Wednesday, May 23, 2012

The Laughing Librarian / by Jeanette C. Smith


This just out from McFarland, The Laughing Librarian : a History of American Library Humor by Jeanette C. Smith. Not a lot of graphics, but some cartoonists are included in the narrative, including a certain dusty old cataloger. I know Jeanette had been working on this book for a long time and it is an impressive and unusual contribution to the profession.

Phone photo 1540

Bucoda, Washington

Favorite Movie Quotes: The Shawshank Redemption

"I guess it comes down to a simple choice. Get busy living or get busy dying."

[Reviewed in Cheaper by the Dozen 49]

Phone photo 1539

Abandoned quarry converted to a community swimming area
Tenino, Washington

SPACE Interview Reposted

The Jim & Frank Podcast somehow found audio from my visit to SPACE 2011 when Bruce Chrislip interviewed me. Mostly this piece of comix history is valuable for hearing Bruce's incredible rendition of a couple Bil Keane Watch columns.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Phone photo 1538

Tenino, Washington

Favorite Movie Quotes: Shane

"There's no living with a killing. There's no going back from one. Right or wrong, it's a brand. A brand sticks. There's no going back."

[Reviewed in Cheaper by the Dozen 23]

Monday, May 21, 2012

Phone photo 1537

Tenino, Washington

Favorite Movie Quotes: Shakespeare in Love

"I don't know. It's a mystery."

Phone photo 1536

Tenino, Washington

Favorite Movie Quotes: Shadow of a Doubt

"You think you know something, don't you? You think you're the clever little girl who knows something. There's so much you don't know, so much. What do you know, really? You're just an ordinary little girl, living in an ordinary little town. You wake up every morning of your life and you know perfectly well that there's nothing in the world to trouble you. You go through your ordinary little day, and at night you sleep your untroubled ordinary little sleep, filled with peaceful stupid dreams. And I brought you nightmares. Or did I? Or was it a silly, inexpert little lie? You live in a dream. You're a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you'd find swine? The world's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it? Wake up, Charlie. Use your wits. Learn something."

Phone photo 1535

Tenino, Washington

Morty Comix # 2361

Morty Comix # 2361 was part of a packet of Morty Comix that fell out of my pocket at The Evergreen State College, so even I don't know where they landed! I was intending on planting them in various places, but this is an accidental but great way of random distribution, a happy twist of Fate.

Phone photo 1534

Here's something you don't see every day.
Someone left their partial dentures in the parking lot.


Favorite Movie Quotes: Secondhand Lions

"If you want to believe in something, believe in it. Just because something isn't true that's no reason you can't believe in it. There's a long speech I give to young men, sounds you need to hear a piece of it. Just a piece. Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love-- true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in. Got that?"

[Reviewed in Cheaper by the Dozen 11]

Phone photo 1533

There are at least half a dozen little baby Cottontail rabbits in this shallow hole in my yard. Whenever the cats go outside I cover it up with an upside down laundry basket to give the little bunnies a fighting chance.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Morty Comix # 2360

Morty Comix # 2360 was part of a packet of Morty Comix that fell out of my pocket at The Evergreen State College, so even I don't know where they landed! I was intending on planting them in various places, but this is an accidental but great way of random distribution, a happy twist of Fate.

Phone photo 1532

Teddy Bear Mugshot

CPJ Photos of the TESC Cartoonists Seminar

 Seated left to right: Matt Groening, Craig Bartlett, Drew Christie, Tommy Thompson, Megan Kelso, Steve Willis, Ruth Hayes

See this and other photos by Kelli Tokos at:
http://cooperpointjournal.tumblr.com/post/23322690497/animation-seminar

Phone photo 1531

One of my pine trees

Favorite Movie Quotes: The Searchers

"That'll be the day."

[Reviewed in Cheaper by the Dozen 72]

Phone photo 1530

Fish ladder, Deschutes River, Tumwater, Washington

Favorite Movie Quotes: Scrooged

"Frank, let me sum this up for you. You don't know who you are. You don't know what you want. And you don't know what the Hell is going on."

[Reviewed in Cheaper by the Dozen 8]

Phone photo 1529


Morty Comix # 2359

Morty Comix # 2359 was part of a packet of Morty Comix that fell out of my pocket at The Evergreen State College, so even I don't know where they landed! I was intending on planting them in various places, but this is an accidental but great way of random distribution, a happy twist of Fate.

Phone photo 1528

Boat used for capturing caimans in the Fetid Lake of Doom, moored in Tumwater, Washington


Favorite Movie Quotes: The Score

"When was it you started thinking you were better than me?"

Phone photo 1527

Tumwater Falls

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Paul Tumey's Screwball Comics

Paul Tumey just posted an overview of my work on his website The Masters of Screwball Comics. I just nip at their heels, but it is so flattering to be classified as a cartoonist carrying on the traditions of Rube Goldberg, Milt Gross, Gene Ahern and Bill Holman. Of all of them, Holman was probably the one I had the most exposure to in my Portrait of the Cartoonist as Young Dog period in the 1960s.

Thank you Paul. It's all a mystery.

Phone photo 1526

Deschutes River, Tumwater, Washington