Category Archives: Cartoon Blogs

Super Bowl Truffles

I”m in a pool for the Super Bowl. It’s a fund-raiser for Haiti, with half the money going directly to aid, and the other half being distributed to a few lucky winners in the pool.

It’s my first sports pool, and I don’t get football, but still, I’m kind of excited.

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Here’s my understanding of how it works:

Janie came by with a 10 square by 10 square piece of paper, like a hundred-square bingo card. Everybody who wanted to participate ponied up to put their name on one of the squares. I signed up for three squares.

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Apparently, at the end of each inning, Janie will use her super-hero ring to tabulate the conversions, or whatever they’re called. The number of Colts converted by the Saints is multiplied by the number of offside cheerleader wardrobe malfunctions, and… bingo! That lucky square holder wins!

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Also, I seem to remember that there’s a “Grand Prize” for the person sitting on the pot during the final score of the game.

I think the whole system is a fine example of “win-win” sports theory. One is drawn in to participating by an altruistic desire to help earthquake victims.  However, once your actual cold cash is out of your hand, you can settle in and really enjoy the game.

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Yes, once properly motivated by greed, you are free to set aside any preconceived bias about which over-paid, celebrity-studded, scandal-ridden team over whom to become dangerously emotionally deranged. Then, for four hours straight, you just enjoy the movement of the ol’ pigskin up and down  the field and cheer on your square.

I think I’m gonna enjoy this Super Bowl thing!

Almost Viral

Between Rick and me, we have several muses, one cartoonist (with one dialogue consultant always close at hand), two photographers, two musicians, one professional speaker, two cooks, one oil painter, two videographers, two restaurant critics, two writers, two editors, and one policeman.

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Rick is the policeman.

Every blog that seeks to establish itself anywhere close to the mainstream needs to have at least one guardian of (mostly) correct spelling and grammar conventions, socially respectable content, clean(ish) language, and gentle humor.

As I came out of the womb with a burning desire to stick my monkey fingers up people’s noses to see what they would do, I’m rarely our first choice for this position.

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God bless Rick the Co-Editor: he always laughs sincerely at the first draft. He even waits a beat or two before he switches hats and becomes Rick the Decency Police.

Then, as he freshens my drink, he’ll casually mention, “Hey, if we change the word “bastard” to “doofus,” delete the F-bomb from the second paragraph, and drop the line about wanting to smack that co-worker between the eyes with a piece of frozen haddock, I think we’re good to go!”

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Sometimes I’ll push back and argue “literary merit,” or “contemporary usage,” or some such piffle. But inevitably, through some mind control device he learned in college, or Boy Howdy charm, or reminding me that we have financial responsibilities and like to eat, I find I have been out-monkey fingered. Miraculously, we wake up the next morning and we still have jobs and a readership that will occasionally even leave comments.

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My inner simian occasionally balks at what feels like censorship, but my outward human bean is almost always grateful for the intervention. Anyways–and don’t tell Rick this–half the time, I’m outrageous in the first draft just to tickle his funny bone. It’s SO much fun to see him snort merlot out his nose.

Big Box Gridlock

An open letter to the woman who rammed her plus-size shopping cart into my Achilles tendon yesterday.

Dear Wham-Bam-Shopping-Ma’am:

I hold this truth to be self evident: at Costco, all people shop as equals, and each is entitled to the pursuit of life, case lots of corn dogs, and the shortest line at the check-out stand.

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I make this claim because Costco, evidently, granted you the unsecured right to operate a fully loaded stainless-steel mobile ankle smasher known as a “shopping cart.” Your ability and demonstrated willingness to both steer and stop said vehicle was apparently not a concern for them. I have the lump and limp to prove it.

Blinded as I was by the tears of surprise, pain, and rage, I did not get a good look at your face. However, on the way down to grab my foot and make sure it was still attached to my leg, I got an eyeball full of those lime green velor pants you were sporting as you fled the scene.

Rest assured, I’ll be watching for those lime green pants. And if they so much as make a tight right into the frozen french fry aisle without using the turn signal, they’ll find themselves on the business end of an “accidental” pizza sample encounter they won’t soon forget.

Sincerely, Kathy

Fat

Rick gave me a book for my birthday titled “Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes,” by Jennifer McLagan.

Don’t think badly of Rick: I specifically asked for the book weeks ago.

Part anthropology text, part exquisite photo essay, and part cookbook, it’s mostly a nutritional “dust” disturber on the positive aspects of cooking with and consuming animal fat.

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Standing in a local cooking store at the book section, I had picked it up and read this paragraph:

“We have never been more obsessed with diet, exercise, and cutting the fat out of our food as we are in the new millennium, and never have we been fatter or unhealthier. Our approach to food is schizophrenic: if we enjoy a meal that has a lot of flavor, and therefore fat, we punish ourselves with a salad and a low-fat dressing from a bottle. There is something fundamentally wrong when, in a society of plenty, we fear what is on our plate, seeing our food as a poison (or, alternatively, as a medicine). I would argue that we are not just frightened of fat, but we are also fearful of pleasure. Eating is essential to life, and it is a pleasure that we can share with friends and enjoy in public. It should be a happy experience, not a torturous trial. How did we come to this?”

It turns out I’m not the only one who would like an answer to this question. The book is sold out on amazon.com (as of today) and will ship again once they can get inventory.

Meanwhile, eat your butter.

On Confusing Your Roberts

In 1979, I was out with a friend for lunch and things turned spiritual. They often did, when dining with Bob.

Bob was an audio-visual/creative dude working for an evangelical Christian organization called “YWAM” (Youth With A Mission). He still is, for all I know, unless God pulled an Oral Roberts on him and asked him to come up with $8M in six months or Do Not Pass Go.

Also, he could have changed his name to “Raster-Faster Bobbert” and been gently chillin’ in Jamaica for the past two decades in dreadlocks and one of those hand-crocheted doily hats. I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter.

That is now, and this was when.

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Bob spoke of the universal need for a “Personal Savior to save us from our sin.” With all the bluff and fluster my nineteen year-old self could muster,  I countered with a brisk, “Like what, a personal belly button? What’s personal about something that the entire human race has to have one of? Plus, how can 30 million Buddhists be wrong?”

Give me a break. As a junior in college (translation for Canadians: 3rd year in university) I had only recently enrolled in Logic 101 (or something… whatever) to satisfy a nagging undergrad course requirement for graduation.

I had no idea how many Buddhists there were or how many were theoretically waiting to be recycled back into the human loop of history in 1979, but Bob was a gracious man and let the point stand on principle.

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He expanded on his perspective.

“Human beings fail to live up to a standard for perfection we all somehow know exists. Some fail in more media-worthy solar flares than others (fast forward 30 years: think Tiger Woods), but we all screw up at some point. The options for reparation, as specified in The Garden Accord, are somewhat limited: it’s death. Someone’s gonna pay, and pay big, for something we all intuitively understand needs to be made right.”

“Here’s the deal: either He pays, or you pay,” Bob continued.  “He’s already paid for something He didn’t owe (that messy business on the cross), and you can’t pay and still live.”

Oh.

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I panicked. And that’s when I confused my Roberts.

“Listen, if Oral Roberts can spend $50M on a crystal cathedral in a world filled with hunger, homelessness, and pain… if that’s what it means to be a Christan, I don’t want any part of it.”

Oral Roberts did not build the Crystal Cathedral. Robert Schuller did.

Bob probably knew that, but he didn’t quibble. Instead, he hit me with The Close.

“Okay. So when God says to you, ‘I sent my only Son to take the penalty for your sin. Why did you turn Me down?” you just tell Him it was because of Oral Roberts. I’m sure He’ll understand.”

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Hmmm… Thanks, Bob.

In any case, as you put the star on the tree, find yourself humming “Angels We Have Heard On High,” or enjoy the gas-induced grins of a family newborn at a candle-lit holiday table, take a moment to give ‘er a think. And let us know what you come up with, will ya?

On Gifts and Being Gifted

Rick has been drawing since he was old enough to hold a crayon and cartooning since he was about seven years old.

I don’t know what his medium of choice was back then. I’m guessing it probably was a 2B lead pencil and the margins of those stinky mimeographed math worksheets. In any case, I’d trade a week in an invisibility cloak at Walmart with my camera for the chance to see some of those early toons.

Since I’ve known him, he uses whatever paper is at hand when the muse strikes, a fine black Sharpie, and a bucket of about 70 colored pencils.

That’s why today is such a momentous day.

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Well, okay, there’s that, and a very Happy Birthday to you, my darling!

But that’s not what I’m talking about.

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The reason today is such a ground-breaker is that Rick drew today’s cartoon in an entirely new medium.

He cracked open his new Wacom Intuos4 pen tablet, plugged ‘er in to his Mac, and coaxed the software to install more or less where he wanted it. Next, he loaded one of his birthday gifts, Autodesk’s Sketchbook Pro 2010, to same said machine.

And he started to draw.

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It’s really fascinating to watch a 50-year old hand-eye-mind habit enter an entirely new physical modality, layered on top of a brand new piece of unfamiliar software.

Yet, within just a couple of hours, he navigated both so successfully that he produced this four-panel cartoon in a style that is immediately recognizable as his.

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I gave him a birthday present, and with it, he gives the world thoughtful whimsy and wit and a reason to smile. And that, my friends, is the parallel between receiving a gift and being gifted. I can’t WAIT to see where he takes this next.

Happy Birthday, Pookie!

P.S. More Toons by Rick.

No Sad Songs

This seems like as good a time as any to explain where L’il Duck came from.

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He’s the punchline to my Dad’s favorite G-rated joke. Here’s the joke:

Funny Man asks: “Why do little ducks walk so softly?”

Obliging Straight Man answers: “I don’t know. Why DO little ducks walk so softly?”

Funny Man responds: “Because little ducks can’t walk, hardly.”

And by the way, you’d walk funny too if you had one foot that was a square and the other was a triangle. Kind of throws off your rhythm, ya know? I think Rick may have been sick at home with a terrible cold the day they covered how to draw bird feet at Cartoon School.

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He also apparently missed a few biology classes along the way. That is most definitely not a duck’s beak, and since when are ducks yellow? He looks more like the runt of a pterodactyl litter than anything that would be served “a l’orange.” But I can’t squawk too loudly on this one.

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In the first place, L’il Duck plays an incredibly important role in our cartoon world. He’s most often the voice of reason, the state-er of the obvious, the keen observer of what’s really shaking in any given situation. Plus, he’s consistently drawn, even if he’s somewhat inexplicably conceived of, and he’s cuter ‘n a baby buffalo.

How fabulous is it that Rick took a character that I’ve know since I was old enough to mangle a joke and brought him into living, breathing, and chatty color on the pages of our shared life journal?

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He’s the icon, in our world at least, of delightful word play and intelligent fun. We love him dearly and won’t abide one word of ridicule about his beak, color, or pointy little triangle feet, ya hear?