Cartoonists on Parade
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Featuring John Rose (and Fred LAsswell), Liana Finck, Rob Rogers, Liza Donnelly, Amy Kurzweil, Kate Isenberg, and Polly Lou Adams.
John Rose Keeps ‘Snuffy Smith’ In The Funny Pages
West Virginia Public Broadcasting interviewed cartoonist John Rose:
The hillbilly stereotype is frequently used to shame mountain people, but there are gentler versions, like Snuffy Smith, the long-running comic strip character.
Snuffy still appears in newspapers, but these days, it’s easier to find him online. Snuffy Smith originally started out as a supporting character in his comic strip, which first launched in 1919 when Billy DeBeck created Barney Google. Artist Fred Lasswell was brought in during the ‘30s to create Snuffy Smith and his friends. And now the strip is written and drawn by John Rose, who lives in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
Inside Appalachia host Mason Adams spoke with Rose.
Moonshining came up during the course of the conversation:
[Snuffy Smith is] known as a sort of hillbilly stereotype too. He was originally introduced as a North Carolina moonshiner, and a lot of people associated him with that and the hillbilly stereotypes and humor that go along with it. So, as a cartoonist writing and drawing the strip in 2026, how do you deal with that history and that legacy?
Rose: Actually, the moonshining was stopped in the mid-1990s by Fred Lasswellll, before I began assisting on the strip in 1998. I think he did a strip, or a series of strips, that were referred to as “Snuffy’s Last Still.” I think it was ‘95 or ‘96, and so since that point, we rarely refer to moonshine or alcohol, except maybe like Snuffy eating rum cake over the holidays or rum cookies, something like that. As far as the mountains and the hillbilly aspect, I try to stay true to the characters, their mountain roots and their personalities
“Snuffy’s Last Still” was a15 day storyline from May 19 to June 2, 1996. Unfortunately Comics Kingdom only has the Sundays available in that timeframe.
Liana Finck’s U.K. Adventure
New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck has a new (afaik) outlet: The Guardian.
Rob Rogers is Still a Smerconish Cartoonist
Rob Rogers has been contributing political cartoons to Michael Smerconish newsletter for nearly three years. So when last week there was no Rogers cartoon we were worried, but Rob assures The Daily Cartoonist that he just took a week off and will be back this week.
Women Laughing in The City By The Bay, The San Francisco Bay
The San Francisco Examiner notes Women Laughing will be screened at The Cartoon Museum April 9:
The screening will be followed by a Q&A and reception with Liza Donnelly and cartoonist colleagues Amy Kurzweil, Kate Isenberg, and Polly Lou Adams. Tickets for event are $10 and can be purchased in advance.
Women Laughing is a documentary celebrating women cartoonists of The New Yorker from the 1920s to present day. Liza Donnelly converses, laughs and draws with some of the most celebrated and groundbreaking cartoonists at The New Yorker. The film also looks back at the lives of some of the pioneering women cartoonists whose remarkable stories have been overlooked.
Liza Donnelly [link and emphasis added] is a writer and cartoonist for The New Yorker, writing about culture and politics for forty years. She writes and draws for The New York Times, CNN Opinion pages, and The Washington Post.
Amy Kurzweil [link and emphasis added] is a New Yorker cartoonist and the author of Flying Couch: A Graphic Memoir (2016) and Artificial: A Love Story (2023).
Kate Isenberg [link and emphasis added] is a New Yorker cartoonist and multimedia artist whose work has also appeared in Alta, The New Republic, Narrative, and Air Mail. She adapted her comic strip, Stewball, into an animated short film (Dear Death).
Polly Lou Adams [link and emphasis added] is a cartoonist, writer, and artist currently based in Northern California. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Rumpus, The Drift, and elsewhere.
feature image by Fred Lasswell from the Barney Google and Snuffy Smith comic strip of May 28, 1996
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