Wisdom

" Always live your life with one dream to fulfill.

No matter how many of your dreams you have

realised in the past, always have a dream to go.

Because when you stop dreaming, lfe becomes

a mundane existence.



Sara Henderson, b. 1936
Australian Outback Station Manager and writer

Cartoon of the day

Just sold this cartoon to The Wall street Journal along with two others . . nice to hit a triple out if one batch of 15 drawings. I've always liked Hindu gags, although you would think it's a tired theme, they're STILL funny every now and then . . I STILL enjoy the Hindus, the cannibals, the desert island situations, kind of reminds me of The Katzenjammer Kids on that crazy island they lived on, The Three Stooges . . . and a little bit of slapstick makes AIG easier to take ( Along with a double Jack Daniels and a Gran Marnier ) . . . Skip the 10 o'clock news . . read a little " Atlas Shrugged " and you're ready to take on another day after some sleep with a cat curled at your feet . . Man, it doesn't get any better than this.

Wisdom

" Doing nothing for others is the undoing of one's self.

We must be purposely kind and generous or we miss the best part of life's existence. The heart that goes out of itself gets large and full of joy. We do ourselves most good by doing something for others. "



HORACE MANN 1796-1859

American educator, writer and politician

ZEITGIEST - The comic

It's hard for a teenager to concede that someday he'll be as stupid as his father. And here's another one by Milton Berle: " A teenager is a person who goes steady before his voice does . . "

Milton Berle on Kids

" They say a woman has a baby every thousandth of a second. We must find this lady and stop her ! " and then this one I love: A woman said to her husband, " We ought to buy Junior a bike. "
The father said, " Will that make him behave better ? " The woman said, " No, I don't think so - - but it'll spread his rotten behavior over a bigger area ! "

.......................................................................................................................................

Cartoon of the day

I love kids. When I was about twelve years old I used to walk a block to the grocery store, ( Tang's Market ) in Tucson, Arizona for a loaf of bread or milk or some candy and I used to run into this old man with a cane who used to take a walk around the neihborhood. This old guy loved to start up a conversation with us kids . . anything to talk, this guy was lonely . . always told the same jokes . . He used to say: " You know, I like you, you remind me a lot of myself ! " . . He'd go on to say he liked kids because he used to be one ! As corny as it sounds today, this stuff is imbedded in mind forever . . . Who the hell was this old guy ?

FACTOID #2 ( Things you need to know )

" It takes 43 muscles to frown and 4 to sip a margarita. "

Source: Carnival .com

Cartoon of the day

There is a real chocolate discovery health trend today . . for chocolate lovers, it's heaven on earth.

New Yorker Cartoon Satire ( Should be, but probably won't )

I don't see anything wrong or inappropriate if The New Yorker Magazine published a cartoon like this. In fact - I think it would help THEM in showing and proving that they DO have a healthy sense of humor to the point that they ARE able to laugh at themselves. Socrates warned us about taking this life down here too serious - - This place where we're at - this little place - - which is only about space and time . . tables and chairs . . know your domain of your ignorance . . . I say, lighten up, don't take yourselves too seriously . . but, indeed, take your WORK seriously.

I wonder if Mankoff reads this blog ? Wouldn't it be something if HE BOUGHT this cartoon and DID publish it?

Sometimes I find it extremely difficult to be humble . . .

I'm one of those guys who says: " I TOLD YOU SO ! "

Cartoon of the day

AIG Executive Panhandler

Brother, can you spare a dime ? It's a good thing that all we have to do is to print more money . So what's the big deal ? Just keep printing it and don't stop, there's plenty for everybody. The guv'mnt'll take care of ya!

Masear Gag ReCap Cover

Thi drawing appeared as a cover for The Gag ReCap ( A Cartoonists and Gagwriters Trade Journal ). I was poking a little fun at some of Masear's big -nosed characters, which I really like. I think his gags are up there with the best gagwriters in the country. Why The New Yorker has not discovered him escapes me. According to Bob Mankoff's own words of what he is looking for, he is actually describing Masear's work. Original, funny, clever, outrageous, new, different. I think he's funny.

Masear called me on the phone and came to my defense in the cheap shot I received from a not too bright person who said " Roy Delgado will never sell The New Yorker because he's not smart enough. "

A little bit of good advice is from Jimmy Durante when he advised us . . . You better be nice to them on your way up because you're going to meet them all coming down. "

Cartoon of the week

Cartoon of the day

I love these guys . . living in the nation's capital most of my adult life I used to see this type of person parading around the front of the White House or directly across the street in Lafayette Park . . all kinds of signs, sometimes a person would have not ONE sign but as many as at least 10 or more, usually each placard or banner had at least 25 to 600 words on each sign! . . You feel like asking, Who in the world has the time to read the stuff ? . . Man, GET A LIFE ! ( I'm not going to judge, maybe HE'S right, and WE ARE ALL NUTS ! )

Atlas Shrugged

New Yorker Cartoon Satire

Of course this is just satire . Some names were changed to protect the innocent. I thought that after over 19,000 cartoons of mine were
rejected by the NYer that a scenario like this IS possible - - in fact, None of us are positive that this could NOT happen ). I dreamed ( or is it dreampt ? ) it first, I woke up laughing, made a note, drew it up, sent it to THE GAG RECAP, He thought it was funny ( and used it for a cover ) and so did a lot of people - via published letters in the GAG RECAP and I received 2 phone calls from prominent nationally known cartoonists and gagwriters . Everyone liked it, but like they say in The Marine Corps, There is always that 10% , the malcontents, The Bitcher. , the guy who is out of step,the guy who has to chime in with something negative, the guy who doesn't get it, the one who can always find something wrong instead of looking for what is right . . The real problem with this type of person is looking at him when he looks in the mirror. All except one person liked it - - - Except the loon who said: " Roy Delgado will never sell the NYer, because he's not smart enough. " Giving the reason that I was ridiculing or offending someone. Man, lighten up. What business are we in? Someone should tell Funny Times or Doonesbury or Boondocks to knock it off ! The HELL with freedom of the press ! Don't criticize.



Look, I'm only the messenger. ( NEVER say NEVER )

Only fools are positive - - are you sure ?
Anybody see " First Blood " ? ( Never bring a knife to a gun fight. )

Jimmy Hatlo Letter Oct. 1953

Here's a letter I received from Jimmy Hatlo, dated October 15, 1953. I had just started my studies at Billy Hon's Cartoon School in September and I'd written to him to try and get an original of " They'll do it Every Time " to frame and decorate my room and studio for inspiration. I told him I was with Billy Hon, and I knew they were friends, and I thought this might help in scarfing an original from the genius. I'd also drawn a cartoon in HIS style on the envelope, just to be cute. I had just turned 18 on October 12. I was excited when he wrote back. And here's the letter verbatim.

Mr. Roy Delgado

137 North Rampart Street

Los Angeles,26, California

Dear Roy Delgado,

In answer to your last little note, I am asking King Features Syndicate to make a processed copy of the cartoon which appealed to you. I kinda like that one, too.

I am interested to note that you are a student of my old friend Billy Hon. I was on the Los Angeles Times years ago when Billy Hon was drawing cartoons for it's competitive sheet, The Los Angeles Examiner. Aside from being a fine guy, he is an able teacher and I am sure will do you a lot of good.

I was particularly interested in the little quick sketch you made on your envelope. I don't know what your plans are, nor do I want you to get overly excited or upset about this, but you seem to have an enthusiasm for my particular alleged technique.

This is all tentative, but it is remotely possible in the not too distant future we might have room for another man on my staff.

If you are not too busy, will you take any of your own ideas ( it doesn't neccessarily have to be a wow, as far as the inspiration goes ) and present it as well as you can in my style. I should like very much to see how you handle this. Even a couple of them would be better.

Looking forward to hearing from you - - and with " auld lang syne " to Billy.

Cheerio,

Signed

( Jimmy Hatlo )

Not get " overly excited about this ? " what is he NUTS ? I just turned 18 three days ago!

I'm GREEN. I didn't sleep for a week ! I'll continue next to what happened after this . .

NOW, I get a second letter dated October 31, 1953 from Jimmy Hatlo . . . It reads verbatim:

Mr. Roy Delgado

137 North Rampart Street (sic) ( Blvd. )

Los Angeles, 26, California

Dear Roy Delgado,

I think after reading your letter and learning your age that your drawings submitted under the title THEY'LL DO IT EVERY TIME, as I requested, show a great deal of promise, however, I have to be frank and tell you that right now ( if I go into the project I have in mind ) I need a little more than promise.

It is obvious that you are coming along rapidly under the tutelage of Billy Hon, but at this point you are not quite ripe enough, at least for a berth in my organization. However, please do not be discouraged and if, as I suspect, you seem to have a yen to draw along the lines of my so called feature, keep it up, please, and keep in touch with me. I am very interested in your work.

Again, kindest regards to yourself and Billy Hon.

Cheerio,

( signed )

Jimmy Hatlo

POSTSCRIPT: I am leaving for New York, where I shall probably be incarcerated for a month or so and at the end of that time will be sincerely curious to see what further development you may have achieved in your work, not only as it pertains to my style but let's see some of your own stuff then.

Good Luck,

( Initialed )

J

Yes, it was exciting. I walked on air for a month. I did keep in touch with Jimmy Hatlo throughout the years but I never could come up with the nerve to give it another try. ( It turned out to be one of those shoulda-coulda-woulda deals ) But I thought he was a helluva nice guy to give a young punk kid in 1953 a little encouragement. It stuck with me for a long time. I 've always tried to pass the same encouragement on to any young guy comin' up, always, I guess it was contagious.

Time goes on . . He passed away, and his successor, AL SCADUTO just passed away recently, another really great talent and gentleman. I'll be posting both the Jimmy Hatlo print he sent me in 1953 AND an Al Scaduto original he sent me a couple years ago or so.

I like what Jimmy Durante said: " You better be nice to 'em on your way up, 'cause your gonna meet 'em all comin' down ! "

Orlando Busino Envelope

Under normal circumstances, when you receive a letter, you usually glance where it came from, glance at the time/date it was mailed, then most of us tear open the envelope rather quickly ( I can NEVER find the letter opener ! ). If it's Kosher at this point you throw away the envelope in the trash . . . HOWEVER, there are some envelopes you save and file for future enjoyment, like this one . . an original cartoon, or a piece of art ( which it is ), I CAN NOT THROW IT AWAY ! It's worth framing under glass, which, come to think of it, I WILL !

Here is one of those masterpieces. ENJOY !

Orlando has been one of guys who influenced my work and his talent and hard work has earned him the prestigious National Cartoonists Society Award " Best Gag Cartoonist of the Year " for multiple years.

On top of this he is one of the nicest guys I've ever met.

Wisdom ( Write these one down )

" The unexamined life is not worth living. "

SOCRATES

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

" Know thyself. "

THE ORACLE AT THE DELPHI

Billy Hon Cartoon School Flyer

This ad was sent to me by Bob Weber Sr. back around 2003. He'd been rummaging through some old boxes of cartoonist's trade journals and old cartoonists newsletters and the like.

He knew I'd attended Billy's school and he thought it would bring back memories. It sure did. I just ran across it myself .

I attended Billy's in 1953-54 right out of high school. Having taken a Greyhound bus from Tucson, Arizona with $600.00 in my pocket, I was on my way to become a magazine cartoonist and nothing was going to stop me. Shortly in my first year, just turning 18, I sold my first freelance cartoon to a farm trade journal called The Prarie Farmer for four dollars. I said to myself: Dick Cavalli, VIP, Cobean, Dempsey, Henderson, Lamb, Key, Fine - - " Move over, because there's a new show in town !" ( Of course, It was an arrogant, dumb, naive, stupid statement to make ) As I said before, back then, I was young and dumb, - - - now, I'm no longer young.

The ad came out in a trade journal called THE AMERICAN CARTOONIST ( Put out by a couple cartoonists from California, I remember ). There was also a small ad for THE CARTOON GAGWRITER by Don Ulsh, 123-35 82nd Road, Kew Gardens, 15 -Gagwriter: You can flood the mails with funny stuff, but if it ain't slanted right it's wasted effort. For two dollars, Don's book will give you the proper angle.

Another ad said: Collector wants originals of Happy Hooligan, Krazy Kat,Foxy Grandpa, Buster Brown, etc. A. PASHOW, 1662 Cropsey Ave., Brooklyn , N.Y. ( I thought to myself, No Kidding ! )

And still another one inch ad said: CARTOONISTS - Get in on the ground floor of new markets as they open up by getting the dope while it's HOT. " CARTOONISTS' WEEKLY MARKET LETTER " supplies you with the latest market info as well as news and inter-studio chit-chat of just about everybody in the freelance gag-cartoon business. FREE sample copy. CARTOONISTS' WEEKLY MARKET LETTER, La Habra, Calif.

I'd subscribed for a couple years to The Cartoonists' Market Letter. It was produced by a trade journal cartoonist named Lew Card. He lived in an exurb of L.A., La Habra. His address I still remember: 513 College Circle.

One Saturday a fellow student from the school, Bob Van den Berghe and I called Lew and asked if we could drop by and say hello. He'd seemed to be a real friendly guy and had mentioned in his magazine that anyone was welcome to his house, so we took him up on it.

I remember we arrived late in the morning. It was a small town. This was before shopping malls and before a lot of things !

We found his house and he quickly invited us to stick around for a spaghetti dinner, which we did., and turned out to be extraordinarily tasty. We chatted around the kitchen table for a couple hours and couldn't help noticing at least 6-7 kids aged from about 3 to 15 running in and out of the house. Found out it was his second marriage and the two families made for a full house. Also he told us that he had a drinking problem so he moved way the hell out away from any place he could buy alcohol. It seemed to work for him.

On another Saturday we decided to call Mel Millar. Mel had worked for Disney for years and his name appears on the credits on many films.

I remember he lived out in Burbank. He had a beautiful white stucco Spanish style house with a mission tile roof. The driveway curved into a half-circle with a large Pepper tree smack dab in the middle. Mel by now was doing a helluva lot of trade journal cartoons and supplemented his income by lettering at least a half-dozen comic books. He had one he was working on and one of the 20x30 bristol boards was on his drafting table, he was about half way finished doing an entire Tweety Bird comic book. The panels were all pencilled in and the balloons with the lettering was roughed in. So Mel would ink in the lettering and balloons, then someone would pick them up, take them to the inker and complete the job.

Mel was an excellent lettering guy and was well-known for it. Helluva cartoonist and gentleman.

Cartoon of the day

Cartoon of the week

National Law Journal cartoon

THIS DRAWING APPEARS ON PAGE 27 OF THE MARCH 2, ISSUE OF THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL.

Cartoon of the week

Wisdom/Truth

" The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."

HOWARD ROURK

Wisdom ( Write this one down )

" It is not in doing what you like,
but in liking what you do
that is the secret of happiness. "

JAMES H. BARRIE

cartoon of the day

Cartoon of the week

Cartoon of the day

This is MY kind of Bed and Breakfast ! Someone should open up a place like this.

Cartoon of the week

Cartoon of the day

Now it's okay to do a urinal gag. Dan Beyer had a hilarious one in The New Yorker. His first sale there. He's one of the new talented guys in this business . . I envy him, he started at the top . . . where a lot of dumb guys like myself started at the bottom and still have not had a taste of the NYer, and possibly, but I doubt it, will not ever. Pat Byrnes said I'm not smart enough to sell the NYer . I think Pat Byrnes is not smart, period . . or he wouldn't say something like he said - - - like one long time New Yorker cartoonist told me: " Who the hell does he think HE is ? " Giving it some thought, I think Pat Byrnes is not smart enough, or talented enough to critique a collegue who has achieved twice as much as he has, and has graduated from drawing with a soft firstgrader's pencil. Once you have mastered pen and ink, ink and wash, watercoler, conte crayon, watercolers, charcoal - - - THEN and only THEN can you show your stuff with a basic implement like a pencil. A la Robert Weber, Modell, Mort Gerberg, Interlandi, Reilly and Da Vinci and Rembrandt, and Picasso, etc. etc.
To do otherwise you look like a karaoke singer in the finals at American Idol.

" The NERVE of some people's children. " - - one of my grandmother's favorite sayings.

Wisdom ( Write this one down )

" Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls. "

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Wisdom

" Courage is grace under pressure. "

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Funny Times cartoon

This drawing appeared in the November 2004 issue of FUNNY TIMES. I always thought EMINEM or EMENEM, whatever , ( M&M, for MICHAEL MATHERS ) was a funny name . . so the ENEMA thing was a natural for a gag. JUST THE WORD BY ITSELF: " ENEMA" . . . You want to laugh . . .

Reminds me of the last visit to the doctor . . it was the time for the regular prostate check-up ( with the rubber glove ). I said to the doctor, I can't believe anyone can look forward to taking this test . . he shot back: " What bothers me is the the guy who DOES ! " ( True Story )

Wisdom

" The key to whatever success I enjoy today is:
Don't ask. Do. "

VICKI CARR

Cartoon of the day

Occasionaly, from time to time, my memory drifts back
to when I spent four years in the Marines. So whenever I decide to draw a military cartoon I always use a marine setting - - as those four years are imbedded in my mind forever - - - While stationed on Okinawa, once they found out I was a signpainter in civilian life, I always had a list of signs to paint for the captain, or the colonel - - or the general !
In fact, it came in so handy - - I never had to spend one day doing mess duty - - every time a sergeant asked if I've had mess duty yet, I would say no, followed by a " Right now I can't, I'm working on a sign for the colonel and he has to have it by Friday ! " ( which was usually true )
This always worked for a couple weeks - - then again, I'd go through the whole routine - - then I'd go through the whole routine AGAIN - - - And again, and again, and again! Luckily, I never did one day of mess duty in four years.

In the military, this type of a person is known
as a " GOLDBRICK ". ( A negative term usually referring to a lazy person, or a person who gets out of a work detail with a phony excuse . . it is called "MALINGERING " - - which is a chargable offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and punishable by something like three months in the brig.
Of course, from the OFFENDER'S point of view, he thinks he's shrewed or slick or smart ( actually, it's more like " Young & Dumb " ). Was I guilty? YES. I was young and dumb once .
now I'm no longer young.
Nuf sed on this one.

Wisdom ( Write this one down )

" You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence. "



ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Wisdom

" The most important thing for a young man is to establish credit , a reputation, character. "

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER

Cartoon of the day

Kinda reminds you of the current role model cabinet appointees: " Don't do as I do, do what YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO. " Whatever happened to the
" Leadership by Example " ? ( Maybe it was only a fairy tale ).

Cartoon of the day

A New Yorker cartoon you'll never see in The New Yorker because they rejected it. In other words, It's a- - - Shoulda-Coulda-Woulda moment.

Cartoon of the month

Here's a cartoon that COULD be in the New Yorker. It COULD, but it AIN'T.

I like the cliche : " It is what it is and it ain't what it ain't. "