Tomversation by Tom Falco

I am that “lawn guy!”

OMG, I’m turning into an old man. I told a kid to get off the lawn.

Not exactly that way, but some kids were riding their bikes around the area and I yelled at one, “Hey, get off the grass!”

Then I died, thinking of what I did. Not because I yelled at the kid, but because I sounded like an old man.

We had a lot of work around the area for a few years. First we had our 40 year recertification thing, then we had the building painted, that took almost two years. Then we had seven months of street work, just in our small cul-de-sac. New drainage pipes were put in, the sidewalks and streets were raised and finally, they put new sod down in the swale areas.

In between all that, we had new pavers down on our own property, which was almost another month. So after all this time, things are done and nice. And this kid is riding his bike on the grass, which is still not settled yet.

While the city waters the grass from a big truck, one of my neighbors and I water it daily, to be sure it grows nicely.

So when I saw the kid on the grass, I lost it for a second. I turned into an angry old man.

I think the kid’s father, who I know called me to yell at me, I didn’t recognize the number, but it was local and rang me a few minutes later. But I ignored the call.

So I added some cartoon wall hangings to my Etsy collection. They are presented on a matte stretched canvas in different sizes and they have to do with professions.

I’ve been thinking of this for a long time. I remember some years back, I would see a guy at art festivals selling his cartoon art that were based on various professions. They were framed comic strips geared to dentists, doctors, lawyers, etc. And they sold very well. They are quite a unique gift.

I have a big backlog of cartoons that have been published, literally hundreds, if not over 1000 and I thought they would make great wall hangings for professional people.

The Flintstone cartoon shown above has been selling as just a simple PDF cartoon, where people have been using the art on their business cards, mailings, promos, and things like that.

I didn’t go out and start selling the cartoon, it just sold itself.

What happened was, it was published a few years back, and after it was published, I started receiving emails from people asking if they could by the rights to use it for their businesses – mostly real estate agents, designers, architects, that sort of business.

They just reached out through email and asked to buy the rights, which was amazing, since I would assume people would just grab the image online and use it, but these people asked to pay for the rights. And I ended up selling them the rights to use the cartoon for their projects.

It happened quite often for awhile and I sold the right – and for quite a bit of money and they paid it! I’m still selling the rights, but I lowered the price quite a bit and the masses now purchase it and use it.

Anyway, so now I am offering these business/occupation-based cartoons on various size canvases which I suppose would look great in offices. They are a first class gift.

Right now I have a medical/doctor’s cartoon, a paddle boarding one and the Flintstones one, I will add a teacher, lawyer, and other professions as time goes on.

You can see them as I add new ones at the Etsy store here.

Till next time . . .

Subscribe via email to this blog here – and each time I publish, usually twice a week, you’ll receive it in your email.

History on tracks at the new farmers market

A couple of us went to the Gold Coast Railroad Museum yesterday, which is near Zoo Miami. I hadn’t been there for years.

Last time was for a kid’s birthday party. This time we went for a farmer’s market, which is being run by a friend.

There are over 40 old trains, many still running.

It opened in 1957 at a former naval air station. There are three miles of tracks and you can literally ride around at certain times in a train pulled by this red locomotive and caboose. It’s on tracks that look like they go though farmland.

There is an armor plated railcar used by Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower and Reagan – called the Ferdinand Magellan. You really go back in history just walking through the cars. A friend I was with said it smelled musky, but that musk is the smell of history.

I love the old steam locomotives – so huge and imposing.

Last time I was on a train was a few years ago – taking a train from Boston to NYC, which was great. Going along parts of New England in the fall was something special. I wrote about one of those train rides in 2017 “A delightful train ride” here.

My friend who runs the farmers markets has a few farmers markets in the Miami area and they all do well. This was the first day for this market, which was fantastic, as it was set up right next to the old trains. But it’s a bit out of the say, not walkable or even rideable by bike, so I do hope it makes it. It’s a wonderful location, but not sure if it will be a weekly visit for many people as most farmers markets are because they are near civilization.

Anyway, if you are in the area, check it out. It is worth the trip.

P.S. I wore one of my Ollie And Jacomo shirts – publicity don’t you know. I’ve been wearing them around town. I’m gonna wear them on the subway and all around NYC when I get there this summer.

Till next time . . .

Subscribe via email to this blog here – and each time I publish, usually twice a week, you’ll receive it in your email.

Ollie doing the ‘ollie’

When doing this Ollie And Jacomo comic, I thought it would be funny to have one them wet from skateboarding. At first, I had Jacomo all wet, but then I thought I would have Ollie be the one who “ollied” into the lake.

I googled “skateboarder terms” to explain a move one of them had made to make them roll into the lake, and “ollie” came up first! It was meant to be.

To “ollie” in skateboarder terms, is a skateboarding trick, called “fundamental,” by Wikipedia, where the skater leaps into the air with the board, without using hands.

I’m sure you’ve seen that, who knew there was a term for it. And the term is to “ollie!”

It was invented by Alan “Ollie” Gelfand in 1978, it is the basis for most modern, technical street skating tricks.

Interesting.

And here is the original concept, where Ollie is asking Jacomo about why he is all wet, and Jacomo tells him he “ollied” into the lake.

Who knew?

Till next time . . .

Subscribe via email to this blog here – and each time I publish, usually twice a week, you’ll receive it in your email.

From here to Affinity

After all these years, I am slowly moving over from all the Adobe products to Canva’s Affinity. I didn’t realize, but Affinity has been available for almost 10 years.

After Adobe kept cutting me off, claiming I was sharing my account with others, which I was not, I finally told them where to go. They made thousands of dollars from me over the years and now they aren’t getting a penny. And neither is Affinity since it is free.

Affinity is one program that works as all the other programs – it’s Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and everything else, all in one. No changing platforms, it’s all integrated into one thing.

I am now using it for my business and to color my daily cartoons.

I still use Clip Studio Paint to draw and create the cartoons, but I use Affinity for everything else – coloring, lettering, cutting and pasting and moving things around if necessary. I guess I could use Clip Studio Paint to do all that, but I’ve always used Photoshop for that. Now I use Affinity for that.

There was a learning curve, because a few things are different, but for the most part, it all operates the same.

I tested actual work and jobs before I cut Adobe off. Although there are new things to learn, on the whole, I find it easier and more intuitive than Photoshop and Illustrator. I was having problems setting the colors up properly with a PSD file and making layers, but interestingly enough, I don’t need a PSD file to separate the colors, I can do it right with a jpg and it does the same thing. It really makes life so much easier, it sort of upgrades every type of project and file. It cuts the extra work out.

It’s amazing how the Universe leads you where you need to be. I was getting so frustrated with Adobe and all the time I spent with them trying to fix the issues. But I was lead to Affinity when I needed to be.

I saw an article on Substack geared to cartoonists and the writer was asking people what programs they use to draw and work. And Affinity kept coming up and that of course lead me to them. Just when I needed them. I can’t find the article, or I would link it here. If I find it eventually, I will let you know.

But it’s amazing that at the right time, it all popped up in my universe. I could have used it years ago, but better now than never.

Affinity reads all old files from programs from vector art to jpgs, pngs, tiffs and everything else is all workable on the new platform. I can manipulate the files just as if I was using the old platforms.

I was concerned about creating and editing the work because some of it is a bit different than what I’m used to. But then I realized that it’s all about the finished product. It’s the end result that’s what’s important. And the end result is all the same as it always was.

As you are reading my cartoons (Ollie And Jacomo), see if you can tell which are the old colored cartoons and which are new. There isn’t much color in Ollie And Jacomo, so it may be hard to tell. And that’s a good thing.

Onward and upward and to Affinity.

Till next time . . .

Subscribe via email to this blog here – and each time I publish, usually twice a week, you’ll receive it in your email.

Babu wasn’t a bott

Babu Bhatt telling Jerry he is, “a very bad man.”

I keep having issues with Adobe. I may dump them once and for all.

I overpay them monthly for terrible service. They keep cutting me off, saying that I am sharing my password and account with others. Which I am not. I don’t even know anyone who does graphics or who would want to use my Photoshop or Illustrator. Most people these days seem to use Canva for everything.

Canva’s Affinity is free. It’s basically a free full version of Adobe Photoshop. I don’t know why I keep paying Adobe, and you think they would fix their issue with me so as not to lose a customer.

Anyway, I was chatting online, trying to get help. After a bit, the chatbot sends me over to a human, named Babu. And I asked if he was Babu Bott, rather than Babu Bhatt, which is the name of the guy on Seinfeld. It’s spelled Bhatt, but I misspelled it as Bott.

I guess since he saw me call him Bott, the guy online made it clear he was a live human. He didn’t get the Babu Bott/Bhatt reference. And I had to laugh because other than Seinfeld, I never knew anyone named Babu before.

There was an Ubu that I used to hear on tv years ago. “Sit, Ubu, sit. Good dog!” is an iconic closing phrase for Ubu Productions, seen at the end of 1980s/90s TV shows. It was the final thing you heard after the credits.

I use Photoshop and Illustrator for my business. I use Clip Studio Paint to draw, and I use Photoshop to color the cartoons, even though I can use Clip Studio Paint to color. And Ollie And Jacomo, my current cartoon doesn’t have much color, so who knows, maybe I’ll just use Clip Studio Paint for the whole process.

Years ago, I used Earthlink to host my business online and every time my site was down I would call them. The first thing they would say is, “Do you have everything backed up?” And I would scream, “Don’t touch anything!” They were asking so that they could remove all the pages and then reinstall them. I did not want that.

We didn’t do that, but then they had me jumping through hoops, “Do this, do that,” and after an hour we would hang up. I would then realize that their servers were down, it had nothing to do with my site personally. But I would always fall for it, and rather than just tell me the servers were down, I was made to jump through these hoops.

That is what Adobe does. They seriously asked me if I had two-tier security sign in for my account. I asked them what hacker would get into my computer, bypass my bank accounts, bypass my credit cards and all my other sensitive material, to steal my Adobe sign in? Seriously, Adobe treating me like a moron. Rather than admit they have some sort of glitch in the system.

As I was typing this, Canva popped up with an ad in my email. I guess they are watching me and want me as a customer. Crazy.

Till next time . . .

Subscribe via email to this blog here – and each time I publish, usually twice a week, you’ll receive it in your email.

Catch up with Ollie and Jacomo

Starting earlier today, a new season of Ollie and Jacomo began.

I’m putting my daily Tomversation cartoon on hold for awhile and Ollie and Jacomo are back.

I know people have been asking for them. And I’m glad to be bringing back new adventures in the form of their daily comic panel. For some reason, I enjoy a single panel cartoon, that’s not to say there won’t be multiple panels once in awhile, but mostly daily, there will be a single panel.

You can follow along for their daily Coconut Cove adventures daily, or if you prefer, every Friday I’ll send out an email with all five cartoons of the week, so I won’t be bothering you daily with emails, but you’ll get that one with everything in it.

If you subscribed in the past, then you will be receiving their weekly adventures every Friday, you don’t have to do anything. And if you don’t subscribe yet, but would like to, you can do that here. It’s free.

Otherwise you can follow them daily at these locations:

Their website: OllieAndJacomo.com
Instagram: instagram.com/ollieandjacomo/
Facebook: facebook.com/OllieAndJacomo/

And you can subscribe via email to this blog here – I send out a couple of short posts each week.

Baking bad, Nutflix and party life

I will be taking a break from my daily Tomversation cartoons and spending time with Ollie and Jacomo.

They are back for a new season of hijinks.

If you subscribed in the past, then you will be receiving their weekly adventures every Friday – that’s 5 toons from the week’s worth. If you would like to subscribe, you can do that here. It’s free.

Otherwise you can follow them daily at these locations:

Their website: OllieAndJacomo.com
Instagram: instagram.com/ollieandjacomo/
Facebook: facebook.com/OllieAndJacomo/

My blog can still be seen here: Tomversation.com and you can subscribe there if you like. There are links after every article to subscribe.

See you Monday! Over there, at one of those places (not here).

Ollie and Jacomo are returning!

The Gemini in me is coming out again and I decided to change things up, as I usually do once-a-year. I’m putting my daily Tomversation cartoon on hold for awhile and Ollie and Jacomo will be back for a run.

My brain needs a rest from the daily Tomversation. Coming up with ideas is not easy, but Ollie and Jacomo seem to write themselves. It doesn’t seem like much of an effort with them.

Time to pull out my Jacomo, “I Live for Summer” t-shirt again, I guess. I’ll wear it around NYC this summer – getting free advertising on the subway and stuff.

Their adventures will start running daily this coming Monday. If you’d like to subscribe, you can do that and receive all five cartoons of that week in Friday – this way, I won’t bug you daily with an email, you’ll only get the one.

You can use this link to subscribe for free. If you subscribed in the past, that is still good and you will receive the mailings starting next Friday.

If you prefer, you can can check them out daily at their home on the web at: OllieAndJacomo.com

Or you can follow them on Social Media at:
Facebook here: facebook.com/OllieAndJacomo
Instagram here: instagram.com/ollieandjacomo

Till next time . . .

Subscribe via email to my blog here – this is just for my blog which comes out a couple of times a week.

Again, for Ollie And Jacomo, you can subscribe here, where you’ll receive all 5 cartoons on Fridays.

Waymo’s Standoff: A Morning Encounter

We had a Waymo car visit our cul-de-sac the other day. They have been all over Miami, but this one came to our own neighborhood.

So many of us happened to be out on the street at that time too. It was early morning and I was out talking to our condo maintenance man. An elderly neighbor was waiting for an Uber, I helped her get to the sidewalk to wait.

A bunch of workers were on the street – they have been here for many months putting new drainage pipes in and raising sidewalks and the streets themselves. They were putting blacktop down, finally after all this time – the final stages to the long job.

A police officer wea present, they always are when work crews are present.

We also had a bunch of guys putting new pavers down on our property, so they were present, and so were some of our neighbors from next door.

We were all there, about 20 people, all doing our own thing. But when the Waymo came up the street, we all stopped and watched quietly in unison.

The street was blocked at the corner because the steamroller and other equipment were putting down the blacktop, so you could not drive by. There were barricades and a big sign saying “Street Closed” And there was the Waymo. Just staring at us all, wanting to cross the “Street Closed” sign and all the big orange barricades. We all stared back.

The Waymo stared us down for a long time and then slowly turned around. It took a bunch of maneuvers to get it turned around, but it started heading back up the road, from where it came.

One of the workers joked with my older neighbor saying that she should not get into the driverless car for her doctor’s appointment. But luckily, that was not her Uber. Her Uber was trying to get to her on the one-way street where the Waymo had turned around and was heading.

It was almost like a cowboy gunfight standoff. Both the Waymo my neighbor’s Uber just sat there staring at each other. There was nowhere to go.

The Waymo was not going to budge and finally the other car, the Uber, turned into a driveway and allowed the Waymo to pass by.

The Waymo won that fight.

We all laughed and turned back to whatever it was we were all doing. It was a funny way to start a Friday morning.

Till next time . . .

Subscribe via email to my blog and cartoons here – the cartoons will arrive each Friday plus occasional short blog posts are sent during the week.

Peeps, ghosts and farro

Subscribe via email to my blog and cartoons here – the cartoons will arrive each Friday plus occasional short blog posts are sent during the week.

Subscribe via email to my blog and cartoons here – the cartoons will arrive each Friday plus occasional short blog posts are sent during the week.