Headed over to Tampa for the Tampa Comic Con for an Inkslinger gathering with Jim Fern and Sioux Hart. A few were part of the event. Fran Matera was showing his great work. To the left is a panel from one of the strips I picked up. Fran was also helping friend Geoff Brenneman raise money for a project Geoff is working on. Greg Vondruska, with his colleague Dan Boyd, also was showing his many comics. Click here to see his work.

Later I met with Inkslinger, John Stevens, for a meal outside Tampa at ABC Pizza where we talked about digital painting, goals in life and politics. The illustration above is a corner of the restaurant.

For those who know about and remember Taylor Wayne, today is his 16th birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TAYLOR!!!!

As I do at Taylor, Jacob and Amber’s birthday, I have a banana split. It’s hard to eat an entire cake. The split is manageable. The problem: Where to find a banana split. When we arrived in Little Rock the previous Saturday, I had looked for a place near the hotel. No banana splits in Downtown Little Rock that I could find. To the rescue is our tour guide Kerry Krauss and her co-worker, Gloria Robins.

Since we had arrived we had looked for indegenous Arkansas food. Little Rock tourism’s Tonya was incredibly helpful with a tasty sounding list. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to those. We asre planning another trip and I will get to those then.

Kerry had recommended a place called Cothams. She went out of her way and brought her co-worker Gloria, picked us up and drove us to just what we were looking for. There are actually two of these restaurants. Kerry caught what we were looking for and the flavor of the story Sandra was assembling of the area and took us to the more authentic one further way in Scott, Arkansas. Click here to learn of this restaurant set in a 1917 building. They have outstanding fried chicken!!! All of the food was outstanding! Below is a sketch of the counter area there. Inside are lots of bottle and items from the past hundred years. What a place!

Kerry and Gloria then set our course for a banana split! Our stop the very cool ‘The Dixie Cafe’, which is part restaurant and part old fashined ice cream soda fountain. It’s a local chain. I got the celebratory banana split. Kerry, Gloria and Sandra joined me at the counter for ice cream goodies. Well, not Sandra. Here medecine forbid milk products. She had an apple cobbler. There’s a photo of it below. Below that is a blurry photo I took of the fountain area. That’s Gloria to the left. What a neat place!!!

Sunday we were taken up to Eureka Springs, in northwest Arkansas. To the right is a photo of the Crescent Hotel we stayed for the next three days.

By this time Sandra and I realize the plane ride has greatly enhanced our illness. Sandra goes on the familiarity tours around the area for the next two days. I hold back for the next two days for two reasons: 1) To get rest and drink endless fluids. 2) To finish a project that is due. I never thought that the illness I had already had had for a week would get worse. Especially after the doctors visit last Wednesday. I was feeling awful. I still got the project finished. The last part of the project was coloring lots of illustrations. It was tough coloring such a happy monkey as the one above.

As usual there were many seminars and meetings at the annual Natioonal Cartoonists Society Reuben Weekend. Here’s a sketch of the back of of cartoonings greatest enthusiasts and such a kind man, Bill Wilson, at one of those meetings.

That night was the annual Reuben Awards.

Here is the big winner: Al Jaffee of Mad Magazine won the ‘Cartoonist of the Year’ award. He has been creating art for the mag for nearly fifty years. His fold-ins are as great as ever.With his was the Master of Ceremonies: Mike Peters of ‘Mother Goose and Grimm’.

The next big winner was cartoonist Sandra Boynton with receiving the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award.

Two other big winners: Cartoonists attorney, Stu Rees, who received the Silver T-Square Award for volunteerism. With Stu is best Advertising Illustration award winner Tom Richmond.

Here is New Yorker gag cartoonist and author, Mort Gerberg with his award for best Gag Cartoon. He was also part of our Habitat for Humanity crew. I can only hope that I will have as much energy next year as Gerberg does now.

Bill Schorr won for best Editorial Cartoonist.

After the awards it became a room full of crazies in tuxedos. Here’s cartoonist and scientific illustrator, John Norton.

Cartoonist and great influence on me with his ‘101 Pickle Jokes’ many years ago, Don Orehek wears his chapeau.

Finally we find cartoonist John Kovalesky declaring himself the Best Dressed Dude of the evening.

We were at the annual National Cartoonists Society Reuben Weekend in New Orleans. This was the best meeting since I joined in ‘95. Great food, fun and fellowship!

The group first tackled Habitat for Humanity projects. Two busloads of cartoonists were sent off from Downtown New Orleans and out to the devastated areas of Southern Louisiana. Here are photos:

We were given instructions by a Habitat for Humanaity employee (The fellow in the yellow).

Next we worked! We were split up in separate groups. I felt like a real slacker when working with the group I was with . Here are two of the three hardest workers: Up on the ladder is Leigh Hanlon, with Tribune Media Services, and cartoonist Sandra Boynton.

Of course, there was some cartooning! Here a spare piece of chipboard is drawn upon by Mad Magazine’s Sam Viviano….

… and Sandra Boynton.

Here’s the finished board. Hard to see, I know. My drawing is of a fellow on a ladder to the left of the board.

Here is the house after we worked on it. A good deal of the siding you see was put on by the crew. There was also a bunch of roofing completed also.

We went to many a restaurant. Above is our waiter at a small and very good dinner spot, the Orleans Cafe. There we ate with John Read of ‘Stay Tooned’ magazine. That’s John below. Spooky, ain’t he?

Our trip to New Orleans for the annual event was a great one. This event was the best of all I’ve been to since 1995. We’re only back for a few days and then gone again for Sandra’s travel writers convention in Arkansas. In between we’ve both come down with a virus and I’m working like a mad man to finish a project by Friday in between blowing my nose and taking medicine.

Next week I’ll post art and lots of photos from the NCS event. Here’s a sketch from dinner at Orleans Cafe with artists John Norton and Tom Stemmle and his wife Marie.