25 Things About Tony Carrillo:

1. As a child, I was attacked by the King of the Desert, the Great Horned Owl.

2. I can make a really loud clicking sound with my tongue.

3. I had a snake named Carl. He lived for about 13 years, escaped three times, and bit me once.

4. I played the saxophone for eight years in school. My sax has a naked lady engraved on the side.

5. My brother and I used to play "Houdini" in the swimming pool with a chain.

6. I am trained to be a police sketch artist.

7. I was once punched in the head while wearing a bear suit.

8. I won a blue ribbon at the state fair for a painting.

9. My comic strip is called F Minus but my blood type is A+.

10. I used to work the camel rides at the zoo. I had to tell the larger customers they were too large to ride the camel.

11. I've painted three murals. One was a life-size moose.

12. I tend to win raffles and drawings.

13. The best sandwich I ever had was at a grocery store in Florida.

14. I almost (accidentally) killed my dog with an arrow.

15. I have a list of the 5 worst smells I've ever smelled. Two of them are people.

16. I could eat cold cereal for every meal.

17. I was interviewed on MTV about stuff I knew nothing about.

18. Next month, I will be a brown belt in Kung Fu.

19. Some jerk stole my car, used all the gas, sideswiped another car, and abandoned it in Phoenix. I'm still driving it today.

20. I enjoy sneaking into VIP sections.

21. I have winged scapula (I can stick out my shoulder blades) and a variety of other freakish abilities.

22. I think and work best from midnight to four a.m.

23. I have very vivid dreams and nightmares. Some repeat, some pick up where they left off the night before.

24. I hate clowns.

25. I worked at the airport as a baggage loader. I once guided in a plane (you know, with the orange wands) full of passengers, even though I did not know how, was not supposed to, and was unsupervised. Everything went fine.

Superhero Day

On Feb. 28th from 11am-1pm Changing Hands is to putting together Superhero Day, an event for kids where they can dress up as their favorite superhero. From the Changing Hands website:
Matthew Connelly of McFarlane Toys offers an art demo and shares some cool gifts; Tony Carrillo, creator of the F Minus cartoon strip, stops by for a cartooning demo; Andrew Chorkey draws funny caricatures; and Roxanna Montoya of the Science is Fun program at Arizona State University hosts a fun activity with holograms. We’ll also make superhero masks!

I know what you're thinking: "F Minus isn't a superhero comic." Wrong, sir! Wrong! I think you're forgetting that stainless steel mechanical monster, ROBOBOT!!! So here's the deal: Come to Superhero day dressed in a ROBOBOT costume, and the best one will receive a super cool ROBOBOT t-shirt, not yet available to the public. Even if you just put a kleenex box on your head and write ROBOBOT on the side, that counts. Who knows, if you're the only one to try, you'll win by default. Worth a shot, right?

Actually this guy has appeared a couple of times, whenever I needed a general superhero for a comic:He's got an F Minus logo on his chest, but I've never named him. What do you think? F Minus Man? Captain Failure?

Check out ROBOBOT's myspace profile and his Facebook fan club.

A Tony Danza Sandwich

I was searching for the listing for the new F Minus book on Amazon yesterday. Check out the results:

Sharing is Caring

Did you know you can share your favorite (or least favorite, or the ones you feel nothing for) F Minus comics with friends (or enemies, or those you feel nothing for) by clicking on Share at comics.com? You can share comics on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Digg, and more. Come on, if you discovered you emitted a gas that smelled like orange blossoms, you wouldn't sit in your room and hide it, would you? No! You'd share it with the world! Do the same with F Minus.

Ow. Ow ow ow.

I'm currently lying on the couch with a glowing red ball of pain in my lower back. After spending all day digging in the yard (I never did find my safe), I went inside for a drink. I was wiping the dirt off my shoes when I felt a screaming pain in my lower back. I spent the next few minutes lying on the floor looking at the ceiling fan, praying death would be swift. I have now made my way to the couch. I turned on the TV, and guess what was on... an infomercial for Back2life, your personal back pain therapist.

This was the comic from January 19th:Today I found this article on the Onion:

Area Teen Up To Something

"Just look at him," said Bob Page, one of several men and women currently watching the 14-year-old from their living room window. "That boy's definitely up to something."





Does this mean I get to work for the Onion now? Please? Because that would be awesome.

Momma's boy

In case I haven't mentioned it before, my mom is an accomplished oil painter. In fact, her artwork is featured in the February issue of Southwest Art magazine. You can see some of her work at the Artistic Mystic in Chandler, AZ. It is on the NW corner of Warner & Alma School. There will be a reception this Saturday, Jan. 24th at 4:00pm- 7:00pm. I expect you all to be there. You can get more info at her website and her blog.

Just drivin' around in Jon Voight's car...

I had a fun weekend. My brother and I drove out to California and got to spend some time with cartoonist/writer Tom Gammill. He draws the comic strip The Doozies, and does a series of videos about cartooning. Tom also writes for the Simpsons, and used to write for Seinfeld. In his home he has a photo of himself behind the wheel of an old LeBaron, which he purchased thinking it was Jon Voight's car. This was the inspiration for a great episode where George does the same thing. The actual car Tom bought is used in the episode.
Somewhere between Arizona and California is a giant baby.

Do your part

With these troubling economic times, it's about time we all got together to try and solve this problem. Instead of putting your money in a savings account where it will do no good, how about giving the economy a shot in the arm and pre-order the new F Minus book! I insisted it be the same size as the first F Minus Book, so that they line up nicely on your bookshelf as a pair. I also insisted it be vanilla-lime scented, but I don't know if that's gonna work out.

Garage Sailin'

I like garage sales. I like anything that involves rummaging. On a recent trip I purchased several tools for the garage, including a sander and some large clamps, Which my brother and I used to build a baby trap. (Trap and brother pictured below) The success at the sale inspired this comic:The comic then inspired this article by Lynda Hammond in the Arizona Republic, featuring yours truly.
Once I bought an old set of golf clubs at a garage sale, and inside the bag I found blueprints for a house and two Texas flags. Score!

Off to a good start

A sad sign of the times, my local paper The East Valley Tribune has stopped delivering to homes and will instead be just a free paper in news stands. I don't know if they are still running comics or not, but this is a major bummer because it was the only paper to carry F Minus on Sunday in my town. Now I'll be getting the Arizona Republic, which only carries the dailies. (what?)
One of the final issues of the Tribune carried this short, anonymous editorial: “Whether the Tribune stays or goes makes no difference. It’s still a good newspaper, all except for one little thing: The 'F-minus’ cartoon (stinks).”
I have a major gripe with this comment, and it's this: There is no hyphen in between F and Minus, okay people? "F-Minus" is a Southern California punk band that broke up in 2005. "F Minus" is my comic. Let's get this right.
I wouldn't be surprised if this anonymous (a.k.a. cowardly) comment was sent in by my whiny, emotionally fragile younger brother. You can read his inane rantings over at his blog: Mike The Middle Child.