Weatherin' the Storm
WAKE UP! WAKE UP! THE BRITISH ARE COMING!! No wait, Al Roker says its actually a tornado. Call Bill Paxton! Actually, my bad, I’m just having a panic attack on a Sunday again. Carry on!
Now that I have your attention, it is I! Hilary Campbell! Here to usher you into this week’s ToonStack about Weathering the Storm. There are so many ways to weather a storm. And! There’s so many types of storms! And so many ways to weather, every type of storm, whether or not there is actual bad weather and your in Old Navy sandals, or if the forecast reads, “ten percent chance of crying in Target.” Luckily for all of these impending dooms, we have cartoons to make us feel better! To make us look back at all the dark clouds and say, that was hilarious. (lol this is my coping mechanism).
This week I asked my fellow cartoonists to send me their cartoons about takin’ the heat, ridin’ through the waves, and surviving the the storm. So get your bucket hat and your clamdiggers and get ready to read.
I’ve only been sailing a handful of times. In my last year of college, I went snorkeling in the Keys (or attempted to rather), but do to bad weather, I and most of the other passengers spent the outing upchucking (i.e. giving the ol’ technicolor yawn, or making a pavement pizza, if you will [think the opening scene of the 1998 epic war film Saving Private Ryan, but serious]). Submerged below the waves was a 4000 pound bronze statue of Jesus, by the Italian sculpture Guido Galletti. Sometimes called “Christ of the Deep,” his arms are stretched out, as if asking, “Why me?”
I like rain. I like getting a little wet walking down the streets in a misty drizzle. I don’t like getting too wet, but I also don’t like holding an umbrella. Sometimes when I decide that I’ll need an umbrella, I look in my closet and my choices are one with a silly pattern that I'll feel embarrassed walking around with, or a black one that's broken in some annoying way. So then decide that neither is worth it and I’ll go out without one and I'll be fine. And that, friends, is why I'm always wet.
Here’s a song I wrote about climate change, sung to the tune of Whale Sounds Underwater Nature Video:
E-e-e-eeeee-eeeee-eeeeee-verything’s
gonna be fiiiiii-iiiiii-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-
iiinnnnne. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sure, I like going outside as much as your average introverted cartoonist. But I really love some rainy day ambience. Drawing by the window with a cup of coffee and a black and white movie in the background? Oh, buddy. It’s a good time.
This was a difficult year to say the least. Two of the most charismatic and silliest women I was privileged to know, Catie Warren Archer and Samantha Berkman, passed. Both of them never took anything too seriously and it really put life in perspective for me. Samantha’s Twitter and Instagram are just a gift of cancer humor. Catie’s memorial was a wide feed of jokes about her love for Diet Coke and pride in being basic. While I’m still working on how to have that approach to both life and death, I at least have two amazing women to show me how it’s done.
Just know when my time comes, have an open bar and a magician for every day at my Shiva
Sorry for the f-bomb, but he literally said this to me.
This New Yorker daily cartoon from July 2019 got me a Facebook friend request from Gene Kelly’s last (and significantly younger) wife. I’m still waiting on friend requests from the family members of Donald O’Conner and Debbie Reynolds.
Drawn, week one of covid. Still relevant. Can we up me meds?
For Your Pleasure: Cartoon Extras
Pre order Send Help! a desert island cartoon collection by Ellis Rosen and Jon Adams
Follow Kendra Allenby as she walks the Continental Divide Trail for 5 months!
Pre-order Hilary’s Murder Book, out November 9th!
Be sure to check out Shelby Lorman’s newsletter, Please Clap!
The same goes for Sofia Warren’s advice newsletter, You’re Doing Great!
See more cartoons from Ellis Rosen’s weekly Junk Drawer!