"I donât want to mislead anyone here. This corner of the websiteââNew Stuffââis not a resurrection of The Far Side daily cartoons. (Well, not exactly, anywayâlike the proverbial tiger and its stripes, Iâm pretty much stuck with my sense of humor. Arenât we all?) The thing is, I thoroughly enjoyed my career as a syndicated cartoonist, and I hope, in spirit at least, we had some laughs together. But after fifteen years of meeting deadlines, well, blah blah blah ⌠you know the rest. The day after I retired from syndication, it felt good not to draw on a deadline. And after moving on to other interests, drawing just wasnât on my to-do list. Things change. But then a few years agoâand returning to the subject at handâÂsomething happened in my life, and it started with a clogged pen.
Despite my retirement, I still had intermittent connections to cartooning, including my wifeâs and my personal Christmas card. Once a year, Iâd sit myself down to take on Santa, and every year it began with the same ritual: me cursing at, and then cleaning out, my clogged pen. (Apparently, the concept of cleaning it before putting it away each year was just too elusive for me.) As problems go, this is admittedly not exactly on the scale of global warming, but in the small world of my studio, it was cataclysmic. Okay, highly annoying.
So a few years agoâfinally fed up with my once-loyal but now reliably traitorous penâI decided to try a digital tablet. I knew nothing about these devices but hoped it would just get me through my annual Christmas card ordeal. I got one, fired it up, and lo and behold, something totally unexpected happened: within moments, I was having fun drawing again. I was stunned at all the tools the thing offered, all the creative potential it contained. I simply had no idea how far these things had evolved. Perhaps fittingly, the first thing I drew was a caveman.
The âNew Stuffâ that youâll see here is the result of my journey into the world of digital art. Believe me, this has been a bit of a learning curve for me. I hail from a world of pen and ink, and suddenly I was feeling like I was sitting at the controls of a 747. (True, I donât get out much.) But as overwhelmed as I was, there was still something familiar thereâa sense of adventure. That had always been at the core of what I enjoyed most when I was drawing The Far Side, that sense of exploring, reaching for something, taking some risks, sometimes hitting a home run and sometimes coming up with âCow tools.â (Letâs not get into that.) But as a jazz teacher once said to me about improvisation, âYou want to try and take people somewhere where they might not have been before.â I think that my approach to cartooning was similarâIâm just not sure if even I knew where I was going. But I was having fun.
So here goes. Iâve got my coffee, Iâve got this cool gizmo, and Iâve got no deadlines. Andâto borrow from Sherlock Holmesâthe game is afoot.
Again, please remember, Iâm just exploring, experimenting, and trying stuff. New Stuff. I have just one last thing to say before I go: thank you, clogged pen.
This is so great! Stay curious, kids.