I started drawing the “Watson” comic strip in 2005, shortly after we got our new puppy – the “real” Watson – in Lewiston, Maine. In 2007, although I wasn’t a “tech whiz” I bought the domain WastonStrip.com, started posting strips weekly, and started selling all my weird Watson products. From 2005 – 2010, Watson was […]

This morning I just happened to stumble upon a great, archived radio expose’ about Louis Lunch in New Haven, a national treasure, that was a good, healthy walk from my old apartment (where I was drawing comics) in New Haven. If you listen to the story below (click on the link) you’ll learn that Louis […]

In the podcast Wind of Change, journalist Patrick Radden Keefe takes listeners on a globe-trotting investigation into one of the most bizarre and intriguing rumors of the Cold War era: that the CIA wrote the 1990 hit song “Wind of Change” by German rock band Scorpions. The idea sounds absurd at first. Why would America’s […]

I discovered Dianxi’s videos on YouTube while looking around for videos on cooking. Dianxi’s videos are amazing, sublime, and deeply soothing. In each video, Dianxi prepares a different dish, using local vegetation that she prepares and then serves it to her family. After enjoying these highly professional videos, I wasn’t a bit surprised to learn […]

Very pleased to have finally seen David Fincher’s cinephile film “Mank” this weekend on Netflix. While a film about the penning of the “Citizen Kane” script might not be for everyone, the film is a technical marvel to behold with Oscar-worthy supporting roles across the board. I can almost certainly guarantee “Best Supporting Actress” for […]

I was very sorry to hear that this website folded. Luckily, I was able to rescue this wonderful interview we did and bring it over to my site. Enjoy! Jim Horwitz – WATSON Interview Watson is the creation of artist and writer Jim Horwitz, a suave, mysterious young man who it’s my pleasure to have […]

It was such a thrill to work with my cartooning buddy Vince Dorse on this “Twilight Zone” strip. I didn’t know he was going to create this fancy video to document the process, but he REALLY did. This video is amazing and so much fun to watch. Wow! 

After many years on hiatus, David Lynch has started doing his strange, daily weather reports from his home office. Although I’m a bit late to the game (2000s and not the 1990s) I’ve become a great fan of David Lynch and what he stands for. Lynch is a dyed-in-the-wool believer in the power of art, […]

At some later point – in another post – I’ll tell you more about my interest in radio. I will absolutely tell you how (in high school) I used to record a radio show (that no one but me heard) in my closet on Friday nights at midnight, and how I used record hours and […]

One of the great joys of drawing my strip has been meeting other artists online and helping them with their own work. Jason Curtis is someone whom I’ve never met and only knew through his art. I kept seeing his great images in my Facebook feed, and I eventually reached out to him to let […]

I’m so sad that Watson has died. It never occurred to me that it would be hard to draw the strip, or that I wouldn’t want to, once he died, but it feels that way now. I never realized how having him in the world made “drawing him” easier or seem more true, but it […]

There’s been a lot of this going around on Facebook lately, so I thought it might be fun to put one of these together. This is actually a picture of Watson from 2006, but it’s an older image that I had on-hand. I fudged a little bit.

I’ve been TOTALLY WRONG about how long I’ve been publishing “WATSON.” As it turns out, I’ve been drawing Watson for 13 years, not 9. I just found a whole bunch of old stuff – old website stuff and syndicate samples – that totally jogged my memory. I just remembered that I came up with the […]

A vert nice “cosmic” shout-out from my bestest pal Jeff Parker who draws Dustin. You can read Jeff’s full-post by clicking on the image below. FYI- The wonderful Jeff Parker also did a “Watson” guest-artist day back in 2014 too.

A very nice Watson shout-out today from fellow toonist Joe Wos who draws the wonderful puzzle-strip “Mazetoons.” You can read Joe’s full-post by clicking the very cute image below.

Any chance to write for the wonderful and brilliant Dan Piraro is always a pleasure. #TeamBizarro

A comic strip is more than just a consumable art-product. It’s your love letter to comics and everything you’ve ever read or loved that got you to where you are. As often as you can, whenever you can, fill your comic strip with angels, not demons. If it’s not fun to draw and doesn’t make […]

David Wallace, the Fiction Editor at The New Yorker said, while this very short story wasn’t exactly right for them, it “…did make him hungry for potato salad.” Since I’m now done shopping it around, here it is for you to enjoy. – Bon Appétit! It would’ve been nice if The Potato Salad man were […]

This morning the video card on my computer died (again), so it was clear I wouldn’t be able to complete a strip today. Instead of posting a re-run, my older daughter and I went out for doughnuts and decided to come home and do a “Daddy-Kiddo” strip. This doesn’t happen very often, but when it […]

I’ve been using this brand of ear plugs for over a year now, and I really love them. On a daily basis, it’s easy to overlook the problem of noise, but noise is everywhere. It’s amazing what a little quiet can do when you take the time to seek it out. I have this very […]

The best things that happen in Art are between the creator and the art piece. When things go well it can feel like falling in love or finding something beautiful in nature. That bond that the artist creates with the work is an experience that only that artist can feel. In the art world, there’s […]

When I saw this on  SNL I was laughing so hard I almost died.

For the past year or so I’ve been drawing “Watson” on regular typing-paper, i.e. “computer” paper. For decades, I used to draw everything on fancy paper from the art store, but as I’ve gotten better at drawing the strip I’ve found that typing-paper works just as well. About a week ago I bought a new […]

In the past when I’ve done interviews or talked to younger, aspiring artists there’s always a lot of discussion on “getting there” and how life, real life, is some how on hold until you “get there.” If someone were to ask me the secret to “surviving life” or how to make “the time go by […]

One snowy night, a group of Jazz musicians were on their way to a gig when their train broke down on the tracks. Rather than waiting for the train to restart, the musicians decided to hop off with their instruments and cases, and walk to the nearby town where they were performing. As they were […]

1. Don’t pencil what you can ink. 2. Leave space for the reader’s imagination. 3. Use details sparingly. 4. Move the reader’s eye through the strip. 5. More than one absurd leap in a gag is too many.

LAST UPDATED July 11, 2018 Just dropped off the computer to Tom-The-Computer-Guy. (See video at the very bottom). Hope to have it back soon. LAST UPDATED July 9, 2018 As if life wasn’t confusing enough, my computer’s video card failed (for good) on Monday and I am without a computer to color my strip once […]

THE BEST THING any cartoonist can do is to help the next generation of artists find their way. Once a cartoonist has found his or her success, every little bit of effort, I think, should go into helping everyone else find theirs. — I learned this lesson from Mike Peters, Dan Piraro, Wayno, and Jeff […]

At this year’s Reuben Awards we toasted Mort Walker, creator of “Beetle Baily” and “Hi and Lois” who passed away this year. Turns out, Mort had his own special brand of whisky. This was the only bottle at the dinner, but I managed to get a sample.

Another exciting team-up with my bestest pal and friend Dan Piraro. I’ve been lucky enough to be one of the only credited gag writers (a.k.a. “Team Bizarro”) to writer for Dan’s strip since 2010, and am always thrilled when my brain has enough extra energy to write gags for other strips. – Being a parent […]

I just ran into my bestest buddy, hero, and cartooning-mentor Mike Peters at the airport in a totally random, freak occurrence, and it made me SO happy. – Moments like this are priceless.

The “Bill and Ted” conversation is an important one that seems to have been dropped from the current flow of ideas in 2018. Bill and Ted were not quiet, visionary adopters like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, both of whom “dropped out” to become billionaires by “doing their thing”; nor were they off the beaten […]

As a kid, there was very little information for me out in the world on how to “become” a cartoonist. Sure, you could look at comic collections to see how characters looked, but that was about it. In 1988, CBS ran this Garfield 10th birthday special, which I taped on our VCR off the television. […]

I think Jeff Goldblum is so fun to watch. He’s so erratic and funny, and just does the strangest things. I think he’s too old to ever play me in a movie, but I would totally allow that to happen. I have yet to meet Jeff in person, but it’s on my “to-do” list.

If I had to guess, I think I’ve been drawing weird, one-panel strips for about 25 years. As memory serves, I first started drawing my one-panel strips when I was a sophomore in high school, which would’ve been sometime around 1991. Naturally, I’d been drawing comics and doodling in sketch books my entire life, but […]

An interesting idea that I’ll never stop meditating upon, or twisting around like a Rubik’s cube, is the idea that when you see a comic strip you’re not just seeing the artist’s work, but you’re actually getting a print-out of the cartoonist’s philosophy on what a comic strip is. – THIS is how I think […]

A comic strip is a musing somewhere between a doodle and a letter. There’s no need for comic strip characters to be elaborate, animation-like images when all they really need to do is tell the truth. Ideally, drawing a comic strip character should be no more difficult than signing one’s name. If an artist has […]

There was a great article I read over the weekend about a new push by broadcasters to create more (and better) kid-centered podcasts. Not only does this allow kids to use their imaginations more, but it also gets them away from the TV and their electronic screens. One of our new favorite shows here at […]