The Cartoonist Gushes About Tom Hart

So, yeah, I drew this when Tom Hart and I launched Trunktown. Trunktown was really hard to write. It starts out pretty badly, but it gets better, and by the end it’s really good. Tom and I did one year-long storyline. We always meant to do more “seasons” of Trunktown, but we’ve never gotten around to it.

Tom currently teaches classes in cartooning and inspires still more generations of cartoonists.

Most of the autobio Sundays were drawn very quickly without penciling first, so please excuse the general crappiness of the art. I’m sorry; I thought it would seem more natural and stuff.

As you can see in the second panel, although my high-school bedroom was decorated with Sandman pinups, I had not gotten rid of my childhood wallpaper, which had hearts and bluebirds. The effect was pretty unfortunate.

Oh, Big Buddha’s Comics and Sports Cards. You were an oasis in the desert. (Later a burglar broke in and stole all the sports cards, and it became just Big Buddha’s Comics.)

Oh, man, my Derek Kirk Kim Small Stories shirt. I wore that until it got too sweat-stained to be acceptable in polite company.

That’s former Viz (now Dark Horse) manga editor Carl Horn in the third panel. It’s not a very good likeness, but at least it’s not as terrifying as Jason Thompson’s rendition of him in PULP magazine:

Note that I’m still schlepping Hamtaro stuff around.

I still have my Cat and Girl shirt.

“Abe” is Abe: Wrong for All the Right Reasons, by Glenn Dakin. The comic I’m holding is Monica’s Story, Tom’s strangely poignant dramatization of the Starr Report.

The Sands page is hanging over my bed now, along with the Bone sketch I won for naming the baby rat creature and a stained-glass gerbilfly Tiff Hudson made for me. I do have a pretty awesome bedroom. Anyway, Tom Hart helped me a lot as a cartoonist at a time when I was working hard to suck less, and it meant a lot to me that he saw something worthwhile in my comics. Still does. Thanks again and again, Tom!

8 thoughts on “The Cartoonist Gushes About Tom Hart

  1. It’s always a moment of wonder when someone sends you original art without telling you beforehand.

    The only meaningful boast I can make about my bedroom is my Wall O’ Monkeys, which is exactly what you just imagined it to be, except half as wide.

  2. Right now, the coolest thing I have is an autographed sticker from Meredith Gran, featuring Hannah from “Octopus Pie”.  I sent her a fan art and she sent me the sticker, with a very nice encouraging note written on the back.

    Little things like this are what keep you up at 2am finishing your latest page.  Work and hope, work and hope …

  3. Wow.

    I have never had an awesome bedroom. (Well, considered as a place to sleep, my bedroom is fine, but it contains no comics art whatsoever. It does have an awesome bed.)

  4. Somehow, pinups of Death and Delirium tacked to walls covered in cute little hearts and bluebirds seem strangely appropriate. I think Death herself would approve, actually.

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