What's Love Got to Do With It
ToonStack #11
Ah, love. L’amour. Amore. Die liebe. I think it was that old romantic Shakespeare who wrote: “Shall I compare thee to my favorite cartoon?” Like many people, I learned everything I know about romance from cartoons (that, and Carson Daly’s tumblr). So if you’ve come to ToonStack looking for advice and guidance about your love life, you’re in luck! This week, I asked my fellow cartoonists to share toons about romance, specifically its agony and its ecstasy (well, maybe a little more of its agony).
The good, the bad, and the sometimes hilarious. In short, romance.
- Navied
Listen, as much as we all like to tell ourselves we “love” people, we love dogs more. It’s just the cold hard truth that I know that even my boyfriend that I live with would agree with -- now that we have a puppy. She matters more than either of us and if we ever broke up (obviously I get the dog duh), he will be searching aimlessly for the rest of his life for a partner that makes him feel the way his sweet black labrador did.
Listen, honesty is the best policy. Being vulnerable, opening yourself up, these are key to love. But honesty requires trust. All healthy relationships are built on trust, and if you start to doubt your friends you erode the wall of love you've built. It’s so important to believe that your friends want the best for you. So will you please trust me? Will you take that leap for me?
Ok, good. I’m glad we understand one another. Now please take this giant wooden horse I built into your house.
I’m crazy about romance. I’m what people would call a romance bottom-feeder. I show up at CVS on February 15th to see if there are any of the good chocolates left behind, drastically marked down. At weddings, I’m mainly there for the cake at the end, and I might take a centerpiece home with me. My friend’s pool that my kid and I used all last summer during the pandemic? That swim time would not have been possible if she hadn’t fallen in love, gotten married, had kids, thus justifying the need for a house with a pool. We can all be beneficiaries of romance, even if they aren’t our own.
Romance can be messy. Like getting-eaten-after-sex kind of messy.
Scientists discovered that female mantises who eat their partners after sex produce a greater number of eggs. Some other researchers theorize that hungry females tend to cannibalize their boos more. Aristotle simply described mantises as creatures from hell (it’s the eyes). It’s complicated.
But thankfully, romance is not usually as complicated as sexual cannibalism, unless you’re Armie Hammer.
This was in response to a slew of Rom Coms. If only he had glasses he could take off, and hair to let down out of a tight bun or pony tail, and then be a classically pretty actress underneath - he’d have it made.
Dating is a lot like running a marathon: it’s something I’ve always been naturally good at with zero practice or thought.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not aware of its surroundings, it takes no notice of your soft, moist tongue. Love does not see your fast-approaching rows of razor-sharp teeth, nom nom nom.
-1 Corinthians 13:4-8.
This cartoon was published in England at The Spectator. I later learned that the Brazilian artist Vik Muniz was making paintings with chocolate syrup, oddly enough, renditions of photos of Pollock painting his famous gestural art. This was a bummer. If I wanted to resell the cartoon, it would appear as if I had copied the painter (I always wonder if he saw my cartoon.)
I decided then to change the caption to "It's Chicken Mole!", something more related to my Mexican heritage and because mole is made of spices and chocolate (an Aztec word, Xocolatl). Last week I learned of a team of confectioners making Picasso's Guernica in chocolate! What for? And what a sweet subject, I thought. What's next, Leonardo's Last Supper?
One of these days I'm going to draw my cartoons in chocolate. It will be a sweet ordeal.
My loving-partner of many years says he came up with this cartoon. And if by “came up with” he means “is a person who explains things to me and inspired this cartoon idea to come into my head, which, at this point, is sort of his head too” then he is correct. To my own chagrin and to the unfortunate victory of all the -splainers of the world, I am a sucker for a person who explains things to me. I was once seduced, true story, by a person who wanted to explain some little-known nuances of Myers Briggs Personality tests to me, in excruciating detail. Apparently I am an INFP ever craving a little TJ (i.e. explanations for things).
Almost all of my cartoons in the world are about modern dating miscommunications (I drew and wrote a book essentially about this) so I consider myself something of an expert on the subject. That’s why I am standing humbly before you in this newsletter with a wholesome and pressing reminder: your friendships are a form of romance, too. And what greater intimacy than collaborating to make a river of tears out of long repressed sadness likely hidden because it’s hard to tell our friends when we’re sad and also often we turn to romantic partners for this but? Our friends are there for us and will be there for us after the divorce with said romantic partner. That’s amore!
It’s funny how I made this about dads considering my mom is the one who professionally smokes meats for hours.
What’s funnier than loving someone so much it hurts and spending a bunch of time together and often compromising? Every compromise is an opportunity for a gag cartoon. There’s a saying I just made up: in every relationship there’s the hot one and the cold one. I am the cold one. In this case that also makes me Satan. This tracks.
For Your Pleasure: Cartoon Extras
Follow Kendra Allenby as she walks the Continental Divide Trail for 5 months!
Amy Kurzweil’s has a Patreon. Join her Creative Community and bring your mom!
Enjoy diary comics from Hilary Campbell on Patreon!
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!