We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tom Falco a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Tom, appreciate you joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?
I always drew, as soon as I could hold a pencil or crayon. As I grew older, I would draw comic strips, but I would never submit them to syndicates. If I did, I never had a plan. It was more of the journey for me than the destination. I never said to myself, “On this such and such date, I will submit my work.” I would just submit it when it felt right.
If I received rejections, I would put the work away for awhile (years at times) and then come back to it again at a later date.
My whole life seems to have been a vacation, so I never took the actual work seriously. I worked an hour or two a day for a large part of my youth – it was just the nature of my business at the time, so I would be free all day to hang out at the beach, to hang out at happy hour with friends – to go bar hopping all night and then do it all again the next day.
I was always responsible regarding business – but since I didn’t have to work full time, I was sort of retired while I was in my 20s and 30s. I sort of willed that life – work smart, work little and survive. Which I did very well.
Tom, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I have always liked single panel cartoons. That’s not to say I didn’t read all the comic strips growing up. I would always seek out newspapers when I traveled and here in Miami, when I was a kid, I had access to seven daily newspapers from Miami up to Broward County, including Hollywood, FL, so I would seek out the newspapers and read the comic always.
But again, single panel cartoons was always my thing.
Over the years my work would appear in newspapers, magazines and books – all single panel work.
I have drawn comic strips and I have strips drawn up now, but I get bored drawing the same characters over and over again. I feel that with single panel comics, I can be different every day, the subject matter is always different along with the characters. I love when one of my comics goes viral – I’ve had certain panels reach over 2 million views and hundreds of thousands of shares. I like that single panel comics can hit home and people appreciate that.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
I think artists and creative people can easily be supported on social media by readers sharing the artists’ work. Share it, like it, participate in what they are doing. Tell your friends about it, help the artist get followers on social media.
Of course buying art from artists and of course supporting Patreon accounts is a good way to support artists. It’s easy to purchase art at art shows, galleries and on artists’ websites. Also many artists sell their work on t-shirts, mugs, etc.
I support a lot of artists on Go Fund Me sites I have supported cartoonists and artists trying to publish a book of their works, or buy new computer equipment or whatever. I have supported one artist trying to buy a new tablet to draw on (his old one died) and I supported another who was trying to buy a truck to replace a truck that was destroyed in an accident. Simple things like that are a big support to artists and creative people.
Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?
I love the idea of NFT’s. I have been toying with the idea, but I still have not taken that first step and I don’t know why. But I love the whole concept and I think art and cartoons are the main focus of NFT’s – it’s a built in market for artists.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://tomfalco.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tomversation.toons/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Tomversation.toons/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomversation
- Other: My blog is here: https://tomversation.com/
Image Credits
Tom Falco