I’ve known Marty ever since I started cartooning. I was in some of Sam Gross’s books and Sam emailed me asking if I knew Marty and Fred Lucky, two great cartoonists out here. At that time, I knew NO other cartoonists, anywhere! Alone, all alone, in a wide wide sea. (There was a cartoon group, that had meetings, CAPS, but I didn’t find them for years because they didn’t advertise or have notices anywhere. They FINALLY have a website, nicely done, but no info about what happens at the meetings, to insure that they don’t get any new members, or any ex-members (like me) interested in coming back.)

Anyway, I had lunch with Marty and Fred, who were best buddies, and that was the beginning! Of course, they were very sweet and appreciative of my work – very kind of them!- but I was a little intimidated. They used to get together with all the successful guys, like Sergio Aragones, and with the animation guys, (animation was still going well then), etc  at extremely expensive meals that I couldn’t afford. There was always a handful of wannabes at these gatherings, and afterwards Marty and Fred would happily flame them and warn me that these were the guys who followed cartoonists, wanted to be them, and yet…never were. I never saw Marty be rude to anyone, but he always avoided sitting next to them!

Marty was the best mentor anyone could ask for, and he taught me more about cartoons than anyone or any book. Sure, he was grumpy a lot – especially after Fred Lucky passed away a couple years after I met him. I think he never quite got over that. But he was very positive about a lot of things I tried: greeting cards, syndication, my books, and even my political cartoons, which very sadly, he never saw, since they are mostly online. He was curious and supersmart, and we talked for hours about art and even more, what was going on in the rest of our lives. I would like to say he was like a second father to me, but my own father might be hurt. In any case, he was like an older brother, giving me advice about my car, editors, how to go into the outside world (we were both loners!), parties, his Chicago background, just about anything. It brings tears to my eyes to remember all that we shared.   Read more »

WORST. MOD. ON Television Without Pity. I’ve said it before, and Barnes certainly wears this mantle proudly this month. Unfortunately for the popular Bachelorette forum, she’s there to bug all the time. Also, WTH is wrong with Bravo, that they hire someone on their lucrative TWOP forum whose proclaimed purpose in being there is to delete, complain, and close down the forum? Interesting way to run a business.

Here you go – and she’s off:

Aug 15, 2009 @ 8:27 pm

Closing the thread temporarily, because people aren’t really using it to discuss media, anyhow.

Word to the wise, if you see yourself as a contestant’s defense attorney or prosecutor, you should probably post elsewhere. I’ll clean things up and open the thread tomorrow or Monday — as time allows. Everyone go have a weekend or something.

Aug 24, 2009 @ 12:42 pm

The nagging me just makes me contrary, in case you didn’t notice. And to be clear, one request isn’t nagging; it’s the pile on that’s the problem.

Aug 27, 2009 @ 10:30 pm

Thread closed. Again.

19 posts deleted. 1 person banned.

Look, this isn’t the Ed thread. Reality Steve isn’t media. If he’s reporting on a contestant, take it to that contestant’s thread.

When there’s actual news about this show, please send me a PM and let me know. The thread is closed until then.

Is she a freaking control freak, or what?!!! I can see why being a mod attracts copy editor types, but how about little people like this?

And don’t you love that Reality Steve isn’t the media?! Ummm – (they don’t allow this word in TWOP, so I’m glad I don’t comment there -:)) – it’s called a BLOG. Is she going to claim USW, ET, and all the other blogs aren’t media, too? I don’t read him – not interested in someone who apparently delights in ruining the surprise in a show- but I think he does his research, and I did hear part of his Deanna interview, and he is a pro.

More later on my view of the latest news.

Even, or especially, if he’s a very bad man?

But enough about me. Let's concentrate on saving the wetlands, or alternative energy sources. ©D.Barstow

Topic for Illustration Friday: modify. Well, that’s not good enough for me, so I’ve changed it to change, or in this case, rehabilitate.

I’m serious about the title: I really want to know if people change. In the myriad of self-help and relationship books I’ve read, the only answer I can recall is, yes, but glacially. As I say in my about me page, I’m an impatient driver.  So glaciers aren’t fast enough for me. But maybe that’s all there is. In any case, there isn’t a man on God’s green earth who would ever voluntarily stop talking about himself, so this prisoner is a con man, that I know.

I watched and fell in love with every Prison Break episode, even when it went on life support in the last season. And I think the character Teabag changed, so that gives me hope. I wish the writers had let him go be a damn salesman…

I wrote this cartoon when no one cared about the environment at all – except for me, it seemed. Remember when they called “those people” treehuggers? Over here, that’s me.

I think the wash turned out very well in this drawing, with the texture of the paper peeking through; nope, it’s not Photoshopped! It’s the real thing.