Barry’s BlueSky- Untitled May 16, 2024It's basically impossible to parody the modern right. [contains quote post or other embedded content]
- Untitled May 16, 2024The Existence of Trains Debate #PoliCartoon #Climate #ClimateChange #GlobalWarming
- Untitled May 15, 2024Two of the most common complaints I get about my cartoons: 1) You left something out! 2) You use way too many words.
- Untitled May 15, 2024The Six Kinds of Republican #PoliCartoon
- Untitled May 15, 2024I think part of what's going on is that some people always like an excuse to be mean yet think of themselves as virtuous. (Happens on all sides, btw.) But another reason - particularly wrt Gaza - is that we feel helpless. We're stuck in "this is so horrible, I must do SOMETHING! But what?" […]
- Untitled May 15, 2024Regarding the new Hillel survey of Jewish college students, I can't find anything about their sampling methodology. But in Hillel's sample, Jews are 50% moderate or conservative. That would make Jewish undergrads far to the right of US Jews in general.
- Untitled May 16, 2024
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Because of you, Amp, we finally subscribed to Dollars and Cents. That’s why I am one of the first people on my block to understand that Social Security isn’t actually about to go bankrupt and that the Bush administration is trying to pull a fast one. Dollars and Cents had articles about this even before the estimable, adored Paul Krugman and even before the lovely cartoon by Tom Tomorrow. All because of how much we love your work in this house, Barry. (Plus also because we know the editor at Dollars and Cents!)
Thank you so much, RA! And yes, Dollars and Sense is a terrific magazine – I was a fan of them for years before they started publishing my stuff.
By the way, since you know the editor, please feel free to mention to her (or to him, if Dan’s the one you know) that the reason you subscribed is my cartoons. Might help me out if I ever ask them for a raise. :-)
Speaking of CEOs and boards of directors,
They Rule
If I may ask a trivial question about something I find intriguing: is the “exclamation mark” T-shirt some kind of cultural reference (like the “Charlie Brown” sweater), and does it exist in reality? I’ve seen it in at least another Ampersand strip (“With God On Their Side”, printed in Attitude 2, p. 76).
Also, the father figure looks familiar. Is it based on a model we should know?
I just remember who Suzy’s father looks like: an Israeli mathematician I once met in London, UK. Most probably, you got your inspiration elsewhere.
I’ve used the exclamation mark t-shirt dozens of times over the years (I’ve occasionally done semi-colons and question marks as well). There’s no meaning or reference intended; it’s just an easy-to-draw way for me to put a design on a shirt and introduce some needed black spotting into a panel.
As for Dad: When I drew this, I was thinking of Dad as a spiky-haired, black-haired Ned Flanders (from the Simpsons). In my mind, the narration of this strip is in N.F.’s voice.
Unfortunately, I don’t like the drawing much this strip (although panels two and three are okay). The next Dollars and Sense strip (which I won’t put on the blog for a couple of months) is much better drawn, imo.
Thank you for the explanation. Since those T-shirts are your invention, I’d say they are a lot more expressive under their comix form and should not be materialized (just like, mutatis mutandis, Spiegelman’s Maus shouldn’t be adapted in an animated cartoon, or, worse, a real-action movie).
Now, I remember the “Christian Family” Dad in The Simpsons and I can see how you based your character on him, though I’d like to think the dark hair makes him look more like “my” Israeli mathematician (especially in the inter-panel close-up), though I’m pretty sure he had diametrically opposed views about capitalism. I remember the man explaining that all the material you need to do mathematics is a pencil and some paper. Sounds a bit like cartooning, doesn’t it?
(Amp looks around at his lightbox. And his computer. And his Wacom computer drawing tablet. And his hp scanjet. And his Epson stylus photo 1280 wide-paper printer. And his set of fancy inking markers.)
Umn… Sure, that sound just like cartooning the way I do it. A pencil and some paper.
I like the little face peaking up from the floor of the blog. It looks like I sometimes feel when making comments among the erudite ones here.
This cartoon makes me think of the recent tongue-lashing aparently given the head of Costco by the Wall St. Journal not long ago. Seems they think there’s something wrong with the guy because he seems content getting by on a mere 300K a year.
For sheer surrealistic inspiration, it’s hard to top WSJ. If I ever get around to dropping acid, I plan to have their editorial page at the ready while I’m tripping. Or maybe a Peter Max book. I haven’t decided.