work. If only all development would go away so easily.

I'm not sure if you are familiar with the museum, but it is like going back in time, the museum, which was the home of Henry Clay Frick, built from 1912-14 looks today, just like it did back then.

Frick was not a nice guy, he broke the unions at US Steel for Andrew Carnegie, who hid out in Scotland while Frick did the dirty work in the early 20th Century. But he left a magnificent home and wonderful artwork behind after his death.

Become Your Dream

Saw this on Twitter, I think it was taken by Jason Kvinna, a comic book artist.

It reminds me of a story I did for the Huffington Post called "A Cause to Pause," where I shared some uplifting messages I saw at a construction site once in New York City.

I like Jason's work, I may try to interview him (with his permission, of course, well, how can I do it without his permission, actually) for a new series I'm contemplating for the Huffingon Post. I'm thinking of starting this interview series called "Tea with Tom" or something like that, where I interview up and coming artists similar to Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee show, only we'll get tea and it won't be comedians, it will be artists and we won't film it, it will be published online and possibly print.

But the questions will be silly and not even pertain to their art or art at all.

I have some people in mind for this already.

Maybe "Ten With Tom" for the title, it could mean ten minutes or 10 questions.

The death of New York's newspapers

I was watching a Mad Men rerun and Don Draper mentioned the Journal American, which got me thinking of the old newspapers and the four that were lost because of the big newspaper strike of 1963. The Mad Men episode took place in 1960, when New York City was flush with daily newspapers. I wish I could have seen some of those old newspapers. I do have a copy of the New York Herald hanging on my wall from 1865 and while it's historic, I think the hey day of newspapers was in the 1940s and 1950s.

I love this line from a Vanity Fair article on the subject: "New York in 1962 was a city of fedoras and mink hats, Rheingold beer and Kent cigarettes — a city where you could see Lenny Bruce at the Village Vanguard and Dinah Washington at Birdland. It was a place where anyone with a serious newspaper habit lived in a state of perpetual bliss: seven dailies appeared in rolling editions around the clock. 

The newspapers were the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune which were the two upscale morning broadsheets; and The NY Daily News and the Daily Mirror which were the two morning tabloids; then there was The New York Post, the afternoon tabloid and the afternoon broadsheets were the the New York Journal-American and the New York World-Telegram & Sun. Brooklyn had the Daily Eagle, but that was not part of the strike.

The strike was against progress, the union that controlled the typesetters and guys that did the layout, were against new mechanized equipment. Today, it would be like newspapers being forbidden to publish online because the union didn't like it. A death knell.

For some reason, The Long Island Star-Journal also went on strike with the other seven newspapers.

For 114 days, there were no newspapers printed in New York City. So they went from seven dailies to nothing. In the 1920s, there were 29 dailies, can you imagine that?

The union workers, lead by Bertram Powers, felt that they were the newspapers, they were the manufacturers who put out the newspapers. The reporters came and went from paper to paper, but the unionized guys in the backroom stayed year after year.The union guys were against hot type (Linotype machines), turning into cold type, the new technology.

The strike had a trickle down effect and many city workers not even in the newspaper business lost jobs. People were very dependent on newspapers at the time, for everything.



The strike ended in 1963 but all the extra costs and lost circulations eventually killed four of them in 1966: the Herald Tribune, the Mirror, the Journal American and the World-Telegram & Sun. I've always been bothered by this, although I am sure that they would all have been gone by today, but who knows. The Herald-Tribune was very well regarded as a livelier New York Times. 

Today NYC has the Times, the News and the Post and Newsday, the Long Island daily can be gotten around the city. I remember when I was a boy, I delivered the Long Island Press, which had a larger circulation in Queens and Long Island itself. The Press went out of business in 1977.

When I think of all these newspapers, I can only imagine all the comics. It's said that the Herald Tribune had the best comics section, but aside from the NY Times, which never ran comics, I can just imagine all the comics in all those newspapers.

Some of the old newspaper buildings still stand in Manhattan on Park Row, near City Hall, the New York Sun building has just been restored, the clocks on each corner are still there with the inscription, "The Sun. It shines for all." Next time I'm in NY I'll take a photo and post it, the last couple of years it's been blocked by scaffolding. 

The original "Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" column in the NY Sun.

Running with the Dolce & Gabbana story

The Elton John/Dolce & Gabbana feud/boycott ( #boycottdolcegabbana ) sort of writes itself. I three comics in the past couple of days. One is a duplicate but the images changed and I think the final one that ended up being published is the better one. The comics were published at my Tomversation.com site, the Comic Chameleon app for cell phones and The Huffington Post to name a few places.

I suppose I can keep going on with gag ideas on the subject, but I think it's run it's course.

 This ended up running at the finalized comic. 

 This one never ran, here is the first time it is being published.

This one has been published this morning in various places.