Tommy In Tome? Link's Collected Cartoons
The Reader's very own Tommy Link set to release a book of Tommy In Toon
"Hey Tommy, random thought, but let me know if you'd ever want to submit cartoons to the Reader." I sent this via Facebook messenger one day in late 2016 to my friend and fellow musician Tommy Link. Fast-forward nearly a decade later and we'll soon have an entire book filled with Link's cartoons (with that very message from yours truly even making it into the intro), titled Living in the Moment.
In January of 2017, Tommy In Toon debuted in the Erie Reader, appearing right under that issue's music reviews. It was the perfect pairing, with the titular in-comic Tommy being a gigging singer-songwriter, lugging his guitar and amplifier into the very first panel. Link was the second regular local cartoonist at the Reader, with Bryan Toy launching Just Toyin' Witcha in 2011. I'm proud to say that we now have five regular cartoonists from the Erie area contributing original strips and panels every issue, not to mention a handful of guest artists.
"I am not a trained visual artist by any extent, but years ago when I started playing shows more regularly, I had a cartoon version of myself that I would draw, just as something to post to help advertise for shows," Link explained. As an up-and-coming solo artist, Link would promote his appearances with his cartoon avatar prior to beginning the strip.
"I had a very signature look that I was trying to establish as a musician," he laughed. With his long hair, bushy beard, green shirt, and (what was originally a costume piece for a scarecrow) a tweed hat that Indiana Jones's father would love, Tommy's look was born.
"Honestly, comic strips were really part of my life well before playing music or anything," Link explained. "My parents have always had a subscription to the Erie Times-News. I read the funnies every day before school and my dad would always give me a hard time being like, 'did you read any news?'" he joked.
Along with his personal favorite Calvin & Hobbes, Link gravitated to strips that "did have more of a story, where they had consistent characters, where they were telling stories: Luann, Baby Blues, Curtis, Garfield, and Peanuts (obviously).
There are a few things that make Tommy's cartoons so much fun and evergreen. Firstly, it's his storytelling and visual pacing. From day one, he knew exactly how to set up a joke and land a punchline. Then, it's the specificity of the character in an all-too-familiar environment, which may or may not be a little niche. "Fellow musicians are the ones who have told me that they've been waiting for this work," Link remarked. "There's a lot of people who it resonated with, the ins and outs that you don't think of if you're not a musician."
While there's a fair amount of inside baseball like microphone misophonia (a word Link clued me in on), open mic slot politics, and acoustic guitar physics, that's not everything. If you know the author even a tiny bit, it's easy to see the undeniable heart and sentimentality shining through.
Joined by a cast of recurring characters, Tommy is flanked by the likes of Pete the bartender, Renee the barista, his buddy Brew, his arch-nemesis Kenny LaRoche, and of course, his dear turtle friend, Turtle.
Inspired by his fellow Reader cartoonist Anthony Carson's self-published collection Can I Change the World with a Doodle?, Link has brought together his best-loved strips in full color. Some of the earliest illustrations have been redone to sharpen them up a bit, and there are plenty of strips that have never been featured in the Reader, as Link updates his Instagram page with a new comic every week.
Produced by Erie's Emerald Printing, the official release date of the Living in the Moment is set for May 22. For $18, it will be available for sale at Pressed Books & Coffee, as well as online at tommyintoon.com and at his Patreon page at patreon.com/TommyinToon. Stay tuned for more details on a special book release party, which will, of course, feature its share of live music.
