Cartoonews – Comic Strips (Now and Then)

More about Ginger Meggs Centennial 

To celebrate, the great great nephew of original artist, Tristan Bancks, has teamed up with the comic’s current steward, Jason Chatfield, to create a book introducing the larrikin to a new generation.


above: Tristan Bancks

Comic artist Jason Chatfield is the fifth artist to draw Ginger Meggs – he started 14 years ago at the age of 23 and as far as he’s concerned, it’s a job for life. Copyright is held by Bancks’ family, who choose the cartoonist.

“Every cartoonist who’s done Ginger Meggs has done it until the day he died and I intend to do the same,” Chatfield said.

The Sydney Morning Herald has a feature story about Ginger Meggs and the creators.
And so does The West Australian.

 

Ira Schnaap Letters the Daily Superman


© DC Comics

In addition to his comic book lettering, I’ve long known that Ira Schnapp worked for many years on the Superman newspaper strip. The sample above from original strip art of 1948 has his distinctive question mark and characteristic square letters, but when did he start?

Todd Klien takes a look at Ira Schnaap‘s lettering the daily Superman comic strip.
Next up: the Sundays.

 

A Joe Wos-Charles Schulz Collaboration


© Peanuts Worldwide

Nat Gertler breaks the news that Joe Wos is working for Peanuts.

 

First Native American cartoonist

“Adventurous and head-strong,” Mirabal enlisted as a WAC in June 1943, and started basic training at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. She was the only full-time designated artist, commissioned to draw a comic strip for the nationally distributed newspaper AIR WAC. “G.I. Gertie” was “both revolutionary and subversive for its time.”

Taos News profiles Eva Mirabal, WWII cartoonist and later painter.

 

Online Retail

At long last, I’ve created a home for RETAIL online. After considering a few different options, I ultimately decided to put together my own simple website where fans of the strip can read the comic in its entirety.

     
© Norm Feuti

Mike mentioned it yesterday but I’ll help spread the happy news that Norm Feuti has put the entire Retail comic strip archives online. A reminder: Norm’s current weekly Gil comic, with archives, is also online.

Friend of TDC Joseph Nebus has a short review of Retail.

 

The Wheeler-Nicholson Syndicate

[Allan Holtz] was surprised to find, first, that [he had] never done a post about any of the Wheeler-Nicholson offerings, and second, that [he doesn’t] really find that anyone else has, either. The Major’s grand-daughter is on record as working on a full biography of him, but that hasn’t seen the light of day yet. So it’s high time that we shine some light on Wheeler-Nicholson Inc., and that’s what we’ll do over the next series of posts.

In a 17 part series Allan Hotz details the offerings of the 1920s Wheeler-Nicholson Syndicate.

 

Adolescent Comics of a Different Kind


© Shary Flenniken

I don’t know how old I was when I first read Shary Flenniken’s Trots and Bonnie, but I definitely wasn’t old enough … How to explain Trots and Bonnie to the uninitiated? It’s a bit like Little Nemo, if Little Nemo had been drawn for and by pervs. The titular characters are a girl in early adolescence, Bonnie, and her wry, horny dog, Trots. Bonnie stands as a kind of wise-fool character, observing the often hypocritical, sometimes hedonistic world around her with the candor and freshness of a child and n.the lust of a dirty old man.

Cartoonist Emily Flake on Shary Flenniken’s Trots and Bonnie.

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