Along today's 'toon, Tom/Dan wrote:
Hey, all —
Well as I mentioned last week, this cartoon is an evergreen from the backup file. It’s been sitting there for years, actually — those of you who (a) have a copy of TMW25, and (b) have pored over every page with Talmudic intensity, will have seen an earlier version (minus the specific Trump references). It was the craziest week in the news since the last week in the news, but I had to get something distributed to my print clients on an early holiday deadline, and lost a couple of days finalizing the last remaining detail of the divorce: the great state of Connecticut is one of the paternalistic states that require divorcing parents to take a day-long parenting class. I know, in theory it sounds like a lovely and potentially helpful idea, but the reality of it was that I had to travel up to New Haven the afternoon before, stay at a friend’s house, get up early and go to a class in which some pretty basic information was stretched out with videos and group discussion — impromptu group therapy, really — to last an entire day. It was emotionally exhausting, terribly sad, mostly pointless, and — coupled with the early deadline — necessitated the backup cartoon this week. And since I’ll be spending several days next week with my son doing holiday things — and just, honestly, taking a few more days to clear my head before diving into the guaranteed insanity of the new year — next week’s cartoon is almost certain to be a backup as well.
And then it will be time to get back to work — just in time for whatever spectacular shitshow awaits us from the Oval, as Democrats take over the House and the imminent release of the Mueller report hangs over everything. So, hey, at least we’ve got *that* to look forward to!
New Years Eve marks the one year anniversary of my move back to New York City. I’m still coming to terms with a lot of things, but even though I have repeatedly called this “the worst year of my life,” I’m doing okay. I’ve made a lot of great friends this year, met a lot of really fascinating people, gotten out into the world in ways that seemed incomprehensibly out of reach in my former life. I’m alone for Christmas itself, which isn’t ideal, but I’m not alone in the world, not by a long shot. And now that the details of the divorce are over and done, negotiated and approved by the court, it’s really time to shrug off the past and move forward into whatever comes next.
Thanks to all of you for helping to support my work through these uncertain times (and I mean that in both the personal and larger senses of the word). I didn’t have time to work up anything new, but here’s a holiday card from maybe fifteen years ago (all the others I’ve done feature specific political figures, but this one is perpetually recycleable!)…feel free to share it as you will… and happy whatever-holiday-you-celebrate!
Dan/Tom
And the only thing to add is a (fair & balanced) heartfelt wish that the evil we have suffered for the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, that made up the past two years will mercifully be lifted in the days to come, so be it.
[x TMW]
A Brief Guide To Responses Received At TMW
By Tom Tomorrow (Dan Perkins)
[Dan Perkins is an editorial cartoonist better known by the pen name "Tom Tomorrow." His weekly comic strip, "This Modern World," which comments on current events from a strong liberal perspective, appears regularly in approximately 150 papers across the U.S., as well as on Daily Kos. The strip debuted in 1990 in SF Weekly. Perkins received the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Excellence in Journalism in both 1998 and 2002. When he is not working on projects related to his comic strip, Perkins writes a daily political blog, also entitled "This Modern World," which he began in December 2001. More recently, Dan Perkins, pen name Tom Tomorrow, was named the winner of the 2013 Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning. Even more recently, Dan Perkins was a runner-up for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.]
Copyright © 2018 This Modern World/Tom Tomorrow (Dan Perkins)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License..
Copyright © 2018 Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves
