Reubens on the Hudson: George Booth, Part 2

As I mentioned before, I am a huge fan of the work of George Booth and was thrilled to attend his lecture at the Reubens in New Jersey.

His presentation was facilitated by his daughter Sarah. This worked very well as she was able to take the place of an interviewer, in a way, and ask Mr. Booth questions, as well as keeping an eye on the clock.

He talked quite a bit about his childhood and growing up in Missouri and I was fascinated to learn that the character of Mrs. Rittenhouse that he uses so often in his cartoons is actually his mother. She sounds to have been a tremendous character of a person - he mentioned that she played the jews harp and the "french harp" (as well as a plethora of other instruments). I never remembered to ask him what he meant by the "french harp" and I wonder if he meant a traditional harp like the one I play. Oh well, opportunity lost.

He talked about his time in the army. It turns out that the army had quite a bit of trouble figuring out what to do with him (at one point he accidentally burned down a 12 hole latrine) until they let him start drawing cartoons. He eventually found himself assigned to draw cartoons for Leatherneck - a military publication - and thus started his career in magazine cartooning.

But imagine my surprise upon hearing that it took him 23 years to get a cartoon accepted by the New Yorker! I was astonished. I connect him so inextricably with that publication that I almost cannot remember a time when his cartoons were not in it. But, sure enough, his first New Yorker cartoons appeared in the early 1960's and not before. In his presentation, he explained that, in all the years he spent submitting things to them, he made the mistake of trying to write cartoons that were "New Yorker-y". When he stopped attempting to use the formula he thought they wanted, and just drew cartoons that made him personally laugh, then they started buying his work. It just goes to show how important it is to work in the voice that feels natural to you.

He put several cartoons up on the view screen but most of the pictures I took of them came out very badly so I include some of them here. Interestingly, some of the ones he chose to show happened to be archived in my personal scrapbook collection. (Elaboration to be found here.)

I was struck by how many of the cartoons from years past could have easily run today.

One of his earliest cartoons - this pic came from the screen which is why it is fuzzy.

"The Administration sees a quick recovery, but Mrs. Fisher and I feel it's going to be deep and prolonged." (This is from the early 70's I believe - the more things change, the more they stay the same.)

"Other folks have to pay taxes too, Mr. Herndon, so would you please spare us the dramatics!"

"Demand is steadily shrinking. Output is down. America has no time to dillydally? What this country needs now is a song! An open-your-wallet-and-spend-a-little song! An open-your-wallet-and-spend-a-little song from the Herzog Brothers!" (Again - this is over 30 years old but could have been written last week.)

"Everyone be home by two o'clock!"

"See that dog, Mr. Hendricks? That means you either have a shredded fan belt or your fuel pump is sucking air." (For me, this is the quintessential Booth dog.)

During his presentation, Mr. Booth brought out his secret tip for drawing multiple dogs in one cartoon. The following are various "dog parts" and a few pictures of him manipulating them.

A stomach.

Shifting the dog parts position just enough to change the final look.

And, finally, here are Mr. Booth and his wife Dionne and yours truly. It was really a splendid experience, one I will cherish for years.

Reubens on the Hudson: George Booth, Part 1

I am a certifiable nut when it comes to New Yorker cartoons.

While I read my Dad's collection of Peanuts books when I was young, I probably can only quote you vague paraphrases of the strips. I do remember vividly the impressions Snoopy used to do where he looked like Beethoven and others and I remember "weed claustrophobia" and "the vulture" and "the Python". I specifically remember the punchline "You've made him very happy, Charlie Brown" as Snoopy slithers off into the grass after choking the life out of Charlie Brown's ankle. But that's about it. I loved the strip as a whole - I just couldn't always remember it when I wasn't looking at it.

Not so for New Yorker cartoons. My grandparents were dedicated readers of the mag and that meant it was always lying around when we visited. I read the cartoons voraciously. There were so many great cartoonists who had work there but, for me, the holy trinity of NYer cartoonists was: Charles Addams, George Price, and George Booth.

To be fair, Addams got the lion's share of my attention because, in addition to seeing his work in the magazine, my father had all the book collections. I can not only quote for you the punchlines of over 100 Addams toons, I can describe the drawing of each of them for you as well.

But right up there with him were Price and Booth. I think one of the things that appealed to me most was the way in which each of them depicted squalor. Price with his impossibly straight lines that might fool the reader into thinking they were looking at something high class while really the characters were like something out of "Roseanne". Booth with his jagged lines and chicken toed dogs and cats that were either scratching themselves, licking themselves, having a fit, or just staring at the wall.

I am actually in possession of about 40 years of NYer magazines. When my grandparents died in 1987 their basement was full of them. I grabbed them all and, since that time, my basement has been full of them. Three basements, actually, as I have moved three times and lugged them with me each time.

Once upon a time, I began a quest to cull all the cartoons from these magazines and put them into binders, arranged by cartoonist. I immediately ran up against a stumbling block in that many cartoons were on two sides of the same page. This meant that I was going to have to do a lot of xeroxing if I were going to preserve them all. Luckily for me, I was teaching at the time at a high school that gave me unlimited access to a xerox machine. (This is before all the security around copy machine codes - probably designed to expressly cut out the kind of copy machine abuse I was engaging in.)

Anyway, I set to work and filled up several binders of which these are only a few:

The work of George Price

A Charles Addams cartoon and an index

One of the Booth pages

Sadly, no one warned me against the use of glue sticks and rubber cement to paste things into scrapbooks so I have basically ruined the very cartoons I was trying to save. Irony, gotta love it.

Then I had kids and all such projects got shelved. And, eventually he NYer went to the trouble of putting out a book of every cartoon they ever ran, rendering the project completely moot :-)

So, for me, the big highlight of this year's Reubens weekend was meeting Mr. Booth in person and getting a glimpse of his creative process.

The meeting was not at all as I imagined - I think I was thinking a polite little moment in the middle of one of those cocktail conversations where you are standing quietly listening to a lot of famous cartoonists riff off one another and then someone introduces you and you nod and then fall into a hole in the floor somewhere.

Instead, at breakfast one morning, while eating eggs and talking politics with Wiley Miller (another huge moment in my life, BTW) John came back from getting coffee and said "I just met George Booth and we had a very nice little chat."

"What!? You met him and I missed it!"

"He's right over there, you can just go up and talk to him."

"You're kidding me, right? He's trying to get his breakfast!"

"No, seriously, he's really nice - just go up and talk to him."

And the great thing about the Reuben weekend, and people like Mr. Booth, is that John was absolutely right - I could just go up and talk to him. So I gathered my courage and just did it.

And he was delightful. And he laughed at something I said. I have no idea what it was, or if it was even funny, but he's polite that way.

I'd like to think that I held it together and was very dignified during the whole exchange - I hope so anyway - but I did go back to the table and have my one big "Oh, my god - fan-geek" moment of the weekend.

Now I can die happy :-)

Coming soon - Part 2, some of my favorite Booth cartoons and some pictures of his presentation.

Oil Spill Comics

Many comics are doing strips about the oil spill in the gulf. This week Sherman's Lagoon jumped in - I'm very interested to see where Jim Toomey will take things as I assume all the strips will be from the point of view of ocean dwelling creatures.

Edison will be doing oil spill strips as well but from a slightly different angle. Tune in starting July 5th to see how John decided to handle it.

Edison Website Updates

We love the look of the Edison website, (I am especially fond of the bright colors and how they look on my ipad) but it has long been overdue for some updates. So watch out over the next week or two for some changes.

The first - which has just happened while I was typing this - is on the samples page which is currently called "The Edison Files". The previous crop of samples were from the first 6 months of the strip and were incredibly outdated.

Putting new samples up has been a goal for over a year but between one thing (we are incapable of making any changes to our own site and must count on other people to do it) and another (we only this week finally got around to actually picking out new ones) it just didn't get done.

I want to take a minute and address that first issue. John and I are programming and code idiots. And our brains are middle aged (and stretched too thin) - which means it doesn't look as though programming is a skill set we are going to master any time soon. So we have had to depend on the programming skills of others. Until now those other people have either been A) Too busy, B) Unable to handle the code either - this from someone who actually makes their living setting up websites - go figure - or C) Expensive. And this brings me to something I never see addressed in the whole print vs. web debate that springs up over on The Daily Cartoonist.

I never see anyone talking about how much you need to know about programming and the internet to get a successful webcomic going. You need to know a lot. And you often need a lot of time to learn it all. And if you are already working another job while you try to get your comic off the ground, that time is really hard to come by. And if you are not twenty something and get all this stuff intuitively, you are going to not only need to find time, but money for a class. Or else you need to pay someone else to do everything for you. Which is going to be tough if you're just starting out and have no start up capital.

So what we finally did was get our 19 year old genius son to do it :-)

So enjoy the new samples - the dailies are now in full color in addition to the Sundays.

I'll update other changes as they happen.

Piers Baker on Tall Tale Radio

This week Tom Racine interviews Piers Baker, creator of the wonderful strip Ollie and Quentin.

Pop over there and check it out!

And while you're at it, be sure to read Piers blog - I love the Sunday Hyperlinks he just posted :-)

Coffee Talk - UPDATED and UPDATED AGAIN

Congratulations to Tony - he made it! You can read more here.

Thanks to all of you who pledged, I 'm really looking forward to my first issue!

John and I just finished donating to a terrific project called Coffee Talk. Started by cartoonist Tony Murphy (It's All About You), it will be a newspaper composed completely of comics and will be available in coffee houses. You can read all about the project and make a donation here.

It looks as though Tony will be offering some great comics including Norm Feuti's Mr. Zimby. I love the retro look of this comic and am happy that it might be getting a chance to appear in print.

Best of luck Tony!

Everybody go donate - it's super easy, since it's through Amazon you can use a major credit card, and you can donate as little as a dollar or as much as a thousand dollars (I'm sure Tony would love you for that) and the money is only charged to your account after full funding of the project is confirmed. If he doesn't make it, there is no risk to you that you'll lose your money.

There are only 6 days left and over $2500 to go! So hurry!

UPDATE: It's going well but there are only 61 hours to go and the goal is still $2000 short - if you haven't pledged yet, please hop over there and help make it happen.

Tall Tale Radio Interview - Reubens aftermath

Tom Racine of Tall Tale Radio very nicely asked us to do another interview which is now up here.

I would ask that before you listen to this interview you would take into account that we were a tad sleep deprived and also recovering from the New Jersey Revelry - the older one gets the longer the recovery process takes :-)

I say this because, as I listened to it this morning I realized that, A) I seem to have felt the need to talk very loudly this time, B) I interrupted Tom at least 3 times - maybe more and C) I blathered.

Part of this I put down to Tom's ability to put you so at ease that you feel as if you are just shooting the breeze over drinks with a friend. Which is why I sound like I'm at a bar :-)

Regardless, thank you so much, Tom for all your support of Edison - we really appreciate it.

Ironman 2

We interrupt the Reubens wrap up posts (parts 3 and 4 still to come) to bring you this review of Ironman 2. (Warning - this post is long and contains spoilers.)

Now I know the movie has been out for a month already and I am coming very late to this party, but we just couldn't get out and see it until last night. Largely because of all the preparations for the Reubens. (Getting a week's worth of strips produced and shipped off 4 days early is no mean feat.) But better late than never.

Let me start by saying that Ironman is a character I knew absolutely nothing about before I went to see these movies. My comic book reading as a child was sporadic at best. There were no comic book shops anywhere near my house so I was left with three sources of comic book reading material.

1) The barbershop where my father got his hair cut. (This was where I discovered the big crush of my 7 year old life -Thor. Actually, I think I still have a crush on him - sorry John.)

2) The dentist's office - all the normal little girls were reading Little Lulu and Richie Rich - I went straight for the Fantastic Four.

3) My dad's anthology books. From Marvel there was "Bring on the Bad Guys" and "Origins of Marvel Comics" both by Stan Lee. And then two giant hardcover compilations "Superman from the 30's to the 70's" and "Batman from the 30's to the 70's". My dad was one of those poor guys whose mother threw out all his original Superman and Batman comics when he went into the navy.

Despite my spotty exposure to great comic books, I have always adored the sheer abundance of color and energy jumping off those pages. Fans of Edison who pay particular attention will notice that I color Edison less like a traditional newspaper strip and more like a comic book - the bolder the better. I know purists hate this but John's drawing can support it and it's one of the things that makes the job fun for me.

So when I go to see a movie based on a comic book, I am looking for a few things, dazzling, graphic color and a cinematic approach that evokes the layout of the comic book page. I want to feel as though I am looking at a comic book with all those crazy camera angles and exaggerated close ups. And, most of all, I want to be transported into the reality of that comic book's world without ever feeling that it's contrived.

On this level, the two properties that have succeeded best at this for me have been the Spiderman and Ironman films. Their very comic-ness just jumps out at me and draws me in.

I now have to publicly admit something that is going to make me very unpopular in some circles. I hated "The Dark Knight".

Absolutely hated it.

I cannot even find words to describe to you how much I hated it. I loved "Batman Begins" and was really looking forward to this movie - maybe that's one reason I hated the sequel so much, I set the bar impossibly high. But I don't think so. I think the main reason I hated it was that it felt nothing like a comic book. The first movie went to a lot of trouble to create its own universe and the second movie felt like a run of the mill thriller/action flick - the sets looked pretty much just like downtown Chicago, for one thing. And, while I know it is sacrilegious to say this, I was completely unimpressed by Heath Ledger as the Joker. For me he just played a run of the mill psychopath, not a comic book villain.

So I was pretty worried about the same thing happening this time. I completely loved the first Ironman movie and was steeling myself for a letdown.

Nope.

Loved it. Absolutely loved it from start to finish. I suspected I would because I am a big fan of director John Favreau. I knew he had a great handle on humor when I saw "Elf" and, for me, the injection of the right kind of humor into an action movie makes all the difference between an engaging film I'll want to see more than once and just another "blow things up", "smash some cars" tour de force.

So, with my love for injected humor in mind I'm going to give you some of my thoughts as I watched the film and also a couple of my favorite moments.

First of all - did anyone else notice the "mouth props"? Mickey Rourke always has this toothpick in his mouth and Sam Rockwell at least once has a lollipop. Is this because no one can smoke in the movies anymore - even the bad guys?

And, is it just me, or is there a subtext comparison with Apple (Stark- elegant and sleek) and Microsoft (Hammer - clunky and overengineered) - especially that little non-functioning super bomb?

I liked Howard Stark's expo as a sort of "Uncle Walt the Evil Physicist Genius" with his Epcot Gone Wild.

And I liked Howard's approach to the future - discover a new element and then disguise it as a theme park.

Oh, and be sure to put in a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" moment when Tony discovers the big secret using a giant map model.

There was the nod to the Tyson/Holyfield fight when Favreau bites the guard on the ear.

And I think my absolute favorite moment - when Tony puts the little block into the kinetic sculpture so it will stop moving.

I loved Scarlett Johansson - especially when she was wearing her secret agent ninja suit - she is one of the only women ever to successfully look like a real comic book girl character come to life. Another was Michelle Pfeiffer as catwoman all those years ago.

Both Rourke and Rockwell were terrifically evil, always hitting just the right tone. Exactly what I've come to expect from both of them as stellar actors. (But those fingernails - ick! I've heard someone speculate that his nails really look like that and they didn't need any make-up. I hope not.)

I liked Terrence Howard OK in the first movie but did feel he was a weak link in the overall cast - I like Don Cheadle better.

Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson - I'm a sucker for deadpan delivery - love this guy. And the Captain America shield.

Gwyneth Paltrow - love her and Samuel Jackson also. Another favorite moment from the film "Sir, I'm gonna have to ask you to exit the donut".

Finally, Robert Downey Jr. I want to hate this guy. I really do. He has a bad history as a drug abuser and, by all accounts, a colossal jerk. But I can't. Because, first of all - he did his time, seems to have repented and stayed clean. I haven't heard any horrible stories of erratic behavior for a long time. And secondly, he's so damn good. I've never seen him give a bad performance. From the first time I saw him as Charlie Chaplin in 1992 to now. Even his little gem of a performance in Bowfinger. I have no idea where the recent Sherlock Holmes movie falls on the radar of Holmes fans but Downey is just flat out excellent in that film. He has a quality in common with Owen Wilson and Alan Rickman - they are guys who steal every scene they are in. You just can't take your eyes off them.

I have to stop - there were so many great moments, I can't even remember them all. I think I need to see it again this weekend :-)

I know this is longer than one of my usual posts, so tl;dr Iron Man 2 was a great movie - g0 see it.

Reubens on the Hudson pt 2

More pics from the weekend:

Mell Lazarus at the podium during the awards ceremony. The Big Giant Head you see on stage is some poor guy (I never found out who) who had to wear this costume (for about 2 hours) as one of the characters of Tom Gammil's "The Doozies". If you've never seen Tom's hilarious videos, check them out here.

The legendary George Booth at the podium. This is the one person I totally geeked out about meeting - more on Mr. Booth in a separate post.

Dave Blazek and Mark Parisi offer their gentle commentary on John's loss in the newspaper comic strip division.

The legendary Joe Kubert and Bill Janocha

One great thing that happens at the Reubens is that a number of people bring sketchbooks and request drawings from their fellow cartoonists. There are also some folks (myself included) who have books and things that they would just like to have signed.

Frank Pauer had the foresight to bring Brian Walker's book on the history of comics which he has now had signed by a darned good number of the cartoonists featured in it. (Sadly I did not take a photo of said book) I brought a bunch of old "Cartoonist Profiles" with me this year and had the good fortune to have an issue that featured "KAZ" - Larry Katzman. Larry was one of the presenters this year (it was a thoroughly enjoyable presentation on some of the history of the NCS) and he graciously not only signed my mag but drew a little cartoon as well.

Here is John drawing Edison for Chris Janocha, son of Bill Janocha who works on Beetle Baily.

And here he is drawing for Loose Parts' Dave Blazek. As a special bonus, Dave serenaded John with some rockin' piano music during the process :-)

The finished drawing.

Part 3 still to come.......

Reubens on the Hudson pt 1

Well we're back!

In the interest of timeliness I will be posting about the weekend in stages as I get organized.

I'm going to start with the posed cocktail type shots because there are a boatload of those and I want to get them out of the way :-)

You will notice that most of these fall into the "John standing next to someone famous" category. This is because of all the cocktail parties that happen at the Reubens - I think I counted about 12. Well..... maybe only 5 but, still - it's a weekend with a lot of standing around drinking and talking.

And for me that usually includes high heels. I added it up and I spent total of 18 1/2 hours standing with a drink in my hand. That includes the marathon session on Saturday - about 2 hours before the awards ceremony and 5 1/2 hours after that. (This would be because all the hobnobbing carries on until 2-4 a.m. each night). Needless to say, my knees and feet are still recovering. (Would totally do it all over again, though!)

Here goes:

John with Lynn Johnston - I need to put a little explanation by this one: when John got his development deal with King Features, I contacted Ms. Johnston for guidance. She not only called John, but spent about an hour giving him some very important advice and also the name of Stu Rees, Intellectual Property Lawyer Extraordinaire. John knew at the time that this was a generous act on the part of Ms. Johnston, but now that he is in the trenches of producing a daily strip he really understands how hard an hour of non strip time is to come by. Thanks again to Lynn so much!

With Tom Richmond, winner of this year's NCS award for Best Newspaper Illustration

With Tom Stemmle

With Rocky Shepard - President of King Features

With Chad Frye - note how I have cleverly positioned them so that John appears to be wearing an illuminated mortar board.

With Bob Rich - nominee for Best Newspaper Illustration

With Frank Pauer - Editor of "The Cartoonist"

With Anne Gibbons

With Dan Thompson, Dave Blazek - nominee for Best Newspaper Panel Cartoon, and Bucky Jones

Sam Viviano (Vivainio), Frank Caruso, and Patrick McDonnell - another note - if you have not seen this video on how to get your work into Mad Magazine you must watch it right now!

Rocky Shepard and Rina Piccolo

Linda Houden and Amy Lago

With Norm Feuti - apologies John - I think I ran your hair through a blender before I took this one :-)

With Mark Parisi

With Caroline Roth

With Rina Piccolo

More pics on John's blog here and more to follow tomorrow!

Heading to the Reubens

I hope the hotel likes cats because apparently ours is coming with :-)

Seriously, it's time to head to New Jersey for the Reubens. This year, partly because of my airline boycott, but for other reasons as well, we are driving. And I'm actually looking forward to the time on the road. While road trips can be tedious, they can also be great adventures. In fact, as I think back over my various travels, my airline travel stories are generally ones of aggravation and annoyance while most of the best and funniest memories have been the trips where we drove.

There was the trip to Florida in 2005 - our Honda Odyssey was brand spanking new, so new in fact, that we were unaware of a few little things about it. The salesman had been excellent about showing us all the little secret storage compartments and the copious number of cupholders, and how the rear seats folded into the floor and how to rearrange the middle seats. He had not told us about the built in "security system". That little gem we discovered for ourselves on Lookout Mountain in Tennessee.

Apparently, if everyone except one person gets out of the van and one person hits the autolock button on the keyring and then the last person in the van opens the door from inside, the car alarm goes off.

And keeps going off.

And a red light (which is not pictured on the dashboard schematic in the owner's manual) starts flashing.

As we didn't even know the car had an alarm, we were pretty confused. I think I remember one of the kids asking if the car was going to explode and was trying to warn us to get away from it.

Even more confusing was the fact that it turns out the system is on a timer. So when everything stops honking and flashing after five minutes and you think you're safe - five minutes after that it all starts up again. In a parking lot full of tourists. Who are staring at you. And who are pretty sure you are a certifiable idiot as you are whipping through the manual desperately trying to figure out how to shut this thing down and your husband has the hood open to see if there's anything helpful in there and your kids are running around in circles screaming "We're all going to die!"

So you do the only sensible thing you can think of, which is to pile everyone back into the honking van, slam the doors, and drive honking back down the mountain away from said tourists while frantically dialing the dealership for help.

The last hilarious bit was when, after pulling into a gas station and finally connected to someone at the dealership he says to tell my husband to get out, go around to the passenger side and unlock the door with the key. There is no keyhole. "Oh." he says. Five minutes later we will finally resolve the situation by hitting the "lock" and then the "unlock" button on the keychain. This educated not only us, on the future disarming of the system, but the guy at the dealership as well.

Or the time in Michigan when we had our gigantic suitcase - the old fashioned kind that measures 36x48 - bungeed to the top of our little Honda Civic. I'm on I75 which has a speed limit of 75 or 80 mph so I'm going at a pretty good clip. John is asleep in the passenger seat and some of the bungees break loose. The wind catches the suitcase and whips it off the top of the car sideways. The chords on my side have held, so the suitcase is now dangling next to my driver's side window. Picture the opening credits of the Flintsones when they put the big steak on the car and the whole thing tips over. I still insist that if John - who is a foot taller than me and weighs, well, more than me, had been driving, we would have wound up on two wheels.

As it was, I managed to ease the car over to the left shoulder. John woke up and said "I'm pretty sure we can't stop here."

I just pointed out my window to the precariously positioned suitcase. Enough said.

There are many, many stories like that from my times on the road. I'm not sure if we'll get any more from this trip but if we do, you'll be the first to know.

It's Here!

OK, so I splurged and bought an ipad. John and I have a big anniversary coming up and I rationalized this as a sort of joint anniversary present. For the record, I did hold out for the second version with 3G wi-fi.

And, as you already know if you follow my blog regularly, I wanted one really, really bad.

Seriously, this is a huge deal for me. I clung to albums and cassette tapes until about 1992 before I finally caved and bought a CD player. Who knows when I would have bought a DVD player if my father hadn't gotten me one as a gift (I still have about 150 VHS tapes taking up shelf space - a source of constant irritation to my 16 year old son). I didn't buy an ipod until it finally seemed like a good idea for my oldest son's birthday in about 2005. And I have held out against cable TV since forever. Ironically, I can now watch almost anything I want on my computer, but that's a blog post for a different time.

So buying this ipad while the proverbial paint is still drying on the marketing campaign is a step waaay outside my zone.

But, as I posted back in January and April, I firmly believe this device and others like it are going to revolutionize print. And, even though we have seen the "digitalization" of print since the advent of the internet, we have not seen a revolution in content delivery.

Up until now, portable print has been primarily still analog in the form of actual paper. Laptops were a first step in untethering digital print from the desktop, but laptops are designed more to produce content than to consume it. I very rarely see folks doing actual reading on their laptops. Instead they are usually surfing the web and multi-tasking.

One of the criticisms of the ipad has been its lack of multi-tasking but, after spending a day with it, I find that to be one of its strengths. With one graphic on display at a time I can fully focus on the article I'm reading and check my inbox later. I find that when I am reading things on my desktop mac, I am constantly pulled to that little icon that is my emailbox.

The two main reasons I got this ipad were for digital newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and also the ipad's color capabilities.

First, how does it handle articles?

I chose, as my first foray into ipad news consumption, this article in the Atlantic Monthly. Ironic, no?

So I tried reading it, first on my desktop with an 18 inch monitor, and then on my ipad with a screen that measures 6 x 8. You'd think that the monitor, with its larger screen would win hands down. But no. For one thing, no matter how big your monitor is, content is only delivered to your desktop in one size. And, even if you crop your window to the edge of the article and cut out the banner ads, the print still remains one size. I loved that I could use my fingers to create the size of print that both fit the window on the ipad perfectly and also increased the font size to a nice level of legibility. And, again, with only one thing to focus on - the article - I did not find myself constantly eyeballing other things on the screen. Even just having the side banners go away was helpful.

Another drawback to reading things on my monitor is the way I sit at my desk and the angle of my head and neck. Holding the ipad in my lap (while lying comfortably in my bed, yet)

felt like reading as it was meant to be.

Second, the color capabilities.

This is it. This is what all creators of color content have been waiting for.

The second I went to John's home page, I was knocked out by the vibrancy of it. The sheer clarity of the images. Then I went to my website. Same thing.

So then I really put it to the test and went trolling for comics. First I tried reading Edison on Comics Kingdom. Then Pooch Cafe on Gocomics. Both looked reasonable good and the large screen meant no more scrolling as on an iphone.

But then I signed up for the Bizarro App and the Marvel Comics App.

I cannot even begin to describe for you the difference. This is our conversion from cassette tapes to MP3 files. This is our conversion from analog TV to HD.

The lines are crisp and the colors are beyond vibrant.

And this is why people are going to pay for comics again. Because, while I could read comics like Edison and Pooch for free on a variety of sites, every image there had to meet the low res and file size limitations required to fit the comic onto a large complicated page filled with bandwidth gobbling content.

Removed from those constraints, the Bizarro and Marvel comics shine in all their RGB color glory.

And THAT I will gladly pay for.

Tall Tale Radio Interview - Reubens

For more inside scoop on John's nomination - and much silly digression into movies - check out Tom Racine's excellent podcast here.

Unfortunately, all the bits about our daughter's fascination with Monty Python's Holy Grail since the age of five were after the mic was off :-)

Edison and the Reubens

As most of you know by now, The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee  is up for an award from the National Cartoonist's Society. It has been nominated in the newspaper strip category along with Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller and Zits by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman. I have not blogged about the nomination up to this point because I guess, in many ways, I am still trying to wrap my head around it. For John's work to be nominated for any award is such a thrill. For it to be nominated for an award by his peers is even more thrilling. For it to be nominated in the company of such giants in the industry as Wiley Miller, Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman is beyond mind blowing.

Another reason I haven't spoken out publicly is because I am in an unusual position. To my knowledge, other wives of cartoonists don't have public blogs. There are a lot of days where I'm not sure why I have one, to tell you the truth. It started because John's blog (Lab Notes) won't let him enable comments and also because he truly doesn't have much time to write up blog posts on anything like a regular basis. He's lucky if he manages one a month, let alone putting up something every week. So we started this second blog because I had the time and energy to keep up with it.

And why blog about the things I do anyway, you might ask? I guess I try to look at this space as the extra behind the scenes commentary you get on special edition DVDs. I just love watching Monty Python's Holy Grail with the various bits of commentary from all the cast and crew.

So, in that vein, I'm prepared to do a little "fly on the wall" blogging from the point of view of "cartoonist spouse on the street".

First, John has been quoted as saying that, despite the cliche'  quality of this phrase, this is one of those cases where it truly is an honor just to be nominated. And you have to know he really means that. No matter what happens at the Reubens, he has been given a thumbs up from his fellow cartoonists that can never be taken away. 

Second, is my very real hope that the nomination itself - not even a win, just a nomination - might be enough to put the strip over the magic number of newspapers and online subscribers it would take for John to finally be able to quit his other job. 

As I type those words, I feel guilty for wanting the other job to go away because, in this economy we are lucky to still have other jobs while so many people are looking for work. But I cannot begin to describe to you how hard it is to watch John put in these 80+ hour workweeks. Not only does he work 7:00 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. pretty much 7 days a week - with occasional breaks for dinner and piano recitals (oh, and roofing) - but both his jobs require continual creativity which is exhausting.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to paint him as some super human martyr. Those of you in the cartooning business know what I'm talking about because, if you're not in enough papers to make a living solely from your strip, you're pulling exactly the same kind of hours. I just don't think folks outside the business have any concept of the time and energy it takes to produce 365 illustrated jokes a year. I know that, before John got syndicated, I hadn't a clue what the workload would be like. Or how hard it would be to dovetail it with the rest of our lives.

All I'm trying to say is, being a cartoonist is a difficult prospect at any time and is an extraordinarily difficult prospect in the current market of media transition. Getting recognition like this is like a ray of sunshine after some very cloudy, rainy, windy days, and is something that I look forward to seeing happen for many other deserving cartoonists working today. There are so many who are doing terrific work that may be flying a little under the public radar. 

Someone asked me if I had practiced my "polite loser" face for when they say "Non Sequitur" or "Zits" - you know, like at the Oscars where they split the screen 5 ways and show all the nominees reaction when the name gets announced and you get this sort of frozen look on the faces of the people who don't win. 

I said "Of course not!" because, 

A) luckily for us they don't televise these awards and the only people who see you are the folks at your table 

B)if I have to practice any kind of face it will be the one that isn't fainting from shock if he wins. I'm going to try very hard not to look like one of those people on the Antiques Road Show whose Grandma's necklace (you know, the one everyone thought was costume jewelry) is worth $250,000.

C)Hellooo - I'm not nominated - he is -no one is going to be looking at me anyway :-) 

So, until I hear the magic words - "And the winner is..." I'll keep floating on the little cloud I've been on as the "supportive spouse" and, no matter who wins, the thrill of the nomination will last forever.