Well, Musk's fake-em-up engine has turned its eyes on me, as Grokipedia now has a Nat Gertler entry. Its facts are mixed. (No, The Factor did not get a Best Limited Series Eisner nod. No, I did not reprint something called The Neglected Books of Charles M. Schulz; if it existed, I would!) But... 🧵

Slightly diminish a band: (Okay, getting these all out of the way at once) The B-12s Arhythmics 1001 Hypochondriacs Barefooted Ladies Florence and the Tool Puntrixx Gorditaz Herman's Permits The Eaglets The P-Funko All-Stars (it's a Pop group) The "Oooh! Tang!!" Clan Duran

Anyone seeing shenanigans with MailChimp mailing lists? Last night, I received multiple emails saying that an unlikely address (a Disney customer contact address) was added to my list. This morning, the address that goes on my MC mailings was added to a Midtown Comics mailing list. #MailChimp

1913 crime spree: bad checks passed by... the Quaker Oats mascot?

Homosexuality references in comics: 1925

No doubt.

A “Nancy” panel from early 1945, Marilyn Monroe in 1954. Popular culture was still trying to catch up to Ernie Bushmiller.

I had been thinking about developing a "crossword puzzle is about to happen" image, but this image beat me to it! (Not so much Bono, oddly enough, but Iman. All you need is for Anais Nin to show up.)

@kenwhite.bsky.social Question: if theoretical President McStickyfingers gives a blanket pardon to all staff, that of course doesn't prevent state charges. But if McS had all his staff charged with everything, convicted, and then pardoned them, would states then be restricted due to double jeopardy?

Gotta trust Ken. He knows all the answers before the question is even asked!

This kind of fumble is what happens when you ask Copilot to do your marketing, I reckon.

So I have only just discovered at some vague point in the next couple weeks Google is going to break the way my work email works, and the company has done nothing to alert people to it. www.theregister.com/2026/01/05/g...

Of course, they had to put the oil on barrels in order to fit it onto boats. Ships have ways of handling much bigger quantities.

Breathe. Have a snack. Pet the cat. Breathe.

Getting just one wrong answer in the entire night, the Gertler family (me, my wife, and our kids, 21 and 16 — no, thats not their names) easily won the local bar trivia tonight. This is the people we are.

I've got some thoughts on Pluribus, which I've put in the alt text so it's not immediately in the eye-holes of those who have never seen the show (and you should see it.) Hopefully, you with screen readers can stop the reading before it gets to spoilers.

Sheboygan Press, Feb 12, 1921. Times are always strange. (I suspect the objection had to do with concerns about little white girls on stage with

The Venezuela invasion is already having the intended effect!

My So-Called Life became a hit post-cancellation, so a few years later the producers and ABC tried Once And Again, a blatant attempt to continue MS-CL with names changed and the focus switched to the mother. It ran 3 seasons, more than 3X the episodes of MSCL, but is basically forgotten today.

Game night, 2019 CAROL: This film has Geena Davis, Michael Keaton, & Christopher Reeve. ME: A film with Batman & Superman! Oh, I know, it's Speechless. CAROL: That's right. SALLY: I thought it was a film where Superman and Batman help women play baseball. ME: That's "A Justice League of Their Own"

“We could get this entire nation on a surer financial footing if they just started announcing the lottery numbers a week in advance.”

Wait. So FIFA was wrong?

With the earliest Nancy Drew books falling into the public domain, you know what else they bring with it? Carolyn Keene. Part of me wants to write the adventures of Keene, solving crimes and getting away with it because no one expects anything of a meek writer of teen mysteries,

Hadn't watched My So-Called Life in over a decade, but just introduced my 16 year old to it. It completely holds up. Amazing stuff. We also watched The Hudsucker Proxy, which went over well. Meanwhile, I'm reading to my wife the tale of Robert Poste's child. Culture is good!

If you're not into Kindle reading, but either order books from Amazon or (like me) have Amazon print books, you may have accumulated Kindle Points. If you've got more than 299 points, you can order a $2.99 Kindle book for free -and money goes from Amazon's pockets to the author/publisher-.

I'm a show-and-teller, not a scholar, but Google Scholar nonethless tracks citations of my works. My h-index of 6 means that I have at least 6 works that have been cited 6 or more times. I take pride that those 6 include 3 unrelated topics: tech, comics creation, Black travel. I'm not narrow.

This cartoon, regarding a conflict over who would be providing electricity for Valdosa, Georgia, was a paid ad from one of the sides... 🧵

A goddam ad! I knew it!

HAPPY 2026 EVERYONE! The year shall bring challenges, for that is the nature of existence... but it will have good things as well. May those good things come specifically to you, and warm your life. Our annual family newsletter is at : www.gertler.com/2025/

It's been ten hours now. New Yorkers, tell me what kind of hellscape has been achieved. Are there sinister forces melting down cars to make bicycles? Are bagels banned?? Do dogs now meow and cats pray the Quran??? I was promised a hellscape, and I want results!!!

What'll I be doing in 2026? Publishing comics, certainly! Writing? Almost certainly. Writing comics? I'd like to think so.

Lucky Strike Cigarettes want you to Eat More Corn Bread!!! (1918, so Don Draper wasn't even born yet.)

"What was your biggest impact on the internet?" In 2005, I reverse-engineered Amazon's image URLs, discovering that there was built into them codes for sizing, rotation, and adding bullets of various sorts that could be messed with. This went viral. aaugh.com/imageabuse.h...

For folks who've not seen it -- the animators who did "Take On Me" went on to do a color version of that style as a promo for Hill Street Blues (if I recall, this was meant as a technique sample for a series that was under consideration.)

Watching with the 16 year old: finished The Other Two, then watched Bridesmaids. May not have picked that if I remembered that it started with a sex scene, but the film certainly delivers (as well as being a catalogue of a generation of funny women -- casting by Allison Jones is always a good sign.)

A year-and-a-half before the launch of Dennis the Menace, this proto-Dennis panel by Ketcham ran in newspapers (apparently reprinted from Collier's).

December 31 is a great day to: * Pick a grudge to set aside and free yourself from it * Take something that you've meant to get around to doing and put it on the calendar * Put batteries in the smoke alarm if you haven't in 6+ months * Have hope. Better things may build momentum in 2026.

Not gonna lie: our annual fund could use a little push to the top. Your support helps us maintain our exhibitions, creator events, and educational programs. Please consider making a contribution as part of your year-end giving: cartoonart.org/annual-contributions-2025 Thanks for your consideration!

Now that the video has reached a million views (!?!): Have Shoshie and I stayed in touch? Yes, in fact she visited last night, met my wife and our kids (and cat). Has there been real-life kickback? Nope. Haven't heard from anyone didn't already know me. Regrets about doing this? Nope! Questions?

The first of the Harvey runs reprinted here was written by the mighty Dwayne McDuffie. Marvel reprinting Harvey is unusual but not unprecedented; the Fighting America collection comes to mind. Had the Ultraman 3-D one-shot Now was talking to me about in 1993 come to pass, I'd be in this. But no.

It should be noted that Frankie Muniz had to schedule his work as a Hollywood star on this revival around his work as a race car driver. Odds that he is actually also a spy seem rather high.

This is the beginning of a Batman story...

Tom Hanks also wrote a novel about making a superhero movie. It's pretty good -- and at heart, a paean to competency.

I gotta admit, as a small business owner I'm going to be paying less in taxes this year, due to costs that have gone up and sales that have gone down under Trump's policies leaving me with less profit to tax. Thanks?

So many people mismount the Caution: Interdimensional Contact Field, Alternate Humans May Be Ejected sign.

Sometimes, it's nice to be able to connect people to their heritage. Just showed my majoring-in-engineering son one of his grampa's patents.

Antifa

I could've spent the last couple days trying to cure cancer and have, what, at best a 1-in-3 chance of succeeding. If that. But instead I scan and upload covers for obscure comic books in a language I don't read to the Grand Comic Book Database, with almost 100% chance of success... a surer path!