Episode 657 - Tom Tomorrow

Political cartoonist Tom Tomorrow (a.k.a. Dan Perkins) is back as we celebrate his new Kickstarter project, OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE (closing Oct. 30, 2025, so GO SUPPORT THAT), collecting 5+ years of weekly This Modern World cartoons! We talk about how he keeps his sanity (well, tries to), what it was like to look back at the past half-decade week by week, why he decided not to go down a rabbit-hole of extra material for the project, and what it means to have a bookshelf of his strips (and not just pixels on a screen). We get into the importance of his Sparky's List newsletter as the media landscape keeps withering away, his writing process and how the, um, of this administration compels him to build some flexibility each week, and the realization that he's made a major body of work over the past four decades. We also discuss his major life changes since we last recorded, the good and bad of Being Very Online, his love of Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko mystery novels, what makes him a New Yorker, and the impossibly fraught question of what brings him joy. Follow Tom Tomorrow on Bluesky and Instagram, subscribe to Sparky's List, and check out his merch from Topatoco and Threadless. Oh, and you can follow This Modern World on TinyView and/or Daily Kos • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Stripe, Patreon, or Paypal, and subscribe to our e-newsletter