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 […]
The Barn (Creators) gets today’s Excellent Timing Award for a piece done, no doubt, weeks in advance but that happened to hit just as a substantial portion of the country fell into a Frosty Bombalooza or whatever they’re calling it these days. We used to call them “cold snaps” but perhaps we were being too […]
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 […]
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 […]
Non Sequitor (AMS) offers a non-controversial chuckle to start a day of myth-busting, because, yes, it would be nice if Parks & Rec also offered scooping this time of year, along with plowing a path.Our normal leash-free zone closes in winter, but we’ve got an alternative area, the driveway to which does get plowed though […]
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 […]
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 […]
(Clay Bennett — CTFP) (Pickles — AMS)The problem with last-minute gifts is that, no matter how practical they are, there’s just a sense of so-what to them, more of obligation than of inspiration, and, as Earl’s daughter has realized, they often just get tossed in a drawer, unopened, unused, unwanted.Bennett is quite right: The Jan 6 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Sherman’s Lagoon (AMS) on the demise of the Christmas Newsletter. Yesterday, I talked about the fables that passed as history in ancient times, but those dubious paeans to powerful leaders had nothing on the self-congratulatory fiction that once poured forth in the form of Christmas Newsletters. Their chief attraction was how much fun it was […]
One hundred years ago there was one woman drawing and directing animated films.From animation historian Jerry Beck: In the earliest days of the animation industry, one woman animated and directed alongside the men who later became titans of the artform, yet her name and work have been lost – until now. The discovery of this […]
Clay Bennett (CTFP) manages, alas, to capture the spirit of Christmas, 2022, though I’d like it just as much without the Trump sign.I don’t disagree: That side of the divide is definitely peddling hostility, no doubt about it.Still, it is Christmastime, and I’m reminded of one of Confucius’s Analects, “I suppose I should give up […]