As is my annual tradition, here is my latest Jim Garner cartoon, and once again in his role as Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files. Although I’ve drawn him as Rockford many times, it seemed appropriate this year, as 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the release of The Rockford Files Back in 1974.
There’s not much to add here, but creating this year’s entry was a very frustrating experience for me as I had to learn how to work in color using a new program since I no longer have access to Photoshop. A little over a year ago I had to replace my old dated computer with a new one when it finally shut down, but alas I can’t install my Photoshop disk here as Adobe doesn’t allow anything other than their subscription service which I refuse to subscribe to. I tried Apple’s own program, Pixelmator, some time ago, but found it pretty useless and difficult to crack. More recently I decided to try Sketchbook Pro as it is quite inexpensive to purchase and download. It’ll take a while to get used to, but it seems pretty comparable to Photoshop, albeit with several things I still can’t seem to figure out.
Anyway, I was able to get far enough to add color to my (still) traditional ink line on the illustration board focus. I’m afraid this old dinosaur will never be able to give up my trusty Winsor & Newton sable brush and bottle of ink to create my cartoon art. The fact is, I really wouldn’t want to do it.