The McFronceks
The Adventures of Charlotte & Dylan Lil Sis Aurora and Wee Tegan.
Mama, Dada, Auntie M & Lady Madonna take our pictures, but Gramps tells you what we are thinking.
The Adventures of Charlotte & Dylan Lil Sis Aurora and Wee Tegan.
Mama, Dada, Auntie M & Lady Madonna take our pictures, but Gramps tells you what we are thinking.
How did Gramps get to be Gramps and more importantly who is Gramps?
Thomas Patrick Aloysius McGinty is Gramps. My mother Jane was very impressed with my resume especially my education accomplishments. Neither my father nor mother graduated high school. I was the first person to go to college in my family. Graduating magna cum laude from Notre Dame in 1975 with a B.A. in English, a minor in Theology, and a Concentration in Art foreshadowed this McFronceks endeavor. I liked school and school liked me. Both Mama, who is a doctor and the twins mother, and I went to Notre Dame. Therefore you will see numerous Notre Dame related cartoons. Professionally I am an architect and urban designer. I hold the only joint Masters degrees in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University. After Columbia figured out that I cheated them out of an entire semester of tuition by combining the programs and completing them in record time, they abolished my process. While pursuing a career in architecture and raising two children under the age of two (Auntie M and Mama) with Lady Madonna, I somehow found the time at night to graduate from the Stern School of Business at NYU with an MBA in Finance and Computer Sciences. Don’t get ahead of yourselves. This was not Silicone Valley computer sciences; think punch cards and that new fangled floppy disk.
Holding various positions as an architect, general contractor and development executive, I finally found a better avenue for my unique skill set. I created my own firm, Madonna Designs Architect LLC as an owner’s rep consultant to residential high rise developers and private schools expanding their campuses. A bank inspector once referred to me as the Ray Donovan of consultants which he meant as a compliment. I solve problems in unique and unorthodox ways. Violence is always an option, but I usually stick to sarcasm as my weapon of choice.
Work wise you may have seen some of my projects I have contributed to across New York and New Jersey: South Street Seaport, Henri Bendel, Grand Central Station, Urby Jersey City, Journal Squared, Hoboken Shipyard, Fordham Library etc. But I am most proud of my work at Ground Zero after 9/11. As a supervisory structural engineer, I served as a team captain for a group of structural engineers (engineers just love being bossed around by an architect) on the night shift at Ground Zero. We provided structural engineering oversight to the four site contractors conducting removals and to the fire department conducting recovery operations.
Personally, I found the love of my life in high school and have never let Madonna go. She was a high school English teacher and the mother of Mama and Auntie M (Alert:Wizard of Oz reference). Auntie M has a Phd. in Public Health but did not go to Notre Dame slacking off instead at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins. Madonna and I have created all the characters in this cartoon except for Dada who is a self made man, superlative father and a nurse practitioner and paramedic. Lady Madonna (thank you Sir Paul McCartney) and I are now collectively known by our children and Charlotte, Dylan & Aurora as you guessed it “Lady and the Gramps.”
Being the cartoonist for the McFronceks and my role in that adventure as Gramps was originally a retirement dalliance. But I have not retired yet. So this is how I amuse myself on the NYC subway, NJ transit from the Jersey Shore, at the beach or when watching a Law & Order or The Closer reruns.