Bessie Mae Kelley, Kieran Castaño, Robert Ripley, Harry Bliss, HergéAlex Jay took note of the Bessie Mae Kelley stories and dug up her vitals from birth: Bessie Mae Kelley was born Elizabeth Mae Kelley. The date of her birth is unclear: November 1889 in the 1900 United States Census; November 10, 1890, Minnesota Death Index; […]
Philadelphia native and cartoonist Robb Armstrong has been making waves and history his entire career. He created his comic strip “Jump Start” in 1989, currently the most widely syndicated daily comic strip from an African American cartoonist in the world. The Philadelphia Sun profiles favorite son Robb Armstrong. After attending Shipley, he went on to […]
Editorial cartoonist Richard Kemplin has passed away. Richard Manley (Dick) Kemplin December 11, 1930 – November 25, 2022 From the obituary: During his time at Eagle Rock High School, Dick was an athlete and budding artist whose illustrations and cartoons were prominently featured in the school’s newspaper and yearbook. Little did he know that his love […]
Washington, D.C. – A Search for the SourceThe Library of Congress found the cartoonist who created it (Paul Gregg) and found the newspaper it probably appeared in (The Denver Post) but it still looking for confirmation of the date (ca. early 1933). This mystery centered on an image of a political cartoon found online. No […]
The original December 12, 2022 item:The Katzenjammer Kids first appeared December 12, 1897.Above: the first issue of The Katzenjammer KidsThe comic strip was created by Rudolph Dirks and New York Journal editor Rudolph Block. Various cartoonists (Harold Knerr, Oscar Hitt, Doc Winner, Joe Musial, Mike Senich, Angelo DeCesare, Hy Eisman) continued it’s Sunday run until […]
Since the name of Thomas Nast came up the other day, let’s make note that it was 160 Christmases ago that he drew his first Santa Claus leading the way to form the modern image of the saintly symbol.Thomas Nast’s first Santa appeared as the cover of Harper’s Weekly dated January 3, 1863.Before Nast envisioning […]
Cartoonist Mike Peters is taking his Mother Goose & Grimm comic strip and his editorial cartoons from King Features Syndicate (KFS) to Andrews McMeel Syndication (AMS) at the beginning of 2023. Andrews McMeel announced the move yesterday: Kansas City, MO (December 20, 2022) – Andrews McMeel Syndication (AMS) will assume sales and distribution of the Mother […]
Hogan’s Alley and Tom Heintjes remind us that it was on this day, in a 1959 Peanuts Sunday comic strip, Linus first recited a passage from The Gospel of Luke.Six years later Linus’ expanded recital of Luke 2:8-14 would become a memorable part of A Charlie Brown Christmas. It almost didn’t happen but for Charles […]
The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists President Kevin Necessary has issued an open letter to the Overseas Press Club of America with an excellent proposal. I write to you today to advocate for a change to the cartoon category. The current OCPA award is now virtually the only category not to be named after a […]
What started as the humorous misadventures of the teens from Westview High School eventually morphed into a serialized drama tackling issues such as cancer awareness and teen pregnancy. After 50 years Tom Batiuk will end his Funky Winkerbean comic strip at the end of this month. I like to describe it as starting out as […]
Each year the Cartoonist Studio Prize will be awarded to work that exemplifies excellence in cartooning. The creators of two exceptional comics for this year will be awarded $1,000 each. The winners will be selected by The Beat and The Schulz Library staff at The Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS). The two award categories for […]
The New York Times created a social media storm when their Sunday crossword puzzle layout for December 18, 2022 (the first day of Hanukkah) formed, without too much imagination, a swastika. From The Jerusalem Post: The New York Times on released its daily crossword puzzle in the shape of swastika on Sunday, Democratic Strategist Keith Edwards […]
Slylock Fox daily is ringing out 2022 the way Slylock Fox Sunday rang in 2022.Very early in 2022 a new signature appeared on the Slylock Fox Sunday page, now that same WEBER/scottu signature has shown up on the Slylock Fox daily.The December 19, 2022 Monday Slylock Fox has Scott Diggs Underwood co-signing Slylock in what […]
The Daily Cartoonist (TDC) is in the midst of a disruption of sorts(that brief outage the other day was actually a sign of progress).The subscription service TDC used was dropped by Google earlier this year and we are in the process of getting it back up. The Google feed was a free service and, The […]
Oregonian Editor Therese Bottomly received a complaint from a reader: The other weekend, I received an email from an unhappy reader whose morning routine had been disrupted. “Neither on Saturday nor today (Sunday) have the comics I cherish appeared online,” he said. “What happened?” Therese explained these days more information is needed to pin down […]