Texting Teenager, Conjoined At The Phone Cartoon, Appearing In Brain Child Magazine

The wonderful and supportive editor at the award winning Brain, Child Magazine, once mentioned that she thought it was pretty cool how I never had children, yet I could come up with lots of children related cartoons for her magazine. I thought about and considered that maybe it was because, through my wife, I had inherited quite a few grandchildren. Or maybe it is because of my 50 plus year addiction to Peanuts cartoons. Who knows? My suspicion is that, for almost all of my life, I've had the pleasure of doing young-people-type things as my source of income. Teaching drums, playing in bands and drawing cartoons. If you never saw me and saw my list of jobs, you could easily surmise that I was a 17 year old kid. Mentally, that's not far from the truth. Financially too!

Here's my latest teenager, phone and chores cartoon that appeared on Brain Child's Facebook page today! 

Teacher! That Cartoonist Is Copying That Cartoon Idea Off Me! (Not Really)

Every now and then, I like to post a cartoon that has been published by another cartoonist that has a striking resemblance to a cartoon I've done in the past. I do this, not to indict the other cartoonist, but to illustrate how some funny ideas are just, sort of universal. Sometimes, the cartoons are almost exactly the same. Sometimes, they're just similar.

This morning I was reading the comics page in the local newspaper and ran across a cartoon by one of my favorite cartoonists, Dana Summers. Here's the link.

http://www.gocomics.com/boundandgagged/2016/07/25   

As you can see from my cartoon, shown here, I had a very similar idea a few years ago. I remember not being sold 100 percent on my idea because it seemed a bit "clunky". I just thought the idea of a baby texting was funny, but I had to explain that the message was from a baby so I needed to add the caption. Dana Summers got around this problem by showing the maternity ward and the baby who was doing the texting. Great job Dana!

Ho Ho Ho! It's A Cartoon About Downtown Fort Wayne Christmas Past.

It's said that writers write what they know. Well, the same can be said for cartoonists. Cartoonists cartoon what they know. I know about downtown Fort Wayne because I spent countless hours there for different reasons, at different times in my life. 

One of the most memorable times was that period of time in the '60s (when I was minus ten years old). Seriously, that period of time was magical. The big department stores, restaurants, specialty, shoe, music and almost any kind of business you can think of. I've often said Fort Wayne was like a miniature New York.

Many times throughout my childhood, my mom would round up my sister and me, to walk to the corner and hop on the bus to travel downtown. Getting off at the corner of Calhoun and Wayne, one of our first stops would be to go into Murphy's to grab lunch or a box of delicious doughnuts. Next, we'd go across the street to the department store called Stillman's. There, we could get on the elevator to go to one of probably four or five different floors to shop. I can almost still hear the elevator operator announcing, "Second floor: Ladies ready-to-wear! Bath linens! Small appliances!"  

Of course, that floor didn't interest me. I was thinking, "show me the toys"! Especially, if it was around Christmas. That was the time of the year that Fort Wayne pulled out all the stops. All the windows were decorated and the arch over the main corner of Calhoun and Wayne held a gigantic Christmas tree with over-sized ornaments that were just a strong wind away from being "exhibit A" in damaged car roof lawsuit. In the air, there were Christmas carols that played from who knows where and at this corner, when a bell sounded, it meant that pedestrians were free to cross in any direction, including diagonally. 

But perhaps, the biggest deal was the show window at Wolf and Dessauer (we called it "W&D's" for short). There, right before your eyes, was Santa's workshop, Christmas trains, woodland creatures, you name it, if it was magical, it was in those windows! 

Many of the Fort Wayne Baby Boomers remember these times and are more than ready to talk your leg off about them. Hence, this cartoon that appeared in the December 2009 issue of Fort Wayne Magazine.

Click to see more holiday cartoons.

Need Help With Online Resumes and Job Applications? Like This Cartoon Illustrates, Ask a Kid!

Sure you can bring home the bacon. You can set the alarm, get up on time, shower, eat and get out the door, to get to your job at 7:30 am. But what if you first, need to get the job? That will very likely include some kind of research, job hunting and applying online, AH! There's the rub! What if you're the kind of guy that has always has worked with his hands, possibly in a factory where you have done the same job on the same machine for years and years. Maybe your dad and even your grandpa did the same job before you. You worked a long day, doing back-breaking work and by quittin' time, you were ready to go home and stare at a screen that wasn't a computer screen. It was the type of screen that projected images of Seinfeld or Nascar highlights.

Now you hear that your job is being taken overseas to be done by cheaper labor or robots. But, here's the good news. Those in power have said that it's an information labor force that we're building in the USA and that you in fact, didn't like your factory job anyway. Hooray! You don't have to do the job that you did for years. The job that you were comfortable with and that paid pretty well. Now you get to do my favorite thing; You get to do work to do your work. Meaning that you get to go back to school (see, you didn't know that you wanted to do that, did you?) and study a subject that never really interested you. Thanks CEOs!

Well, after you surrender to this new occupation paradigm (a word you learned in one of your night classes), you go out buy a new suit and fire up the ol' computer to go a job huntin'. 

You may notice that the internet is complicated enough when you're just surfing the web. But wait until you go to company websites and try to go through the online application process! It can be one of the most confounding things you'll ever experience. Setting up usernames and passwords. Selecting security questions. Filling out personal information. Reading disclaimers. Man! That's a lot of work you gotta do in order to work. But the biggest deal is trying to upload your cover letter and resume. Hopefully, you can do all this before the website "times out" and loses all the information you entered. Oh fun!

If that does happen, take a break and come on over to my business cartoon page. Maybe they won't make you laugh, but at least, they might stop the crying.

Then, when you're ready to resume the online application process, call in your kid to help. Somehow they all know how to do things online. I think it's part of the deluxe package they're given at birth.