Fifty years ago today former football player Tank McNamara made his debut as a TV news sportscaster.Seven days later, August 12, 1974, Tank McNamara by Jeff Millar and Bill Hinds made his first Sunday appearance. Tank McNamara was one of the first dozen comics distributed by the new(ish) Universal Press Syndicate. Ten years ago, on […]
Our theme starts with today’s Baby Blues (AMS). My first impression was that it was another “overscheduled kids” gag, which is an okay issue in general but has been done and overdone and doesn’t make me laugh anymore.So I flipped past, but then “Wait till your dad gets home” pinged my brain and I went […]
Some of comics’ most iconic characters found their homes in these long-running comic strips, from Dick Tracy to Beetle Bailey. In some cases, they’re icons from another era, but that doesn’t keep many of them from still appearing in newspapers today. The longest-running comics are a testament to the importance of including comic strips in […]
Today’s Brewster Rockit (Tribune) got a chuckle but it brings up a topic I’ve been meaning to raise.It’s no secret that newspapers are in deep trouble, in part because of changes in how people consume media but mostly because vulture capitalists decided to slaughter the goose so they wouldn’t have to wait for the golden […]
The British Dennis; Garfield the new comic book; deconstructing tents illustrated; the Luann Mystery Museum; Bill Watterson and Berkeley Breathed; Colin Kaepernick gives cartoonists a knee; plus Curtis and Frazz.Blimey! The Three Generations of Dennis The Menace Dennis The Menace is the star of the UK’s longest running comic The Beano, which was first published […]
After a troubled past, the comic strip not the character (well, maybe the character too), Alex Segura & Nickolej Villiger’s Mara Llave: Keeper of Time now will be released on a timely schedule. Or so it is now being promoted. We’ve got some fantastic news to make your Sundays even brighter! Starting this week, our […]
Origins of the comic strip gutter?; MIckey Mouse’s Friends; More about Han Ola og han Per; Future Funnies; and pre-Tiger Bud Blake.Did Photo Journalism Invent the Comics Gutter? The most defining layout quality of the photo-based pages is the rectangular shape of the images (many cropped to suit page proportions) and the resulting white gutters produced […]
Newspapers From this past weekend’s Albany Times-Union: On April 4, 1924, the Times Union told its readers it had officially became a Hearst publication, ending its years as a privately owned newspaper under the stewardship of publisher and former New York Gov. Martin H. Glynn. But the article noting the sale pledged there would be […]
Loose Parts (AMS) hits at a good moment. I tried a hole-in-the-wall pizza place yesterday, and when I paid, got one of those screens. I don’t believe in tipping counterhelp and you’re not supposed to tip the owner, so I hit “No tip.” Again. Again. Again. Finally.“I’ll bet the 25% one goes right through,” I […]
Bob Weber, Jr., he of Slylock Fox fame, and Gary Hallgren, he of Air Pirates Funnies fame, have been friends and coworkers for going on forty years. Their latest partnership has been Hägar the Horrible for the past decade. Bob Weber, Jr. began writing gags and scripts for the Hägar comic strip in 2014 and […]
Tank McNamara cartoonist Bill Hinds to be honored.From the National Cartoonists Society: Bill Hinds will be presented with the Gold T-Square award at the 78th Annual Reuben Awards in San Diego, August 23rd. The Gold T-Square is awarded for 50 years as a professional cartoonist. So far, four have been presented: to Rube Goldberg in […]
Steve Brodner offers an affectionate portrait and tribute to his friend and mentor, Lewis Lapham, a legendary editor at Harper’s who died last week at 89, an age at which one is permitted to die but which gave him a good, long opportunity to influence the world, though, as Brodner’s words indicate, he still left […]
E. S. (Everett Samuel) Glenn is a comic creator and a New Yorker cartoonist, and soon he will be a regular presence on Comics Kingdom with his New Tricks, subtitled Remixed New Yorker Cartoon Rejects. From the Comics Kingdom New Tricks “about” page: E. S. Glenn spent many years in New York, deeply embedded in […]
The recent CrowdStrike debacle gives lessons for all of us in how to (and how not to) communicate in a crisis… While an extreme case, CrowdStrike illustrates some of the tensions at play in any brand crisis — trying to balance responsibility and mitigate liability with incomplete information while still trying to fix the issue. […]
Here’s an oddity: A Garfield Sunday where everyone is happy about everything. Just a coincidence that it is Jon Arbuckle’s (and Jim Davis‘s) birthday? Some comic strip ephemera. MIke Lynch posts a circa 1973 Courier Journal/Louisville Times comic strip promotional pamphlet featuring comic strips with creator profiles. Ten of the seventeen comics are still around […]