Around the Comics Scene
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We visit “Aquino,” Tom Tomorrow and Ruben Bolling, Patrick McDonnell, Lee Falk, and antisemitism.
New Ripley’s Cartoonist Who is Also Mostly Unknown
The new Ripley’s Believe It or Not cartoonist “DeJoy“ has, after one week (February 23-28, 2026), given way to another new cartoonist “Aquino” beginning today March 2, 2026.
A Ruben Bolling-Tom Tomorrow Funny Times Interview
The Funny Times presents “A Tale of Two Toms with Ruben Bolling and Dan Perkins.“
The Funny Times hosted a 50 minute audio interview with the cartoonists of Tom the Dancing Bug and This Modern World political comics in the fourth episode of The Funny Times Podcast!
In our wide-ranging conversation with the two “Toms” who have been chronicling American absurdity for decades, we dig into how they keep making satire in a world that already feels like a parody of itself. They talk about cartooning as a form of sketch comedy, about borrowing and breaking visual styles, and about where they still find new ideas and inspiration—even when reality seems determined to beat them to the punch.
Patrick McDonnell on The Sunday Color Comics
The MUTTS blog re-presents Patrick McDonnell‘s “The Charm of the Color Funnies.”
In anticipation of the October publication of Patrick’s MUTTS Sunday Funnies Volumes 1 and 2 [link added], we unearthed this essay from Patrick sharing his thoughts on creating MUTTS Sunday pages for the newspapers. It was originally published in the 2003 book MUTTS: The Comic Art of Patrick McDonnell:
A cartoonist should stay out of the joke’s way. I continually pare the strip down to what I feel is just the right amount of information. When laying out a Sunday page I’m concerned with pacing and eye movement. How dialogue reads, the placement of word balloons, the positioning of characters — all help to set up the rhythm of the joke, the music of the page. The number of panels and their placement all help to make the story flow.
I am always aware of the overall design of the page…
Antisemitic Cartoons Used by U of T Dentistry Dean
Chris Knight for The National Post is reporting on the dean of the University of Toronto’s school of dentistry being put on leave for using antisemitic cartoons as part of his lecture (or here).
In a post on X yesterday, B’nai Brith Canada shared the images and wrote that it is reaching out to the University’s leadership to demand accountability and action, adding: “We will not allow tenure and academic freedom to excuse and justify this egregious abuse of authority.”
One of the images shows a figure with its face painted in the colours of the Palestinian flag, bound by ropes and an Israeli flag, although the Star of David has been removed from the flag.
The second shows a hook-nosed man relaxing in a swimming pool full of money and labelled with the word “IMMUNITY,” surrounded by several figures who are looking up.
A statement issued by Dr. Anil Kishen, who became dean of the school of dentistry on July 1 for a five-year term, said that his use of the cartoons was not intentional.
“Last night I became aware that two cartoon images that I included in a recent lecture contained discriminatory imagery,” he said in an email to the dentistry faculty on Thursday. “I selected these images as visual analogies for two concepts. I was not trying to make any political statements with these images. I say this not as an excuse for this mistake.”
The origin of the cartoons and the cartoonists of the images were not identified.
Celebrating The Phantom at 90
John Freeman at downthetubes is “Celebrating The Phantom, 90 Years Young.”
The Phantom is an American adventure comic strip, created by Lee Falk (who had previously created “Mandrake the Magician”), first published in February 1936. Falk wrote and drew the first fortnight of strips, with Ray Moore then taking over art duties.
The series began with a daily newspaper strip on 17th February 1936, the Phantom making his first appearance in the strip published on 21st February, followed by a colour Sunday strip on 28th May 1939. Both are still running as of 2026. At its peak, it’s estimated the strip was read by over 100 million people daily, worldwide.
By the mid-1960s, it was being promoted by King Features Syndicate as the “number one adventure strip” in the world.
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