Today is the semiquincentennial of an act by patriots – or maybe by smugglers? Both? December 16, 1773: Americans disguised as Mohawks dumped cheap, but taxed, English tea into Boston harbor. panel 1: George the Third of England sat upon his throne.And to Lord North, his treasurer, made all his stamp acts known. panel 2: […]
Below are some comic strip and cartoon books scheduled for December 2023 release.Images and links (mostly) via the books’ publishers,though ordering through your local comic shop or independent book store is a good idea. Comics Revue Presents December 2023 features Drago by Burne Hogarth; Flash Gordon by Harry Harrison; Rick O’Shay by Stan Lynde; Gasoline […]
Cartoonist and biographer Bill Griffith has an obsession with Ernie Bushmiller and Nancy and Sluggo. In the past seventeen strips that trio, or some combination of them, have been mentioned in four of his Zippy the Pinhead comics, including today’s. So fans of Griffith, Bushmiller, and comics looked forward to the release of his graphic […]
Harry McCracken in Scrappyland Preeminent Scrappy historian Harry McCracken returns, after a two year absence, to present a print off-shoot of the 1930s animated character: The Complete Scrappy Comic Strip “by” Charles Mintz. Says Harry: Among Scrappy rarities, few items are as tantalizingly obscure as the Scrappy newspaper strip. Though perhaps “newspaper strip” is a […]
King Features archives have lost (never had?) the Field Syndicate proof sheet for this week’s Vintage Apartment 3-G. From The Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune comes the Apartment 3-G comic of March 13 – March 18, 1978. As it turns out The Daily Tribune began running the comic strip that month and provided their readers a […]
Ed Subitzky, Walt Handelsman, David Sipress, Roger Kastel, Ron Turner, Denis Kitchen, and more.Speaking of leftovers – here’s some stuff that was sitting in the queue. The Ed Subitzky Anti-Interview A full house turned out for the book launch of cartoonist, writer and sometimes television celebrity Ed Subitzky’s long-awaited first anthology of work at Rizzoli […]
Of the two-score-minus-one comic strips Mike Peterson displayed from 1948 seven are still being syndicated with new content in 2023. None of which will be highlighted in this post. Which is not to say some oldies won’t be here. The Phantom was around then and is now. At the risk of stepping on the toes […]
My goodness but 1948 was a fabulous year for cartoons! We were emerging from the war and feeling pretty good, but not yet arrogant, about ourselves. And newspapers still featured things like cartoons that their readers wanted. Fancy that!As a result, this will be a longer than usual posting, and I hope you enjoy it! […]
The origin of National Sadie Hawkins Day: How a comic strip that saw a man desperate to marry off his ‘ugly’ daughter encouraged a generation of women to ‘chase’ men down for a date. © Al Capp Enterprises/UFS Sadie Hawkins Day is celebrated the first Saturday of November in parts of the US inspired by […]
Seventy-five years ago, on November 7, 1948, the Sunday only Mitzi McCoy by illustrator Kreigh Collins debuted. Maurice Horn described Mitzi as “a blond heiress with a passion for adventure and a knack for getting herself into hot water, in her sentimental as well as in her adventurous life.” Ron Goulart said Mitzi “was fiercely […]
It was the ranchlands of West Texas, rich in prehistoric outcroppings and an air of primeval antiquity, that had given the Iowa-born Hamlin an inspiration for “Alley Oop,” way back during the 1920s. He was based at the Star-Telegram at the time — producing a series called “The Panther Kitten,” a droll chronicle of a […]
While comics have appeared in print since the late 1800s, it wasn’t until 1989 that “Black women characters drawn by a Black woman’s hand have been given a voice on the comics page in the mainstream press,” says cartoonist Barbara Brandon-Croft. Thirty-four years ago, her comic strip, “Where I’m Coming From,” was first published in […]
Eighty years ago Batman and Robin swung from comic books onto newspaper pages on October 25, 1943. The 13th Dimension presents the first 13 comic strips by Bob Kane with Bill Finger and Charles Paris.********** Further back in time Euronews takes a look at “The day the US invented the newspaper comic strip. Maybe.” Author […]
This classic xkcd may not quite express my long-term financial plan, but I’m glad I have been saving funny pictures, because, between Jim Jordan cartoons that are suddenly irrelevant, and divisive, nasty commentary on the Middle East — plus the fact that few political cartoons post anything new for Monday anyway — I was in […]
Hold them side by side. The “Blondie” comic strip created by Chic Young for Sept. 8, 1930 is told in four frames. A well-dressed playboy, Dagwood Bumstead, with a wiry body and dark, plastered hair, introduces a pert, curly-haired woman to his short, roundish father, a blustering railroad tycoon. Exactly 93 years later, the “Blondie” […]