Category Archives: cartoons

December 29, 2014 · 4:17 pm

Toonerville, a Place I Once Lived In

There is a place so like the place where my heart and mind were born that I feel as if I have always lived there. That place is a cartoon panel that ran in newspapers throughout the country from 1913 to 1955 (a year before I was born in Mason City, Iowa). It was called Toonerville Folks and was centered around the famous Toonerville Trolley.

Fontaine Fox was born near Louisville Kentucky in 1884. Louisville, of course is one of the two cities that claims to be the inspiration for Toonerville. Apparently the old Brook Street Line Trolley in Louisville was always run-down, operating on balls of twine and bailing wire for repair parts. The people of Pelham, New York, however, point to a trolley ride Fox took in 1909 on Pelham’s rickety little trolley car with a highly enterprising and gossip-dealing old reprobate for a conductor. No matter which it was, Fox’s cartoon mastery took over and created Toonerville, where you find the famous trolley that “meets all trains”.

I didn’t learn of the comic strip’s existence until I was in college, but once I found it (yes, I am the type of idiot who researches old comics in university libraries), I couldn’t get enough of it. Characters like the Conductor, the Powerful (physically) Katrinka, and the terrible-tempered Mr. Bang can charm the neck hair off of any Midwestern farm-town boy who is too stupid to regret being born in the boring old rural Midwest.

I fancied myself to be just like the infamous Mickey (himself) McGuire. After all, we have the same first name… and I always lick any bully or boob who wants to put up a fight (at least in my daydreams).

So, this is my tribute to the cartoonist who probably did more to warp my personality and make me funny (well, at least easy to laugh at! ) than any other influence. All of the cartoons in this post can be credited to Fontaine Fox. And all the people in them can be blamed on Toonerville, the town I used to live in, though I never really knew it until far too late.

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Filed under art my Grandpa loved, artists I admire, cartoons, Toonerville

Tagged as art criticism, artwork, cartoons, Fontaine Fox, humor, Toonerville, Trolley

December 28, 2014 · 5:56 pm

The Next Little Project

All right, the time has come to figure out what to write next. I have another thirty-plus-year-old writing project that would make an absolutely, terrifically horrible novel that I want to try to tame. I have a cartoonized version created back when I was young and stupid… in about 1981, before the invention of the graphic novel. It is in full color. It was done before I learned how to draw. It is a book that will now go under the ridiculously alliterated title The Captain Came Calling.

The novel is set, like all of my hometown stories, in Norwall, Iowa… The fictionalized version of Rowan, the town I actually grew up in. It isn’t quite as dorky in real life as it appears in my cutsified illustration, but it is approaching it at glacial speeds.

The town’s portrayal will have to change as I attempt to update and clarify characters.

The people have to be switched about. Phyllis Murphy has to become Mary Murphy. The Pirates will have to switch from the 90’s Pirates to the 80’s Pirates, as the main character, Mary Phillips has to create a new Pirates’ Club that didn’t exist when I first wrote this bilge. I have to update and increase the plot, adding the back-story through the inclusion of the Captain’s Logbook… How else can I get mermaids and the voodoo priest into the story otherwise?

I also have to be a little bit more politically correct about the portrayal of the tiki-idol-men. South Seas’ Magic can’t be racist or misogynist. And then there’s the whole thing about Captain Dettbarn’s less-than-Iowegian morals that has to be dealt with. He’s basically a clown character, not a villain.

And the Captain is cursed with invisibility. That is no small thing to pull off in work of fantasy fiction in a Young Adult style. It has to be believable enough to make the audience accept it, even if it is a comedy caper of the lowest sort.

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Filed under cartoons, novel plans, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney

Tagged as artwork, cartoons, colored pencil, drawing, new novel project, novel writing, Paffoonies, pen and ink, re-writing old garbage

December 15, 2014 · 11:33 pm

Me, Myself, and It

I think it is provably true that any time an artist creates a work of art, it is actually a self-portrait. Did you see the works of Thomas Kinkade and Paul Detlafsen in my recent posts? Can I not effectively argue that those paintings give you a glimpse of the real person behind the paintbrush? Was Norman Rockwell not the man portrayed in all those lovely down-home, truly American oils he did? Was Theodor Giesel not also Dr. Seuss? Then I look back at some of the goofy pictures that I have created through the years and think, “Oh no! What have I done?” I sometimes think I don’t have to post nude selfies of myself for people to see me naked. Should I really have done that…? …Of course, I should! And that means I have seen William Shakespeare naked too! Good Golly! I have to quit thinking these goofy thoughts!

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Filed under cartoons, goofy thoughts, humor, Paffooney

Tagged as cartoon, drawing, goofy thoughts, humor, paffooney, pen and ink, selfie

December 6, 2014 · 3:25 pm

Goofy Me

The more I looked at the silly simpering grin on my old foolish face, the more I realized it needed a few things added. So I added a few of my dream babies. You know, those characters I have created in cartoons and novels who may have started with my own three kids, or kids I grew up with, or kids I taught over the years, but ended up with a large injection of my own mental DNA in their final, fictional selves. So here is a self portrait that I privately refer to by the title “Goofy Me”.

Man, is that ever goofy!

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Filed under artwork, cartoons, drawing, self portrait

Tagged as aliens, artwork, cartoons, Catch a Falling Star, characters, colored pencil, goofiness, paffooney, photo, self portrait, shameless self-promotion

December 2, 2014 · 8:37 pm

The Rest of my Classroom Gallery

Here’s what’s left in my camera from school white boards and lessons.

There you have it, the results of 31 years of doodling on the chalkboard (which became the dry erase board). And yes, I did tell them the cartoon fairy drew all the pictures. Especially when they were in my class for the second or third year when they asked, “Who does all the pictures on the board?” And yes, I started doing this back in dinosaur days in white chalk on a green blackboard, followed by colored chalk, which later became a gray marker-board for washable marker, and finally became dry erase white board. And I really bought my own chalk and markers too. Teachers do that, you know.

More Cartoons from the Classroom

Here are a few more chalkboard drawings (actually white board drawings).

At the end of the school year, I let kiddos do their own self portraits along with my drawing of Black Timothy the Pirate.

Cartoon Board-Work

I admit it. I was a goofy teacher. Kids never knew for sure whether I was serious, joking, or halfway in-between. I worked for hours sometimes preparing the chalkboard, or later, white board, for the days lesson, putting key points and reminders up in cartoon form. I used characters, symbols, jokes, pokes, and silliness to get the idea across. Principals and others who evaluated my teaching always wondered why my classroom sounded so raucous and wild from outside the door with kids laughing, music playing, and sometimes desks being shuffled and shoved around the room. The perfect-classroom-is-a-quiet-classroom crowd always hated my teaching style. But the ones who came in and participated, got involved in paying attention and watching the kids interact with the content loved it. I am not bragging. My lesson plans were a mess filled with booby traps, explosions waiting to happen, un-intended consequences (also called teachable moments), and brainstorms that threatened at any moment to electrocute somebody with lightning. Teaching is a dangerous business. But the point is, there is an art to teaching that brings out the artist in you. I offer the following evidence;