Bored Panda got in touch with Tom again to learn more about his creative process and himself. We got curious about how his journey as an artist began. Tom shared that he has always drawn cartoons. "I remember as a child drawing Hanna-Barbera characters. Of course, in school, I did other forms of art in art classes – painting, sculpture, and all sorts of things. But I was always drawn to cartooning and while I always read all of the comic strips in the newspaper, my favorites were always the single-panel cartoons – 'Hazel', 'Our Boarding House', 'Dennis the Menace', etc."
For Tom, the most difficult part of doing a single-panel cartoon is coming up with ideas. "Unlike a continuing strip where the story may carry on for a week or so and the characters often write themselves, the single-panel cartoon has a different subject daily along with a different gag, so coming up with ideas is the challenge. My favorite part is drawing the cartoon and usually, I get a little giddy when I finish each cartoon."
We asked Tom where he gets his ideas for the cartoons. The artist answered that it can come from something he heard or read. "It just twists around in my mind to be something funny. Just recently, I had a mole on my head. And I called the dermatologist about it and every time I said, 'There’s a mole on my ,' you can imagine what was in my mind. I kept cracking up every time I said it aloud, and from that came the Mole/Doctor cartoon."
"As I mentioned earlier, Hanna-Barbera was a big influence and probably Charles Schulz, and I’m sure I picked up things from so many cartoonists, but recently a cartoonist passed away by the name of Ralph Dunagin and as I was reading his obit and looking at his work, I saw my drawings in his drawings. I now call him my subconscious mentor and my unassuming influence. I noticed the line work was the same, the way his lines break and so much more. I used to love his cartoon called 'Dunagin’s People,' and I had forgotten all about it all these years later until I read about him in his obit."
What makes Tom keep creating these funny comics is the pleasure of entertaining people for those few seconds a day that they see his work. "Tomversation is published five days a week. I like to put things that interest me into the cartoons – ancient Egypt, ecology, history and things like that. Sometimes I think the subject is obscure to many people, and I’m always very surprised when I see that people get it and like it and understand it."
As for his future plans, Tom wants to put a book together with all the past cartoons from the past few years. "Also I’m always trying to grow my audience. I am and have been published in various areas: the Huff Post, Medium and my work can be seen at my own sites."
