Doonesbury has been through a number of phases in its 40 years, generally tracing the life of cartoonist Garry Trudeau in some rough fashion — first as a college student, then as a young single hipster, later as a parent — all the time commenting on social mores and politics. But a few years ago, […]
When Mike Peters began Mother Goose and Grimm, it was not often about the title characters. He admits to having patterned it on “The Far Side” both for its odd and random subject matter. I don’t dislike the strips dealing with the old lady and her dog, but I get more laughs out of the […]
For its first 17 years, Sally Forth was a bland little strip about Sally and her bland, generic husband Ted and their bland non-descript middle-school daughter Hilary. Then, in 1999, creator Greg Howard walked away from the strip, leaving the art in the hands of his established collaborator, Craig MacIntosh, and turning the writing over […]
Jerry Bittle was one of the first syndicated cartoonists I knew personally, and I always loved his timing, both in Shirley and Son and Geech. There was a Bob Newhart/Jack Benny quality in his storytelling, in that you usually knew where he was going with a gag but the way he told it made the […]
Because some of my readers are in Canada, I am required to include a certain percentage of Canadian content in my blog. Also, Paul Gilligan’s Pooch Cafe is frequently a hoot, which rhymes with “about” if you say it in his hometown of Toronto. The current story arc has our hero, Poncho, trapped by a […]
Everyone seemed to be wrapping up story arcs or just in a slump today, but here’s a Non Sequitur from 1993 that has been at the top of my list since it appeared. I realized even then that Wiley Miller was being sarcastic, but I always liked the shifting nature of reporting at a small […]
Mark Tatulli is getting a lot of attention for Lio these days, but eight years before he developed that strip in 2006, he put himself on the map with Heart of the City, a charming strip about an overly dramatic, ambitious little girl who I think is going to grow up to be Lucy Ricardo. […]
Bill Hinds, creator of “Cleats,” also has a long-running feature, “Buzz Beamer,” in SI For Kids and is half of the team that produces “Tank McNamara.” Cleats is my favorite of the three because I spent enough time coaching youth soccer, and being a sports parent in general, that there are few of his characters […]
Nemi is a Norwegian cartoon by Lise Myhre that presents a younger, sometimes darker perspective than the bulk of what is on the comics page. Of course, it isn’t really on the comics page in the US. This link is to a British magazine that tends to be a little spotty in its updates. Consider […]
Shortly before beginning this project, I asked a comics exec what the copyright issues might be, though I assumed it was fair use. He replied that, while it was technically a gray area, it would not be the kind of thing anyone was likely to really get upset over.Well, if I used Richard Thompson’s “Cul […]
Having been a business writer, I both laughed at and admired this “Arlo and Janis” when it ran more than a decade ago. Today, it’s even more obvious that we were cruising along on stuff that nobody could explain because they didn’t really understand it themselves. In fact, in this Frontline program, one of Bernie […]
Okay, today’s Frazz may be TOO subjective a choice. For those who have never lived in the northern reaches of civilization (as Jef Mallett and I both have), ice fishermen really do periodically float off into the bay. For some reason, ice fishing is an obsession, and they get out there as soon as the […]
It’s been a long day, most of it on generator power with no Internet connection, so I didn’t get to the funnies until about 12 hours after I normally would have. I don’t know if that makes a difference or not, but I had a couple of witty strips picked out that really told some […]
I support health care reform and I think Obama has done a pretty good job overall, but I also support good cartooning and John Deering’s take on the situation cracked me up this morning. He’s not only got a good concept, but he’s dressed it up with some very funny art. The facial expression, the […]
Don Asmussen sets himself a tough task with Bad Reporter: To do three funny bits in one shot, often with a theme running through them. As with the Daily Show, you have to know something about what’s going on, plus have a reasonable stock of cultural literacy, to get this feature. I like that in […]