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New (to me) Local Comic Strip – Laurel by Brian Nelson

Published: March 3, 2026 1 minute 10 comments

Laurel by Brian Nelson, 2017

In 2017 the Laurel comic strip by Brian Nelson graduated from The Worcester Telegram & Gazette weekly off-shoot TelegramTowns, where it had been appearing since mid-2010, to the pages of The Sunday Telegram & Gazette. The year before that Brian started Laurel as a webcomic.

Laurel by Brian Nelson, 2009

Notice I said started in 2009, not created. The Laurel character first appeared in 2001 early on in Nelson’s cartooning career when he was doing comics for Classic Images magazine.

Laurel continues a tradition that runs from before Dahl’s Boston to after The San Francisco Chronicle’s Farley. A local comic strip that references local landmarks and personalities. Brian traces the local scenario to his childhood cartooning hero Al Banx who had done the same with his Midweek Special for the same Worcester Telegram that Nelson now cartoons for.

Al Banx, Worcester Telegram – 1960s?

Brian Nelson paid tribute to Al Banx in a Laurel comic strip.

Laurel by Brian Nelson, The Worcester Telegram Gazette, 2017

It was his celebration of Worcester native (or here), and Laurel subject, Olive Higgins Prouty that led me to discover Brian Nelson and Laurel.

Here is a 2018 TV interview with Brian where he details the origins of Laurel and shows enthusiasm for current and past newspaper cartoonists name-checking Al Banx, Bobby London, Lennie Peterson, Andy Fish, Cliff Sterrett, and Milt Gross.

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Comments 10

  1. I hate to be that guy … but it’s “Worcester”. Like the sauce.

    1. Yeah, as a former native of Wormtown, seeing that “h” made me cringe.

      1. Apologies to all Worcester citizens and former citizens and the town itself.

    2. Glad you put it out there nancy, it stuck out like a sore thumb.
      My decade in Worcester ended in 1997 and it was a great town to train in.

  2. Growing up in Worcester (Woos-tuh for you outsiders) Al Banx was my cartoon hero. The guy did everything at the Telegram and Gazette. He produced editorial cartoons, his famous “Midweek Special” weekly which took up a whole half page and featured funny stuff that happened around town that week, most of which was phoned in by the locals. He also did a Thursday half page on high school sports. We high school athletes considered it the pinnacle when one of us was featured in Al’s high school panel. He also produced a Sunday half-page summary of the Holy Cross football and basketball games.

    I played football at South High on their undefeated 1962 team, graduating in ’63. In addition to football and track, I was the school cartoonist, drawing for the South High magazine, The Index, and the yearbook, called Aftermath. I loved the attention of being the “Al Banx” of South High, but I had to keep my nose clear or the assistant principal, Charlie Daly (universally feared and respected) threatened to yank me out of that job and make me a nobody again.

    While I had a long career as a high school teacher and coach and as a college and university professor, I also got to live my dream of doing what my hero did all those years. Gotta go. Deadline approaches!

  3. Someday this strip could go national if it strikes a deal with King Features or Andrews-McMeel.

  4. Thank you gigantically, Mr. Degg! Don Landgren Jr., who drew editorial cartoons for the T&G and TelegramTowns, the latter a print weekly discontinued in 2017, shared your article with me. Yes, Al Banx was my hero when I was a kid and an inspiration for LAUREL. Hope you liked the Prouty strip, part of a monthly series on Worcester history within the strip. Thanks again and Nov Shmoz Ka Pop (big fan of Gene Ahern too)!

    1. So TelegramTowns was a physical paper not just a website?

      1. Correct! TT was a series of weeklies the T&G produced from 2009 to 2017. When the Worcester TT was launched in 2010, the features editor in charge of the weeklies obliged my request to add LAUREL to that edition. After all TTs were phased out in 2017, our girl made the leap to the Sunday Telegram ACT arts section, her playground ever since!

  5. Great to see this post! I’ve been a fan of Brian’s work for years. The art style makes me feel both nostalgic for the comics of my younger days and appreciative of the modern layouts and good application of black spotting. I’m happy you discovered it!

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