Cartoony Looney – 2

My attempt at a comic strip was called Jeanie Beanie. The cast of characters…

Beckle, aka “Feather Duster”

Wendell Wilton, aka “Blubber Buns”

Jeanie, aka “Bean Head”


The camcorder Beckle is holding gives away the vintage. Jeanie was named after my twin sister. The bird and the walrus were childhood characters I performed, called Ba-Bird and Wally. Walter Lantz had a Wally Walrus cartoon character that spoke in a Swedish — or was it Norwegian? — accent and had a broken tusk. Wally was mediocre at best, and somewhere around age 10 I felt I had a better idea for a walrus character.

The premise of the strip at first was the characters would run a bookstore. I eventually realized that, like Jon being a cartoonist in Garfield, the setup was unnecessary, so I abandoned that idea, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll start at the beginning in the next post.

Cartoony Looney – 1

Crankshaft, by Tom Bakiuk and Dan Davis, North America Syndicate, March 27, 2019

Yesterday’s single-panel Crankshaft comic strip reminded me of something I drew over 20 years ago, after reading about the introduction of the DVD format and the first widescreen, flat panel TV’s. I’ll explain the premise behind my comic strip when I post some more examples.

I really admire the artwork in Crankshaft. Until a couple of years ago it was drawn by Chuck Ayers. Since ending his run on Crankshaft, the art has been handled by Dan Davis, working very closely to Ayers’ style. As you can see in this picture, Davis uses a computer drawing tablet. If I ever get my drawing arm and brain warmed up again, I will remain a pencil and ink guy.

Dan Davis

Mutts to You!

Today’s MUTTS comic strip isn’t a one-of-a-kind artistic collaboration between cartoonist Patrick McDonnell and the recently retired Joe Sinnott, because one more will be coming along in a not-too-distant Sunday.

Mutts, by Patrick McDonnell, King Features Syndicate, March 24, 2019

The idea for this little project came out of a visit that McDonnell had with Joe a few months ago. As familiar as I am with Joe’s technique, I see none of it here. A few of Joe’s trademark “Sinnott dots” on the floor would have been a giveaway of his handiwork, but there are none to be found. I’m told that’s because Joe wanted to be true to McDonnell’s drawings when applying ink to them, and he certainly succeeded.

Death By a Thousand Clicks

For 36 years I worked on the technology side of medical information systems. Around 2010 it became obvious to me that the HITECH program under ARRA would be extremely disruptive.

Not only did HITECH distort the market in significant ways, it failed to produce the intended benefits. One effect of HITECH was hospitals that were already using electronic health records were able to switch vendors and buy more expensive systems, knowing that the government would reimburse them if they met the “meaningful use” requirements.

Kaiser Health News and Fortune Magazine have published a lengthy report on what went wrong.

At the same time that hospital decision makers were looking forward to their HITECH reimbursements, the big players went on merger and acquisition binges, creating large regional medical systems. Left behind were many small rural hospitals, called Critical Access Hospitals, that rely upon Medicaid and Medicare money. Many have closed, either because they didn’t have a buyer or, as covered in a recent Nashville Tennessean story, they chose to remain independent.