For Illustration Friday: DESSERT!!!!!

And I love Fridays, too! Dessert sounds swell.

I am embarrassed to confess that I’ve started a new blog – I bought the name a while ago, Chocolatecartoons.com – but I’ve only recently started to write there. I’m going to do some more colored drawings for it, as the food companies are amazingly foolish and stingy on finding photos of their products!

I’m calling it Dark. Chocolate and not-Vanilla.

We’ll see how it goes.

Sergio Aragones, famed cartoonist for MAD is also known in Los Angeles as a bon vivant, and man about town!

Sergio Aragones at Carney's Hot Dogs

I’ve known Sergio for many years, through CAPS and NCS when I belonged to those clubs, and occasional cartoon get togethers. He really is a fascinating man – married three times, and was a real ladies man with starlets and others in Hollywood before that. He’s charming, and a big talker – but he has the creds, from MAD Magazine mostly. Of course, those were the days when MAD was monthly, not quarterly, and they took all the contributors (cartoonists and writers) on trips around the world every year! (As well they should, since they have a really awful old-fashioned and stingy Work for Hire contract.)

Anyway, Sergio has a studio up on hot Ojai, which I visited once, on a day spa trip up there. Very fun, and so is he.

I knew from seeing a thumbnail of this that this was one of his early drawings, and so it is – 1978. From the 99Cent Chef Blog, who is a character himself, doing a roundup of hot dogs in Los Angeles.

On a much sadder note,  one of the best editorial cartoonists in our generation, Paul Conrad, died last week. I didn’t know him as well as Sergio – only briefly met him at Impolitic, a gallery in Santa Monica that we both had our work in. Impolitic had great parties, and I think he came to most of them, although he didn’t seem interested in anyone, and just wanted to chat about his cartoons. He was a great talent.

Of course, I mean the remaining six on Bachelor Pad.

This was such a CHEAP, CHEAP show – get out of my life. The dates are so lame – I think they were all within 3 miles of the house or so. So boring to look at. And since it’s cheaper to film in daytime, the lame “contests” – as if spin the bottle was a contest in any way – and I hope they saved money on that one by using one of their own empty wine bottles – have the contestants all squinting, all ugly, in the hot sun.

Now, the people: I really liked Gia, even though she played the game so poorly. Wes seemed pretty sincere – I was one of the few who liked him in Jillian’s season. It was Fleiss who did a number on him.

I liked a lot of the women – Nikki, Ashley, and especially Krisily – she’s an outspoken girl of my own heart! That’s exactly how I would have played it, too, and lost! All gone now.

Peyton was the last girl I liked, and now she’s gone. I could call the remaining six names, but why bring myself down – they’re all undeserving of the win. I have to say, however, that even though Kiptyn fancies himself a good person, I DON’T THINK SO. Cannot stand fake Tenley, and David Good is the worst.

On a much more interesting note, I saw Vienna today!!! I hardly ever recognize anyone, and it’s not a spot where I would expect to see even a reality star: in Joann’s Fabrics, in Glendale! Read more »

For Illustration Friday: star gazing.

aliens subscribe to people magazine

Or planet plumpers. Who knows what that star is…most are planets, right?

Since I’m a night owl, I often look at the night sky and try to remember the constellations. I also take a moonlight hike with a group if I have time, and we all have a party at the top!

This is the month for shooting stars, and tonight I shall look for them.

Caption: Scientists talking to department head: We were going over those radio waves from star 54527, and, well, they’d like the latest issue of “People”.

bird tells cat he really really likes him

For Illustration Friday – I don’t remember the subject now!

Cartoon Caption: Bird says to cat, “I really wish you’d read Cats Who Hate Birds and the Birds who Love them.”

Obviously, the bird is hoping to make the cat like him, and not in an eating way, but you won’t really get this cartoon unless you have heard of an uber-popular book for women that came out a few years ago, and is still in print: Men Who Hate Women, and the Women Who Love Them.

Yes, talk shows actually took this book seriously. I guess it’s for women in abusive relationships.

Or cats and dogs, or birds and cats.

A hair job? Like a nose job or boob job, but not as permanent.

Topic for Illustration Friday: artificial. You know, like dying gray hair is artificial.

gray hair cartoon

Btw, the TWOP boards are suggesting that after Ali finished the Bachelorette she got a nose job.

I have no opinion to offer on this. I never even notice people’s noses, except if they are particularly large. I ran into Michael Richards while he was still taping Seinfeld, in a used book store in North Hollywood. He had ordered an art book for his wife.

Of course I was thrilled to see him – Seinfeld was at its height of popularity at the time – but standing next to him, I was shocked at the size of his nose. That was the main thing I remember about him. Later I ate at the Stinking Rose, in Beverly Hills, and they have portraits of large-nosed people, and his portrait was there.

There is a female cartoonist who shall remain nameless, who has the biggest nose I’ve ever seen on a woman. Again, I was shocked, and felt bad and embarrassed for her. Why didn’t she get it fixed? She’s very successful – she can afford it.

Ali, I don’t know. Before a nose job she should have paid for a good haircut, lost the stinking extensions, and LEARNED HOW TO DRESS. I have never seen someone dress so badly ever, when she has a really good figure.  Sad. Also, I think she was the worst Bachelorette ever.

Cartoon caption: 2 women chat at dressing table, and one says Every time I find a new gray hair, a fairy dies. (like Peter Pan’s fairy).

Of course, your friends always think you look great, with or without Clairol.