“My family and I have owned lots of real cats over many past decades,” Wright said. “But having had a cartoon kitty like Carlyle over 30 of those years means I get to draw him living the best ways I’d seen all those other cats living. I hope he keeps looking good.”

I buy comic collections for a number of reasons. Pure entertainment, “behind the scenes” information, interesting comic history and love of the art (or humor). A good book satisfies more than one of these justifications. The latest Doonesbury book, Doonesbury and the Art of G.B. Trudeau by Brian Walker, hits all of them in spades. Think of the book as mashup of a Doonesbury strip collection, a Garry Trudeau biography, and a museum exhibit bound together in 270 pages. Perhaps it would be better to say that Brian curated the book. His expertise in putting together a master exhibit is in every little detail of the book. Each photo, comic reprint, poster, sketch and stamp is noted with the required context information as to where the art was published or used along with the date.

While I’ve known that Doonesbury has been a game changing and popular comic for decades, I was taken aback by the vastness of the Doonesbury universe. Over the last 40 years, Garry’s artwork for the strip and the myriad of projects related to the strip is a massive collection. One thing that is quickly understood when looking at this book is that despite any criticism about Garry’s artistic abilities – especially in the early years – Garry can draw. He’s a master artist and draftsman.

Through the narrative, Brian takes readers into Garry’s life and offers a perspective that isn’t always appreciated outside of professional cartooning. Going back to the early days, Brian details Garry’s professional goals and his life in college. He writes how Doonesbury was discovered including the conversations, doubts, challenges leading up to the launch and soon after. We get a look at the sabbaticals and how Garry consciously changed the strip over the years. We are also offered a small peak at Garry’s personal life and his philanthropy.

There are few books that I unequivocally state should be on every cartoonists book shelf, but this is one of them. Anyone wanting to better understand cartooning at the level of an American master should own this book.

Chic drew the strip until his death in 1973. His son Dean and Jim Raymond continued on with the strip.

The Alpha and Omega trailer is below:

Congratulations, Steve!

Congrats, Alex.

Mort Walker, who conjured up Beetle and has been putting him on paper every day for all those decades, says he’ll continue with his creation until he’s no longer able.

“I don’t know how I’d be retired,” said Walker, 86. “I wake up every day with another idea.”

The genial gags by Beetle and the cast of characters — Sarge and his dog, Otto, Gen. Amos Halftrack, Miss Buxley and others — are followed seven days a week by readers in 1,800 newspapers, which is “astronomically huge,” said Brendan Burford, comics editor at King Features, the strip’s syndicating service.

Charles Schulz, who created and worked on the enormously popular Peanuts strip for nearly 50 years before his death in 2000, came close to Walker’s longevity. But “no one has worked on the same strip for 60 years with that kind of consistency,” Burford said.

“He’s definitely in a pretty seriously elite class,” he said.

Here’s a video of the Reverend Jesse Jackson reading “Green Eggs and Ham”.

Congrats Jonathan.

From E&P:

“I really wanted to do a comic strip about a society of talking dogs, called ‘Baskerville,’ but talking-animal strips were out of favor with newspaper editors at the time, and young families were all the rage,” Johnson wrote on his site Monday. “Most of the family-oriented strips targeted at the baby boomlet of the 80s are gone now, and most of the mega-strips launched since then have involved talking animals, but I’m not complaining. Incidentally, a lot of us are again talking of moving to the country and growing much of what we need.”

As the 5,475th strip rolls off the presses, it’s time to thank all you readers who have taken the time to send me e-mail for Cialis at low low low prices. And, of course, the rest of you– your encouraging words have been so very helpful, especially during my darker, low-inspiration moments. (Usually every Tuesday.)

So THANK YOU! It actually happened this Saturday on June 19th, but I didn’t want all the fanfare to eclipse Father’s Day. (Hope you called your Dad. Mine is up fly-fishing in the wilds of Maine, unreachable by telephone. I left a lovely voice message.)

Hilary won this year’s Best Newspaper Panel at The National Cartoonists Society Annual Reuben Award weekend.