Small & Big

I can‘t decide. Which is a better profile pic on Tinder? Me as the madam of an 1800s Gold Rush town or me standing behind you at the bank thinking about cutting my toenails later? Choice A) Madam of an 1800s Gold Rush town Choice B) Me standing behind you at the bank thinking about cutting my toenails later Vote by commenting.

Click here for the solution. You're welcome.

I found my note below, from April of 2009, which I didn’t share on Small & Big until now. As both my regular readers know, I recently graduated, and the proof is the Certificate of Completion from a cartooning course received one fortnight ago. Ahem. It was taught by Mat Brown ( website ) and it was most enjoyable. In it I learned to use a brush and ink and then lay in color, like this: Two completely new things for me. Along with meeting very nice, quite funny people (ha-ha funny, not strange funny), it was the most enjoyable class I’ve ever had. I learned more about drawing than at a traditional fine arts school program. You can quote me on that. The moral of this story: If you ever get a chance to take a cartooning class, jump on it! Convinced you can’t draw a straight line, let alone a circle? Read this.

Car ad found on Craigslist: brand new toyota corolla - $11000 (taunton ma) i am selling my toyota mint conidition inside and out is has 26k miles which is nothin and its a 2006 nothin wrong with the car at all needs nothing done to it i am selling it cuz i am moving back to portugal if u want to know more give me a call at 774-xxx-xxxx thanks 26000 miles means 306000 miles and corolla means aries k-car and portugal means moms place but i am calling because fast talking confuses me

Sunday on the Pot With George Acrylic on canvas by Unknown Can the swirling steam melt away the huge weight of George’s corporate responsibilities? This pointillist piece is curious for meticulous attention to fine detail, such as the stitching around the edge of the towel, in contrast to the almost careless disregard for the subject’s feet. If you do but one thing today, make it a visit to MOBA, the Museum Of Bad Art, at museumofbadart.org . Here’s the direct route straight to the collection . Whew. Tummy sore from laughing. And here are their two spectacular books. I’ve got the white-and-yellow one. It’s really good.    

We at Small & Big are gosh-darn embarrassed, given that last year we invented Roz Chast Day, remember? And by we I mean me and by invented I mean made up. This year all I did on June 18th was this , a big double-oh-zero. And now there’s a mosquito in here, a mosquito on my arm, neck, noggin. Ack. So in conclusion: Happy Belated Roz Chast Day! I suspect she expected as much.

I love, love, love this June 13th cover for Boston Globe Magazine , by illustrator Aaron Meshon . It’s so vibrantly colorful I can almost taste it. (Colors do that to me. Yum.) Look how he put in the little people, on the dock there, they’re but color blots; and the heat, flowing Bob Dylan flame-style, outta the hot-dog stand; and the whale nibbling marshmallow sails. Why, it’s downright summery. Except, I wonder — the guy driving, he sure is paying a lot of attention to something out the window (giant cooked-but-still-living lobster claw?) and not watching where he’s driving that blue Paul Bunyon-sized automobile. Will he mow down the little pointy trees, the ice cream ferris wheel, the living flowers? Nah. He must be parked. Nobody messes with pink log slug. Go pink log slug, go! Check out more of Meshon’s work at www.aaronmeshon.com .

Warning: book recommendation coming up. I read Warren Buffet’s Management Secrets, by Marry Buffet and David Clark, and it’s awesome. Awesome. Proof that you can be nice on the inside and get nice stuff on the outside. I got the book because Small and Big’s shareholders are all like, “Dividends! Results! Guillotine!” And because of the subtitle: Proven Tools for Personal and Business Success . Among the morsels from the booky book: The best companies to work for and invest in have a competitive edge: they either sell a unique product that doesn’t change much from year-to-year (Coca-cola), sell a unique service (H&R Block tax service), or are a low-cost buyer/seller a product/service that everybody’s continually in need of (Walmart). Work at a job you love. The people who are most successful love what they do. There’s no point in suffering over bucks — if you’re working only for the money isn’t that a form of greed? “Praise by name, criticize the category.” Give others credit f...

My favorite tweets. Also, your crystal ball and fortune cookie told me to relay this message: Joy will be enhanced by following plfrederick on Twitter . When in doubt listen to your inner cookie.

    For years I’ve seen the book plastered on bookshelves and tables. I ignored it. After all, the cover of “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” was ugly and everybody knows you judge a book by its cover. (If we couldn’t judge a book by its cover it would be infinitely impossible, eh?) Anywho, I got a hold of the DVD from my local Library and, let me tell you, I was impressed . You can spend four years in art school at $40,000 and up or you can spend a couple of hours drawing with Betty Edwards. The tricks you’d get piecemeal in college over years, Betty distills into an hour-and-a-half DVD. Also, it’s fun. And her manner of speaking, hilarious. (Betty, you know it’s true.) Three morsels I learned: Everyone can learn to draw. Every. One. Just like everyone can learn to read. Drawing is like reading in another big way, too: it must be taught. We learn to draw from others. Why draw? Because it helps us think better. The ...

Dear Company That Emailed Me With That In The Subject Line, The words “sexiest” and “pony” do not ever ever ever belong together. Ever. Sincerely, P.L. Frederick, Esq.

I was at this... And saw this... Ew. According to Undercover Brother , mayonnaise is a White People Thing. (A great movie, by the way. Except that two-women-fighting-in-the-shower scene. Where I come from it should be two half-dressed sexy men slow-mo wrestling it up in there. Different generation, I guess.) Through Baconnaise , bacon has officially reached the end of the line. Baconnaise. Bacon. And. Mayo. For those times when food just won't do, but a stable emulsion of oil, salt and vinegar stirred up with chunks of “natural flavor” will.

A genuine, authentic, one of... Oh I don't know what this is: What could anybody use this for? Something to perk up that dark corner of the closet that you gotta take a time machine back to 1971 and then an elevator to the 26th floor penthouse suite to access? I think I answered my own question. I like how it’s priced at $129.99. “Don’t offer it at $130; that would give consumers the illusion that it’s overly expensive.” This has been a post by Grumpy Frederick, Spring Allergy Division.

News flash: May 1st is Free Comic Book Day . I got the news from Dave of David Wasting Paper (he doesn't). For details and a comic-book store locator, go to the Free Comic Book Day website . As Dave puts it, “comic books are a great tool to get kids interested in reading, plus these ones are FREE!” The awesome illustration shown above is by Mad Magazine’s awesome Sergio Aragonés. You can get it on an awesome t-shirt. Click here for the t-shirt buying page. Part of proceeds go to charity. Want to learn more about comic artists? Do check out David Wasting Paper for tons of artist interviews.

The comma is man’s best friend. It’s a dot with a cute little tail, poised in mid-air, wagging just for you. The comma is a tilted ice cream cone and a young minnow and one of them old timey bone horns you blow into, like the Jewish shofar. (Your sentence could substitute a flugelhorn but it’ll lack pagentry.) Commas also signify when to take a wee breath, a little pause, a rest. And , commas help form sentence grammar. My beef is that last bit, sentence grammar. There aren’t enough commas in U.S. sentence grammar these days. Technically I have no business being irritated: my grammar is founded on speling errors and trendy word combos like “ gassing the Mason jar ” and “ feline fart farm .” Plus I have not eaten beef since 1986. Okay, I’ve never used those word combos and just wanted you to click my links there, but “feline fart farm” is awesome and I will definitely add it to my vocabulary and maybe even trademark it. (Small & Big: A Feline Fart Farm.™) Any wh...

“I asked my son what his favorite color was,” says the woman in the tiny French cafe. She’s polished, dyed, and leaning over a double espresso into her friend’s face. “And he said pink. Pink. I told him, ‘You’d better not let your father hear that.’” Instead of a 1950’s type brown-Jello-meatloaf ambush, letting the boy think there’s no wrong answer to his personal opinion and then pouncing, it would have been more effective to approach the topic as a teaching moment. Mom could have prefaced her question with: “Here are the six colors you’re allowed to like, because you’re a boy: brown, black, blue, navy blue, grey, and camouflage,” and then ask, “Which is your favorite?” See, ’cuz that gives the lad a chance to grab the camouflage and run, run for the hills!, where he’s free to enjoy any and every color. Plus, in the 21st Century, where some of us live, camouflage is ava...

"But really, when you come right down to it, there are only four basic prayers. Gimme! Thanks! Oops! and Wow!” says Rabbi Gellman. “That’s it?” “Yep. Wow! are prayers of praise and wonder at the creation. Oops! is asking for forgiveness. Gimme! is a request or a petition. Thanks! is expressing gratitude. That’s the entire Judeo-Christian doxology. That’s what we teach our kids in religious school.” From “The Right Way to Pray?”, posted in the New York Times.

Wishing you a playful, enlightening 2010, full of love, healing, and joy. May your bounty increase as you uplift, and are uplifted by, others. If you choose, remember this year that sharing an honest smile or kind word with someone who’s experienced a bad day, or a bad life, is a holy gift. Kindness rocks. I am so grateful that you’re there, sharing in my endeavor to become a humor writer, or humor draw-er, or something. Thank you. And, since it wouldn’t be Small & Big without a little something extra, here’s an ugly pile of mushrooms: Happy new year. May peace be unto you and yours.

I just discovered him. I just enjoyed him. Lord Likely, aristocratic adventurer and gentle-man of action, is an astonishing chap. I’m not sure why, really, as his posts are unfinished. And rather lewd. See for yourself: www.lordlikely.com . Be sure to sign up for his Twitters at twitter.com/lordlikely .

My President Bush Senior ventriloquist dummy barks, “Read my post: no new times!” The Ethics Of Changing Time, Or 10 Minutes To Absurd There are 24 hours in a day. This is one of those truisms you learn when you’re eight, like “You put your tongue on that frozen pipe there’s gonna be trouble,” and “You eat that entire bowl of cashews there’s gonna be trouble.” So why, two times a year, must this change?