King Features’ Flash Forward, with cartoonists creating Sunday pages featuring Flash Gordon, reminds me of another Sunday(-ish) page project of 50 years ago. In 1970 Union Carbide licensed Flash Gordon to promote their plastic product Bakelite. They hired Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson to produce a half dozen one-page adventures that were placed in various […]
There’s not much new going on in the political realm, so I thought I’d clean up a few things that either could have run this past Friday but didn’t, or that won’t wait until the next.In his weekly wrap-up blog, Wayno noted that he could have put a sash on the traditional Old Year figure […]
Flash Gordon © King Features SyndicateJim Keefe noted that the monster introduced last week (above left) and continuing this week (above right) in Flash Gordon was an Easter Egg referencing the first inhabitant that Flash had met upon landing on Mongo.Little Easter Egg in today’s strip. The monster in the last panel is the […]
Early Daily Peanuts Comic Strip Auctions for $192,000From Bleeding Cool: Charles Schulz‘s Peanuts syndicated comic strip began its 17897 strip, 50-year run on October 2, 1950. Snoopy first appeared just two days later on October 4, 1950. An earliest-days Peanuts comic strip from November 17, 1950 has just hammered at Heritage Auctions for $192,000 — […]
Riding Mike’s coattails (again).Over The Hedge © MFry & TLewisThe Four Horsedudes of the $#!+show is my favorite comic art this week (though the jokes are laughable; wait..what?). The Over the Hedge sequence starts on the 17th and ends today. Shoe © MacNellyLet’s also take note of the extra effort into lush scenery at Shoe. Zippy © […]
…[Roger] Straub delights in recalling that magic moment in 1999, which came about after Leland Morgan, owner of The Trumpeter newspaper of East Haddam, said: “Rog, I have an idea. Can you create a comic for my paper?” Ever since then, [Mac] O’Moodus and Straub have been entertaining readers of select newspapers in rural Connecticut […]
Join cartoonists Robb Armstrong,Darrin Bell,Keith “Keef” Knight,Elizabeth Montague, and Bianca Xunise as they discuss the Black experience as told through graphic novels and comic stories. Robb Armstrong, who inspired the last name of the Peanuts character Franklin Armstrong, is the creator of the groundbreaking comic strip, Jump Start, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Darrin Bell […]
The Baltimore Sun ran a letter from a reader requesting replacement of comic strips in rerun status. The “Get Fuzzy” comic strip that recently ran in The Baltimore Sun, a rerun from 2008, inspired me to send this letter (”Get Fuzzy” by Darby Conley). I generally like the comics pages in The Sun, but I […]
We’ve talked a lot about how politics have been sneaking over onto the funny pages, but now the funny stuff is sneaking over onto the editorial pages, as witness this K Chronicles (Daily Kos).The punchline particularly put me on the floor since, as I think I’ve mentioned, Trump began his reign with a lie about […]
A couple of recent changes to the Pacifica Tribune – a change of ownership in October and a new cartoonist that same month. Don’t know if the two have any connection, but a few days after the new ownership took control a new cartoon panel debuted.What I’m Inking by Deb Wong first appeared October 21, […]
Cartoonist and author Lincoln (Big Nate) Peirce is interviewed as his 2nd Max and the Midknights book is soon to be released. [H]ow are Nate and Max different? Nate has a much bigger ego than Max and is convinced of his own exceptionality. He’s older than Max is, but not as emotionally mature. He’s impulsive […]
Accounts of comic/cartoon history that we stumbled on this past week.Eustace Tilley: Origins of an IconAlex Jay’s short pictorial… leads us to R. C. Harvey’s 2017 True History of Eustace Tilley essay at The Comics Journal. Eustace Tilley is the name given to the 19th century boulevardier languidly inspecting a passing butterfly through his […]
It seems that Roger Mahoney, at age 87 and after about 65 years of cartooning, has retired.first a note about Andy Capp U.S. dates: the Andy Capp comic strips that appear in the United States are on a one week delay from when they first appear in the Daily Mirror.The Saturday, November 14, 2020 (November […]
November 18, 1985 saw……the introduction of one of the greatest comic strips of all time.With 125 years of historic comic strips to choose from Calvin and Hobbes makes almost everybody’s All-Time Top Ten list. And rightfully so.Calvin and Hobbes‘s greatest triumph was its emotional complexity. Strips could simply be funny, sure, but more often than […]
Politics has been leaking all over the funny pages lately, and today’s Non Sequitur (AMS) is a good example.The anti-mask issue is completely political. Nobody seems to object when they are told they can’t smoke in a particular place, or, at least, they don’t threaten violence or make great speeches about freedom.Acceptance of the link […]