THE COUNTY LIFE

I SUCK AT DRAWING

By: Roger Tumminieri

I’ve always wanted to write children’s books. I’m not sure why. Maybe because kids see the world differently than adults and their innocence is appealing - something I’d like to foster and encourage and somehow tap into. The problem is, I suck at drawing. Reference the 3 children’s books I wrote and ‘illustrated’ last June when I must have had a lot more energy. I called it the “Sleepy Time Shapes” series. With clever titles like The Black Rectangle, The Blue Square, and The Yellow Circle, I thought I was sure to blow the doors off Amazon’s Kindle sales :)

I was wrong.

Although, I think the books are cute and reading them to kids is a fun and sneaky way for parents to get their littles to sleep, their downfall was most likely the cover art (see above re: sucking at drawing). Unfortunately, the ‘look inside’ sample option allows you to flip through a few pages but, for some reason, leaves out some key words, making it seem like I don’t know how to rite :)

So when I decided I’d like to leap into the world of editorial cartoons, I enlisted the help of a professional, Jeff Wilson; a cartoonist from Priceville who most definitely does not suck at drawing!

I had an idea to publish a politically savvy cartoon about the Omicron variant, entitled Herd Immunity. I sketched out my idea on a scrap piece of paper I found in my shirt pocket, took a photo of it and sent it to Jeff with a few words of direction.

He graciously replied with some constructive ideas to improve the nature of the toon. That is to say my original idea was less than sensitive. The result was, in my opinion, a clever, welldrawn take on whether we should head back to school and work after a brief ‘lockdown’ or lay low a little while longer.

You can see it page 30.

Thank you to Jeff and I look forward to creating more thought-provoking cartoons with his help.

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