Category: Cartoons and the stories behind them…

As an artist, I notice tools of the trade wherever they are.  I was walking in the house today from the garage and noticed a pencil on the kitchen counter that looked like one of my colored pencils.  I immediately wondered how it got there and picked it up to see which set (I have several) it belonged to. 

It didn’t look like it was from one of the sets of colored pencils I owned and I noticed advertising on it.  Printed in bold letters was “MATERIAL GIRL Quilt Shop, Traverse City, MI.”   Now I knew it wasn’t mine!  However, what caught my eye next generated the cartoon idea.  It looked like a brown, colored pencil with thick lead but on the portion where it normally (on MY pencils) listed the color, it said, on one line: “WASHABLE” and “FABRIC PENCIL” on the next line.  I immediately wondered, with the few working brain cells assigned to cartoon ideas, “Why would they have to wash the pencil?” 

Then, it struck me.  Because of the advertising, there wasn’t enough room on one line for what they meant to say, “WASHABLE FABRIC….PENCIL”.  Imagine the confusion it might cause if there were any quilting cartoonists out there… or, more likely, ROOKIE QUILTERS.

Living with an avid, accomplished quilter, I’ve heard the stories they like to tell about “Rookie” mistakes made before they knew what they were doing.  Or, at least, before they understood the unique and foreign I might add, language of Quilting.  It took me a while to not be insulted when they talked about “Fat Quarters”  in my presence… until I realized it wasn’t my physique they were referring to but pieces of pre-cut material.

I am amazed at what the are able to do with a myriad of patterns, scraps and colors.  Quilters are a special breed.  However, they do have one thing in common with me as a cartoonist… You can NEVER have too much stuff!!!

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Years ago, I drew this drawing of a “Bald” Eagle after going to the U.S. Post Office and seeing posters with the American Bald Eagle promoting Priority Mail. 

That got me thinking about eagles and  why they were called bald… Being “Hair Impaired” myself,  I wondered if male Bald Eagles lost the feathers on the top of their heads when they got old.  Why else would we call them BALD eagles?  Men with white hair aren’t called bald.  We usually refer to them as “distinguished” or something like that.   I know what bald is… it’s when you trade in your hairline for a head-line.

When my Dad was a college professor, he had a colleague who had snow white hair.  My Dad, on the other hand, could part his hair with a towel… if you know what I mean.  They had an ongoing discussion about why some people have baldness and others have a full head of white hair.  As you might expect from people in Academia, it was an intellectual conversation based upon scientific research.  Or, so they claimed.

Each came to a very different conclusion, depending on their own personal and, of course, unbiased research.  My Dad’s friend claimed hair turned white when the roots of the hair went down and hit gray matter so rich it bleached out the color.  My DAD would then counter with his theory.  White hair, in his research, was caused when the roots went into gray matter so weak there were no nutrients present and the hair dried up and turned white.  Dad said baldness was caused by hair roots getting  into gray matter so rich it burned out the roots and made the hair fall out.

From my perspective, it’s pretty obvious my Dad was right.  So I decided to set the record straight.  There is a massive Federal Cover-up going on!  Why do they insist on putting pictures of white-headed eagles and calling them BALD?   It is all about gray matter.  Some white-haired, grey matter-weakened bureaucrat in Washington called a white-feathered eagle bald.  To make matters  worse, he spelled “Male” wrong.  Lets set the record straight!   If the American symbol is the Bald Eagle, show it like it is… BALD!  Correct the spelling!  It’s “Priority MALE”. 

Bald IS beautiful, you know.

I took a self-publishing class a few years ago in Holt, Michigan.  The instructor, Rich Baldwin, found out I was a cartoonist and asked me to draw some cartoons for a website he had at the time.  Rich, like me, is hearing impaired and wears hearing aids.  Some of the cartoons were about misunderstandings caused by the “close, but no cigar” world of the hearing impaired.  If you live with a hearing impaired person, you know what I mean.

I drew this cartoon for him after his comment about people that start speaking very loudly when they see you are wearing hearing aids… regardless of the fact your hearing might be completely normal with the hearing aids. 

Rich is a wonderful author and even a better person.  On his website, “Jocosity Cartoons” (no longer active), he had three categories of cartoons: Hearing impaired jokes, Catholic jokes and a Miscellaneous section for cartoons that didn’t fit in the first two categories.  Since Rich is very active in the Catholic Church and also an advocate for the hearing impaired, he had lots of ideas… good ones.  A lot of the cartoon ideas he got were from the same place I get my ideas… REAL LIFE.  I was lucky enough to get the pleasure of drawing his ideas.  I hope, with his permission, to showcase some of them in future blogs.  Knowing the story behind the cartoon is sometimes better than the cartoon itself… and, believe me, there are stories!

Check out his website and buy one (or, more) of his books.  He’s a great writer and if you get the chance to meet him in person, you’ll see why he’s one of my favorite people.  Judging by his new website, he’s going to add Children’s books to the long list of books he’s written.  Knowing him, they’ll be great!…  Hmmmm…  Wonder if he needs any cartoons for those books?

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As is our custom in the Senior Breakfast group at Big Boy, talk drifted to the subject of the challenges of growing old.  In a nutshell, we all have noticed the increase in the gravitational pull  of the Earth on our bodies.  Any time for any reason we choose to go to a lower level for anything, it’s getting harder to get back up.

One couple was talking about the challenge of their Grandson’s Kindergarten Open House for parents and grandparents.  Have you been to a Kindergarten classroom recently?  It appears the school system didn’t pay enough for good quality furniture and everything has shrunk over time!

Bean bag chairs present a special challenge for those of us fighting gravity.  They don’t have any solid surface to grab to help us regain the “higher ground”.  The couple in question had decided that maybe this year would be a good year to decline the privilege of sitting in their grandson’s favorite bean bag chair and opt to stand nearby and let him demonstrate how he used it in reading time.  That was when I envisioned the perfect solution to the problem… a hoist!

Now, as I look at the drawing from a practical viewpoint, I  realize my idea had one major flaw… no motor for the hoist!  Gravity is increasing at such a rapid rate our power naps can’t create enough energy to overcome it!

I got this idea watching one of those Police shows on TV.  As is the normal procedure for a person captured and accused of the crime, the suspect said, “I was framed!”  Earlier that day, I had stopped at a stop-light in town (always a good idea!)  and happened to be looking directly at a frame shop… for pictures, etc.  My sub-conscious or whatever is the blame for my ideas, did the rest.  It gave me a new perspective on the saying.  We’ve all had those moments where we are entering a situation that we know is stacked against us… The “Suitable for Framing” moment.  As I said in another post, you only have one real option that might work… “Blame it on the Dog!”