Wednesday’s Child Reads The Funny Papers News
Skip to comments
Cathy Commiserations, Thatababy, Archie, Baseball America, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Andy Capp, Rosebuds, and For Better or For Worse; plus Awards – The Splats, The Eisners, and Graphic Medicine. Including a 1950-2023 timeline of The Most Widely Circulated Syndicated Comic Strips.
Cathy Guisewite, who took an extended sabbatical, has returned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of her Cathy comic strip. She now posts Cathy Commiserations two or three times a week.
Guisewite began posting the panels on December 8, 2025 and we hope she continues until at least the November 22, 2026 50th anniversary date.
Rachel DeSchepper at the GoComics Blog talks to Jonathan Lemon about succeeding Paul Trap on Thatababy.
…There are some small changes, though. The baby is “more anatomically correct,” Lemon says, and the parents now reflect his own biracial family. But the strip’s heart remains the same, and Trap is confident it’s in good hands. “I handed over diaper-duty with no input or advice—Thatababy’s story is now pure Lemon,” he says. “Thatababy in space? Thatababy goes K-pop? Wherever Jonathan takes the strip, I’m enthusiastically on board.”
Each strip that Lemon creates demands its own approach, even its own sets of templates, ink pens, and color palettes. “Rabbits Against Magic,” which has earned three Silver Reuben nominations, is topical and surreal. “Alley Oop,” which is written by Joey Allison Sayers and has been running since 1933, requires historical research and costume design. And “Thatababy”? “It’s definitely more about getting into that character’s way of thinking and imagining the world through his eyes. It’s a happy place to be,” Lemon says.
As for Paul Trap:
Always a creator, he’s not ready to put his pen down permanently. “I’ll continue my role as editorial cartoonist for Baseball America magazine [link added], and can hit that stack of projects that have laid dormant since I started the strip,” he says. “And I’m eager to get on the open road without having to hunker down in a motel midweek to work on the strip.”
As for that Archie puzzle…
It’s not Sudoku but you can get Archie puzzle books (digests). I recently saw one on the shelf of my local CVS.
Alex Garcia at the Comics Kingdom blog posts about the Flash Gordon 92nd anniversary tribute week.
This January, Flash Gordon will mark its 92nd anniversary with a special one-week interlude by Dan Schkade titled “So What’s Your Story?”
Running January 5–11, 2026, the story pauses the action for something more intimate. Flash and Bones, recovering in a hospital after the previous arc, share a quiet moment that leads Flash to retell his very first adventure — from the plane crash on Earth to his arrival on Mongo and his first encounter with Ming the Merciless.
It’s a reflective, character-driven tribute that honors where Flash began, how legends are remembered, and why his story still matters nearly a century later.
The post is dated January 7 but I’m sure it wasn’t on the CK news page until a few days after that.
The Blank is credit with being the one that kicked off Chester Gould‘s line of grotesque villains.
The Blank was one of the first “grotesques” to appear in the strip, foretelling the coming of more flamboyant and gruesome villains.
It seems that The Blank has returned in Matthew K. Manning and Howie Noel’s Dick Tracy.
The 2025 Splats window, from the Professional Cartoonists Organisation, has been opened for voting.
Welcome to the PCO Awards voting survey where you can vote for your favourite cartoons and cartoonists across 6 categories.
Best Editorial Cartoon
Best Caricature
Bill Stott award for Best Gag Cartoon
Best Current Affairs Cartoon
Best Cartoon Series
Best Reject Cartoon
More Awards Submission windows opened.
The Graphic Medicine International Collective and The Eisner Awards (scroll down) are both calling for submissions.
The Graphic Medicine International Collective (GMIC) [emphasis added], a not-for-profit organization with the mission to guide and support the uses of comics in health, is thrilled to announce that submissions for our 2026 awards will open January 2nd. These awards are meant to recognize and honor outstanding health-related comic projects published in 2025.
Comic-Con International (Comic-Con), the premier comic book and popular arts event of its kind in the world, has announced that submissions are being accepted for consideration by the judges for the 2026 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards [emphasis added].
The tentative categories include best short story, best single issue/one-shot, best continuing comics series (at least two issues must have been published in 2025), best limited comics series (at least half of the series must have been published in 2025), best new comics series, best limited comics series, best publications for kids and teens, best anthology, best humor publication, best U.S. edition of international material, best graphic album–new, best graphic album–reprint, best reality-based work, best graphic memoir, best adaptation from another medium, best digital comic, best webcomic, best archival collection, best writer, best writer/artist, best penciller/inker (individual or team), best painter (interior art), best lettering, best coloring, best cover artist, best comics-related book or periodical, best scholarly/academic work, and best publication design.
The Comics Courier is a tabloid-sized newspaper-format journal of in-depth comics criticism aimed at fans who love a tactile, old school reading experience.
The first three issues are available for purchase.
Deon Parson tells us his Rosebuds is now an international comic strip.
Today I found out Rosebuds is being internationally syndicated! WE’RE GOING GLOBAL!!
So far it’s in a few newspapers in Canada and Jamacia!
Then SuprDee shares this YouTube timeline of the most widely syndicated original comic strips 1950-2023.
The first I was aware that Lynn Johnston’s For Better or For Worse broke the 2000 barrier.
At its peak, For Better or For Worse appeared in more than 2,000 newspapers in 23 countries, and was translated into 8 languages for a devoted readership of more than 220 million.
Comments 5