Happy New Year!

A new year, a new project, this substack!

Jan 01, 2024

Starting a new substack.

Now is a good time to start with New Year’s resolutions! I am a big fan of resolutions ever since I figured out if you just list the things you know you are going to do, you are for sure going to get enormous satisfaction when you do them. Like buy a new car. That decision usually takes a long time but once made, you’re in.

Starting this substack was my New Year’s Resolution No. 1 for 2024. Mission accomplished!

My friend Dante’s resolutions.

My friend Dante loves resolutions too. So much so, he wrote a very long poem one year about all the things he hoped to avoid in the coming year. The year was 1314 and he called the poem “Inferno.” He planned it all out like a journey. He’s a very clever fellow.

There are nine “topics” or categories of things Dante felt he could improve upon or at least avoid like Hell, and several are divided up even further. Like no. 8: When it comes to words, there’s a lot of mischief we can get into.

Dante’s Nine Circles of Resolution for 2024

Without further ado, here’s my revisitation/outline of Dante’s “Inferno” from a New Year’s perspective:

This is a pretty good example of my preliminary sketch style for cartoons. I hope to publish finished drawings here too, including an inked up version of this.

‘Toonsday - a daily yuk.

You don’t have to make a resolution to laugh every day, you probably will anyway, but then again, laughter is good for the soul, so why wouldn’t you make that resolution?

And subscribe to ‘Toonsday to help you along that journey?!

Credit where credit is due.

The web has lots of material about Dante Alighieri’s 14th century epic poem, “Divine Comedy”, of which “Inferno” is but the first part. Completed in 1314, it’s amazingly current in terms of today’s struggles. Read all about it on Wikipedia.

Please subscribe.

There’s nothing like telling someone (you the reader) that you (me) are going to do something to make sure you do it. So please subscribe, if only to keep me honest (Resolution no. 8 again.) No need to pledge anything. I’ll figure all that out later.

But if you aren’t sure, no problem. Make a resolution to come back and check out my progress! An easy one to accomplish in 2024.