First and Last: Rusty Riley
By 1948 Frank Godwin (b. 1889) had spent a good 40 years as a respected and requested illustrator for newspapers,…
Comic history
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A Winter Wander Land – Miscellaneous Items
Washington, D.C. – A Search for the Source The Library of Congress found the cartoonist who created it (Paul Gregg)…
Ach, 125 Years of Those Katzenjammer Kids – Updated, Now a First and Last(?) Entry
The original December 12, 2022 item: The Katzenjammer Kids first appeared December 12, 1897. Above: the first issue of The…
The Very Model of a Modern American Santa
Since the name of Thomas Nast came up the other day, let’s make note that it was 160 Christmases ago…
On Earth Peace, Good Will Toward Men
Hogan’s Alley and Tom Heintjes remind us that it was on this day, in a 1959 Peanuts Sunday comic strip,…
Hey Kids! Comics! Books From Last Month and This
Below are some comic strip and cartoon books scheduled for December 2022 release. Images and links (mostly) via Amazon, though…
Sunday Stories featuring Comic Chronicles
Exploring comics’ past with Homer Davenport on Rube Goldberg, Bobby London and Popeye, Bazooka Joe and the Gang. But we…
Comic Writer Predicted Japan Aggression in 1921
The creator and writer of the Don Winslow of the Navy comic strip had predicted the Japanese aggression of the…
The Last Hogan’s Alley … and the First
Hogan’s Alley was a famous (now and then) Sunday comic that began in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World. It was…
Alley Oop is 90 (90,000?) Years Old
By the time Vincent Trout Hamlin was in his twenties (born May 10, 1900) he had, among numerous jobs, mostly…
Wildly Random Weekend Roundup
Award Winning Cartoonists Kevin Necessary (1st Place) and Rich Williams (2nd Place) win 2022 cartooning awards…
Dick Tracy Comic Character Tom De Haven Profiled
From the VCU News: Tom De Haven, a retired Virginia Commonwealth University professor and author of a series of novels…
Clearing the Queue – Tales From Hither and Thither
The Evolving Art of Ruffling Feathers © Steve Nease Most newspapers had a full-time cartoonist on staff. Now, the juice…
First & Last – Smitty (1922-1974) by Walter Berndt
One hundred years ago saw the debut of Smitty by Walter Berndt. From Don Markstein’s Toonopedia: [Berndt] sold Bill the…
Mud and Mirth: Marine Cartoonists in World War I
From The Minot Daily News: Minot native Cord Scott’s latest book is titled “The Mud and the Mirth: Marine Cartoonists…