Apologia and Backstory
An Insufficient Apology
Tom Duck and Harry has or have been stewing as a comic strip for over 55 years - mainly because their cartoonist couldn't draw ducks or pigs, so at this point what you see is what you get... or don't get. The website tomduckandharry.com began as an addition to the elusive Fred Herring's website oneandonehalfwits.com. (See the reconstruction of that seamy underbelly of the internet, dank and dungeony long before there was a dark web, elsewhere on this site.) This current duckifestation of tomduckandharry.com contains selections from March 2004 on, during which time most of the strips were drawn while the cartoonist was commuting to work by bus and subway. That could explain the inconsistency in the drawings and the shaky line work, but it's really just his inability to draw ducks and pigs. Either way, check out our eponymous heroes in daily gag format (A TD&H Sampler) or as a continuing strip (The First Adventure of TD&H or The Alaskan Adventure of TD&H).
Some Dubious Background Information
Tom Duck, a denizen of New York City's Central Park, has tired of the rat race. He recalls his great-grandfather's tales of the Great Plains and the vast flocks of migratory waterfowl that blackened the sky and whitened the earth. So Tom flies west to find a new life, crossing the Hudson and New Jersey, where he begins to tire near the Pennsylvania border. Alighting atop a westbound Greyhound, he dozes off as the bus rolls on into the twilight. He awakens to dawn's early light and disembarks to scrounge breakfast, only to find himself on the outskirts of the hamlet of Gozaimasu,* Ohio, "population 756 last time we checked." A short flight into the hills southwest of town brings him to Cow Manor, a small farm run by African-American farmer Al MacDonald and his wife, Ellie. There, deep in the bowels of southern Ohio, Tom finds a new home, new adventures, and new friends, in particular his buddy-to-be, Harry (a pig).
You can also find some old history about the beginnings of Tom Duck and Harry and some early Gozaimasu, Ohio, sketches and storyboards, sometimes a bit contradictory.
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*Pronounced GOHZ-EYE-EE-MAHS
Department of Farmland Security
Want more information on the Department of Farmland Security (DFS)? Then look no further than our logo, because DFS is not mentioned elsewhere in Tom Duck and Harry. It is just another stupid play on words, so you won't find anything more than what you can see in the seal. To wit, or half wit...
- Yes, that is poison ivy in the duck's right foot, as evidenced by the warning "Leaves of three, let it be." There are 13 leaves and 13 berries.
- Those are 13 skyrockets in the left foot.
- E Pluribus Quackum might mean "From many, quackum," whatever that means.
- The symbols on the shield represent a farm and a furrowed field.
- The 22 stars might or might not mean anything specifically- You could contact the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS's) Office of Public Affairs and ask about their logo, which bears an uncanny resemblance to ours, except theirs has "U.S." on it, whereas ours better not.
[Click the logo or here to see an enlarged copy.]
Most Frequent FAQ: "Who's Responsible for This Travesty?!"
Not These Guys!
That is, neither Dewey nor Truman can be blamed for this mess of a website, but oddly enough, the election referenced in the picture took place in November 1948, the same year earlier in which our perpetrator was born. As you can figure out for yourself, that was during the last year of President Franklin Roosevelt's fourth term, albeit being executed by Truman following Roosevelt's death in 1945. So you might questionably say that our f(l)ounder has lived during the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt, Thomas Dewey (albeit for a brief three-hour period in Chicago), Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. We'll leave it up to you to add "but not least" or its opposite to any of the above. [Suffice it to say that you are at liberty to nominate any one of these to appear on the three-dollar bill, as in "as phony as a...". Your choices are probably directly related to your political leanings or ideology. Independents have a larger pool to consider.] In all that time, has he learned anything? We'll let you be the judge.
Yeah, it's me, David Mudrick. For awhile I chose to remain agnonymous (meaning I don't believe in myself), but since I'm the only visitor to this website, there's no sense in being coy. If you want to know more about me, you might find some parallels between my life story and that of Fred Herring, the f(l)ounder of One and One Half Wits Dot Com, which has been reincarnated and incorporated elsewhere in this website - or you can read my new book, also elsewhere in this website: Living Too Far North, Drawing Humor from a Winter in Alaska.