Richard Thompson, the creator of Cul de Sac, has decided to retire the strip next month. In a letter to newspapers, Universal Uclick’s Lee Salem writes: On September 9, 2007, the remarkable talent of Richard Thompson hit the newspaper pages in the comic strip Cul de Sac. The buzz began even before the strip debuted; […]
OUR BLOG ENTRY WILL BEGIN AFTER THIS BRIEF WORD: Last month, Mitt Romney appeared before the NAACP Convention and made some remarks about health care that, perhaps predictably, drew some verbal disagreement from the audience. It was widely reported that he had been booed, but a listen to the video showed only that people disagreed, […]
Wiley Miller plays with fire in today’s Non Sequitur. They’ll get him for suggesting that everyone who claims to be the victim of a conspiracy is cracked or some kind of egghead. (heh heh)Did he jump? Did he fall? Or was he pushed???Uninquiring minds want to know. (Inquiring minds might wonder, but then they’d look into […]
It’s Shark Week, and, in one of comicdom’s great annual unilateral crossovers, Sherman has a starring role.Sherman’s Lagoon is one of my favorite sources for the Bob Newhart-style humor I enjoy, but Jim Toomey (whom I interviewed some years ago) is also a genuine aficianado of ocean life and manages to use his strip from […]
Last week I mentioned Jim Toomey was a Shark Week story arc in his Sherman?s Lagoon strip. I failed to mention a drawing to win Jim?s latest book, Think Like a Shark: Avoiding a Porpoise-Driven Life. If interested, visit King Features to enter and you can also read a brief Q&A with Jim. Q: Where […]
The Cartoonist Studio has announced that its publishing arm Crazy Goat Publishing is three ebook graphic novels by Kory Merritt. Kory was the 2007 Locher Award winner and creator of The Lost Side of Suburbia of which these ebooks are from.The first ebook released is “Heckbender,” which features a child-eating monster. The second, “No Story, […]
One of my long-time favorite strips is taking advantage of that long-time factor. Here’s yesterday’s Arlo & Janis:We’ll all see, and be happy to do so. I hope it goes for more than a week.On the other hand, it’s possible to get a flashback fix even when he’s not providing one in the current strip. […]
Comic legend Joe Kubert has passed away at age 85. Tom Spurgeon, as usual, has the obit of record.Like many cartoonists born in the 1920s, Kubert was a precocious drawer. He first drew around the home and in the neighborhood, encouraged by his family and neighbors. “I was really blessed and fortunate that I could […]
Jeff Danziger points out a potential issue with the selection of Paul Ryan as runningmate.His heartless budget proposal will play to a certain dogmatic segment of the population and not a small one. The past few years have demonstrated beyond any doubt that there are a lot of people who will accept a simplistic solution, […]
I wasn’t drawn to my father’s copy of “Male Call” as early as I was to his small collection of figure studies. I guess the subtlety of Miss Lace is wasted on those whose lust is — or remains — at a six-year-old level.One classy dame, however, and Milton Caniff did a lot with Lace […]
Sufi Comics is an entertaining but thought-provoking piece of work by two brothers from Dubai, Mohammed Ali Vakil & Mohammed Arif Vakil, that reminds me of the Analects of Confucius and zen in general, a playful, gentle form of teaching that puts the burden of contemplation, rightfully, upon the student.I know that Sufis have their own […]
The Comics Journal’s Michael Dean writes a more in-depth piece on the recent announcement that MoCCA is merging with Society of Illustrators. In a little more than a month, this radical transformation of MoCCA’s future went from a tentative germ of an idea to nearly a fait accompli. With the lease coming to an end […]
Jim Toomey’s Sherman’s Lagoon is taking on “Shark Week”. From King Features PR: Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the ocean, along comes a Sherman?s Lagoon ?Shark Week? fish tale funny enough to propel you out of the water. In a special weeklong comic strip series, cartoonist Jim Toomey?s Great […]
I suppose I was in elementary school when “Rebel Without A Cause” came on TV. I wasn’t old enough to care about the movie, but I was most impressed with the “chicken” scene where Buzz’s sleeve gets caught in the car’s door handle and he plunges to his death.Several decades later, I am most impressed […]
The Willamette Weekly reported yesterday that The Oregonian may cease to be a daily based on actions by Advance Publications, Inc who dropped the New Orleans Times-Picayune to a 3x week paper and has said that it’s considering altering printing schedules of other papers in the chain – the Oregonian being one of their papers. […]