I draw with fountain pens, which are so beautiful and graceful. Some of the cheaper Schaeffers are my workhorses for medium lines, and I have a sterling silver Parker which is leaking a little too much for fine lines.

I have lacquer red and black Parkers for bold. I also use all kinds of rollerballs when I need waterproof for coloring. I use a Staedtler Limocolor for the fat wavy line around the cartoons, and Micron Pigmas for all sizes of little lines. For magazine reproduction I use either a variety of Prismacolor cool grey markers or make a wash with Higgins Fountain Pen India Ink, and brush it on. I've only been doing that for about a year now, and I love it!

Won't you write to me? About cartoons or anything else.

My first book: What Do Women REALLY Want? Chocolate! won an award from Family Circle. It's a quality hardback. When I autograph it, I also draw something extremely chocolatey. Very satisfying.

My second book, Love Me or Go to Hell: True Love Cartoons sold out the first week & is already in a new printing. It's published by Andrews McMeel, the biggest humor publisher in the US. When I sign this book, I draw something lovable.

But sorry, no one can help you with the final decision...buy it as a GIFT, or as a gift FOR YOU?

Where to buy them, details, and cartoons from the books at the links.

About the book

...torture yourself! (with horrible graphic programs)

With a drawing, scan in b & w photograph first. Yes, that's right, treat your special drawing like a photograph...

Everything looks very different on a website than it does on the monitor or in your e-mail. Surprise.

And even your browser, at least my version of Adobe, isn't what it will look like on a site. Keep checking.

I read that it is better to start with a bigger image than you need and reduce it. Not true! Both my cartoons and clip art only looked good at the exact size I made it in my graphic program- either Adobe PhotoDeluxe or Corel Photopaint. No, this wasn't too hard...

I tried 8 different art programs. Well, at least I opened them up and experimented a little. Some wouldn't keep the color palette open, wouldn't send to the web, wouldn't prepare for the web, wanted to change every image to its own weird format, etc. Corel should be ashamed of itself: big name, no support, no written manuals included (for PhotoPaint 8 - there is a small one for Photopaint 11) and the fill button wouldn't work unless you did some strange thing somewhere in it to change the tolerance. Who knew?

Here's how I did most of the cartoons: scan in line art and black and white and color, to test them, send to Twain, and then to PhotoPaint if I needed to do something big, like color it or change something. If not, good old Adobe Photo Deluxe did a good job, once I got used to it, with fairly clear instructions that stay on when you need them and don't disappear like on PhotoPaint!

Ok, now it's 2008, and I'm still using Adobe PhotoDeluxe for images, but it's about to die. Adobe Flash 9 makes it inoperable. HATE Adobe and the way it keeps forcing you to upgrade. But APD does more than I thought it would. No support, of course.

AND I'm still using Front Page Express to update these web pages. You know what I think? Any software problem or program in the known universe works better with the Dummies books.

UPDATE; I'm trying out Corel Painter Essentials 4 now. So far, I likey. Will let you know! I'm also teaching myself Photoshop Elements to do what Painter can't. I still think all graphics software are black holes, but what can you do?

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