Though sushi has been a part of civilization longer than one might imagine, it was not always in the current form in which we are used to devouring. It started as a simple “fast food” dish in 2 A.D. in China and was an excellent way to preserve food (there was no refrigeration then). In the early days chefs fermented rice, placed raw fish on the rice, threw the rice out, and ate the fish when hungry.

By 7 A.D. sushi made its way to Japan, where seafood is a staple entrée. However they started making the rice a “side order” with the fish. About 1600, Matsumoto Yoshiichi of Edo (now known as Tokyo) began experimenting with flavors such as rice vinegar and selling this “new dish”. By doing this, they created the world’s first “fast food” and it was more often than not eaten immediately.

Below is a wonderful short YouTube video by my very talented wife Lee Hiller London.

The majority of “sushi” eaten in American restaurants is nigiri (finger sushi) and California rolls, almost no resemblance to the original Chinese food known as “sushi”. An ethnic food that swept the world by storm was developed yet further by the artful experimental restaurant entrepreneurs of north American creating a fusion of food and art.

So not all, but a good deal of the history of my favorite food was familiar. Also familiar was my limited knowledge of design; that is, the best design often reflects the vision of a culture; a modern trend if you will.

Though pizza, hamburger, etc all have their “beauty”, I was not inclined or motivated to purvey the beauty of thousands of mg of trans-fat artery-clogging foods.

But sushi was and is a different story. I started with shoes (mostly womens) but now make mens too. I named the store ShoeShies.com. Then I started designing aprons, mouse pads, mugs, postage stamps, key chains, caps, and just about everything else showcasing dishes of sushi and sashimi and its all available now at Shoeshies.com. I am loving doing it and it has “recharged” me to continue to make cartoon products for Londons Times Cartoons and my love quote Shoes That Amuse…and eat more sushi.

But now, when all the sushi places are closed at 2am and I have a hunger for it, I can look at the sushi mouse pad next to my pc and drool…or drool on my shoes; knowing they will lead me to the nearest sushi bar….tomorrow.

Shirley Temple Of Doom

You see, if there is any glamor whatsoever in the world of independent cartooning it is that I set my own deadlines, create my own SEO and PR, tweet when I feel like tweeting, and say “Hi Ya’ll” to my childhood Mississippi friends most of whom no longer live there but still want me to say “Hi Ya’ll” and they always say “Hi Ya’ll” back.  It is sort of a ritual.

Always A Sox Fan

I often hear, “How do you do it? How do you create all these cartoons”.  That is a question that truly is not answerable and if someone teaches a class (for money) in humor writing and/or how to create funny cartoons, go find a guy named Elmer Gantry and buy some snake oil. It will probably do much more for you.  Like football, chess, tennis, math, or plumbing, it is something you have, or something you don’t.  At first, only you know it. Then when you create it and push it out into the public, and anywhere from 20 people have seen your cartoons, you get a general idea if you “have it” or not.

Sometimes I’m in the bathroom, sometimes out hiking, often watching tv. sometimes talking to a boring person (this is ideal because you shut up, stare at them in the eyes, they think you are listening, and you are mentally creating a cow and a zebra at a formal dinner/dance date in a single-panel form). You both leave smiling and they think you are the most attentive listener ever put on planet earth.

But its really not all glamor.  In fact only a small fraction is.  There’s sketching out the idea.  There’s writing the caption. There’s assigning the final product if I want a team member to create it (which I usually do).  There’s creating the products. There’s approaching the appropriate publications.

I often get asked, “How did you get into the cartoon business?  I don’t know. I really don’t.  I tried everything else, and as the late great Charles Schulz once told me, “I did because I tried everything else, and didn’t do it very well”. I could identify.

More on cartooning in upcoming blogs. Thanks for your time. Please feel free to comment.

Sushi Bar Exam

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I am a writer, cartoonist, and designer. My name is Rick London and I founded Londons Times Cartoons in 1997 which have become Google & MSN’s #1 ranked offbeat cartoons since 2005.  I have launched about 5 stores that sell funny gifts and even a serious designer fashion shoe store with the world’s only famous love quotes on shoes called Shoes That Amuse. I love my wife Lee, animals and nature, the outdoors, and life in general.

Croaked Frog

When you reach my age (56), it is not unique that one remembers things that happened 50 years ago; but can’t remember what day it is. That’s me.  The one thing I will never forget is how and why I started collecting things. Let me warn you ahead of time, this story will not appeal to “greenies” nor “animal rights activists”. I should know, I am both. But at age four, when I was just beginning to explore the great outdoors, I found what became my new favorite animal, besides my beagle “Buster”.  That animal was the frog.  And since I lived near the woods, I knew I could count on my new friend, the frog, to virtually jump into my hands and into the great big jar full of grass and all kinds of marshy things I put together. It was tall enough to need no top so it generally lived a long time.  I tried to get 3-4 a night so as they could keep company and “tell frog stories”, as I imagined frogs often did.

Unlike my two siblings, my parents made a bedroom for me out of the attic of the home. This had its advantages and disadvantages. One advantage was the ability to hide frogs, even though the croak sort of gave them away. One croak was so loud, Mom ran upstairs, ran past the closet they were in, and to me. I was rubbing my tummy telling her I felt it was gas.  She gave me more Milk Of Magnesia than any human should be aloud to ingest and the croaking continued.

Mom was no dummy, even though at times I thought she was.  She asked, as I rubbed my tummy, “Where are the frogs”.  I took her to the large jar.  She let them out into the woods and explained to me that was their home and where they were happy. I readily agreed and begin collecting insects in jars.  She gave me the same lecture and we let them go.

Finally it occurred to me that I could be creative, make things, and nobody got hurt. I even begin collecting stamps.  Well into elementary school, creative writing became my love and nobody ever got hurt, except for those forced to read it.  However as time went by, I fared well at it, won a few contests and kept at it.

After college came “time to get serious” and there was not much time for creative ventures.  A funny thing happened though. Those creative ventures were still in my heart, and, when the work day was over, I would continue on creating as I pleased.  As time went by, I enjoyed 9-5 work less and less and creative endeavors more and more.  Playwriting took me to book writing, and book writing took me to screenwriting, and screenwriting took me to cartooning which is where I am now.

My cartooning began as a hobby. I had been taking care of a dying Mom and it was something to keep my mind busy.  Never in a million years would I have believed that this little hobby would grow into a business of 5000+ color cartoons and 200,000+ funny gifts & collectibles.  My cartoons are now my own little collectibles. They have replaced frogs, insects, stamps and a multitude of other items that did not serve me well (or vice versa).  Thirteen years of cartooning is a subtle hint that I might be on the right path. With Google & MSN rating my cartoon number one for 6 years, is yet another, subtle hint, this is the right thing for me to “collect”.   Anybody got a big jar?

Place Is Bugged (Click To Enlarge)

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I am a writer, designer and cartoonist who used to collect frogs, insects, stamps and other such items.  Cartoons seem to fit me better. I founded Londons Times Cartoon in 1997 which are the #1 Google & MSN ranked offbeat cartoon on the Internet. I launched several online stores that sell my funny gifts and even have my own line of designer shoes featuring graphics of famous philosophers and poets and their most famous love quotations.

Don’t you just love blog etiquette? Do it this way…no that way, wait, you’re gonna fail, no my mistake you may succeed and leave me behind, do as I say, not a I do. Help I don’t know what I’m’ doing? Why didn’t I simply collect disability instead of call my self a lifecoach and suck money from those who have it?

All those notions crossed my mind because, as I spend my time and observe what happens on Twitter (to a certain extent); I see that it is an acceptable practice. I see “life coaches aka THE VERY worst kind of swindlers” post beautiful quotes that look familiar. Life coaches are in more of a bind than there used to be.  Their “sport” used to be to find positive quotes on the net, take of the title of the person who wrote them, and add their own.

The authors caught on and now there is a software with algorythms that will decipher if it is the same quote with the wording changed around, a few words emitted, etc (soon to be released). I guess that will be the end of “the life coach industry”, that is, unless they learn how to produce a creative thought (many times in a day); which I doubt, given the many I’ve met.

I have a software that untangles that and 9 out of 10 the times they have been lifted from the writer of origin and re-written in a way that nobody can decipher the originator. Nobody until now. Now even the descendants of Mark Twain are in the game.  Along with my offbeat cartoons and funny gifts, and I also create the world’s only love quote shoes with quotes by famous people; Twain being one of them. It is rare that when something is in the public domain that a family goes after someone. The problem was, people only assumed Twain’s quotes were in that category. They were not. I immediately took my Twain love quote shoes down out of courtesy.  As in real life, social media has it’s often large share of arrogant folks who are certain they are above the law.  They think that until the here the clink of handcuffs. Please folks (not everyone but the few who do this); this laws for you to. It is not only to protect the artist/writer, but to protect you from hurting you and those around you. Let’s all play by the rules. End of sermon.

But go to Twitter and other social networks and you’ll see his quotes all over the place (often even uncredited). There are thousands of unlicensed items floating around via Twitter & Zazzle or Cafe Press or wherever which will always be for sale.   These naive people believe they won’t get hit with a summons but guess what.  At least 20-40 people are getting hit per day by the Twain family.  If a Twitterer is smart, he/she will take Twain quotes out of his/her scheduled tweets.  The Twain family has attorneys there looking on for such copyright infringement. Admittedly, it is rare. Most pre-1900 authors and poets are in the public domains and it is relatively easy to tell by seeing their images on prints, coasters, tees, and other licensed items not being sold by the Twain family.  If a family is smart, who has a great writer or artist within that family, they will go to to an attorney or courthouse and keep control of the images.  However things were not as sophisticated back in he 1800′s.  I miss selling my Mark Twain items at my Shoes That Amuse, the world’s only famous love quote gift and shoe shop. But there are plenty more and I’m happy with that.

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I am a writer, inventor, musician, cartoonist, and animal lover. I created the #1 ranked offbeat cartoon on the Internet, Londons Times Cartoons. I founded the world’s only famous love quote shoe in 2008. I love to Twitter @RickLondon and play around with facebook where you can fan our cartoon and gift page .  Lee Hiller-London is the love of my life.  I love her nature/wildlife blog at Hike Our Planet. We’re getting a cat soon.  I’m sick in bet today. Am sure you’d like to know this pertinent info.