The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum is closing again: Beginning Friday, November 20, the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Galleries and Lucy Shelton Caswell Reading Room will temporarily close in compliance with the Franklin County Stay-At-Home advisory issued on November 18. This decision to close, made with careful guidance from The Ohio State […]
Recent (and not-so-recent) articles on comic and cartoon history.God’s Man, A Novel in Woodcuts by Lynn WardThis is “Gods’ Man,” a 1929 black-and-white wordless novel that tells a Faustian tale of ambition, love, greed and death. It’s by the illustrator and woodcut artist Lynd Ward. It is widely regarded as the first American book of […]
© Grant Snider Grant Snider, whose newest collection “I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf,” was nominated for a 2020 Goodreads Choice Award gets profiled in The Derby Informer. Once he went off to college at the University of Kansas, Snider began drawing comics for the student newspaper, “The University Daily Kansan.” He was drawing […]
The classic political cartoon from the disputed election of 1876 is this Joseph Keppler piece in which NY Senator Roscoe Conking is seen blessing, in a Satanic sense, the union of Rutherford B. Hayes with Columbia, the symbol of the nation.Since I’m working the polls today and don’t have time to post a contemporary blog, […]
Macanudo © Liniers, distributed by King Features Syndicate Below are some comic strip and cartoon books scheduled for October 2020 release. Images and links (mostly) via Amazon, though ordering through your local comic or independent book store is a good idea. The George Herriman Library: Krazy & Ignatz 1919-1921 Frankie Comics BB3X: Baby Blues: The Third […]
Famed cartoonist Ernie Bushmiller was struggling until he took over Larry Whittington’s Fritzi Ritz in 1925. That led to a comfortable living, made much more comfortable when he introduced Nancy to the world in 1933. If any comic is mentioned about Ernie’s pre-Fritzi career it his Mac the Manager. But there were a few other […]
As reported elsewhere here, Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles has announced his retirement, effective at the end of the month.And, as this 1987 cartoon — scanned from a clipped, yellowed copy — indicates, I’ve been a Tom Toles fan for a long time.Back in them thar days, I was 37, with kids about to enter […]
“He is one of the all-time great cartoonists because he makes the craft integral to the entire endeavor look so easy, even enjoyable,” the theoretician and practitioner of comics, Ivan Brunetti, writes in the introduction to an upcoming collection of Gross’s work, “Gross Exaggerations: The Meshuga Comic Strips of Milt Gross.”The New Yorker previews a […]
Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. — Matthew 23:24 This pair of tweets appeared together in my feed. Rob is a friend and a good guy and he’s right about the number, but he’s wrong about “great.”There have already been several fly jokes, and I say “joke” because they are […]
Superman by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.After years of failing to get Superman published in one form or another Jerry and Joe, in 1938, got the hero published in a comic book. Superman made Action Comics an instant hit and by the end of 1938 the creators were producing their long-desired newspaper strip that debuted […]
Joe Kubert is an acknowledged master of the comic arts,but here Mark Avila appreciates him as the greatest teacher of the comic arts. The Society of Illustrators has organized ways for you to enjoy the Museum and our programming online! This includes exhibits, panels, podcasts, and children’s activities. Explore our #MuseumFromHome through our new virtual platform.The […]
hat tip to Adrienne Hedger for the above book comicBelow are some comic strip and cartoon books scheduled for September 2020 release.Images and links (mostly) via Amazon,though ordering through your local comic or independent book store is a good idea. Drawing Fire: The Editorial Cartoons of Bill Mauldin Be More Snoopy Slaughterhouse-Five: The Graphic Novela review gushing with […]
Most comics historians, in writing about Jackie Ormes, note her Torchy Brown comic strip for which she is justly famous. But Ormes’ biographer Nancy Goldstein notes that “it is Patty-Jo that the readers of the Courier whom I talked to seem to remember most vividly.”Goldstein continues: That a girl child expressed wisdom, exposed folly, and […]
Today (September 1) cartoonist Jackie Ormes is being honored with a Google Doodle slideshow. Jackie Ormes was born Zelda Mavin Jackson on August 1, 1911, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She taught herself to draw at an early age and showcased her skills with a page of cartoons in her high school yearbook. After graduation, she entered […]
George Herriman was born 140 years ago on August 22, 1880.To celebrate Michael Tisserand, the author of Krazy: George Herriman, A Life in Black and White (highly recommended), has given us a present. Sez Michael: In 2016, when I published Krazy: George Herriman, A Life in Black and White, I included an author’s note promising […]