Industry news for the professional cartoonist
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,…
When Berke Breathed’s Bloom County ended on August 6, 1989 King Features Syndicate had an unconventional comic strip to offer newspapers to replace the popular feature. Norb (I can find no example of “The Fantastical Tales of…” being used on anything but the promotional material) by Daniel Pinkwater and Tony Auth debuted on Monday August…
Wiley Miller’s Non Sequitur has introduced a number of characters to the comics reading public. The Pyle family and associates are regulars, but there is also Obviousman, Ordinary Basil, The Bears, The Gravesytes, Congress-Man, and others. We’re going to take a look at Homer, the Reluctant Soul. Homer first appeared in a Non Sequitur Sunday…
The western strip Rick O’Shay by Stan Lynde began in 1958. It first appeared on April 27, 1958 (below), taking over the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate spot occupied by Ferd Johnson’s Texas Slim Sunday strip which ended the week before; both being humorous cowboy strips. Ferd Johnson, who had been ghosting for Frank Willard’s…
palooka (n.) by 1926, “mediocre prizefighter,” of unknown origin, credited to U.S. sportswriter and “Variety” staffer Jack “Con” Conway (1898-1928), who might at least have popularized it. Non-boxing sense of “average person” is from Joe Palooka, hero of Ham Fisher’s boxing-themed comic strip, which debuted in 1930. No Ham Fisher didn’t coin the term with…
Wha..?? A last Cats With Hands? Yes. It seems Joe Martin has stopped producing new Cats With Hands strips and panels. (Joe continues creating Mr. Boffo and Willy ‘n Ethel comics.) Last month Neatly Chiseled Features started issuing “The Best of Cats With Hands” dailies beginning March 16, 2020. That strip was a rerun of…
There have been some short-run syndicated comic strips; mostly holiday themed (Christmas, Easter) or news related (Mrs. Simpson, The Crime of the Century). Those were planned as closed-end mini-series. Hippy and Pop by Pete Murphey was not planned for a short run, but it became one of the shortest run syndicated comic strips in modern…
James Thurber‘s first drawings appeared in the The New Yorker dated ninety years ago today. In the New Yorker issue dated February 22, 1930 a short James Thurber contribution included two illustrations, the first Thurber drawings to appear in the magazine. [James Thurber’s words first appeared in the February 26, 1927 New Yorker, but since…
Twenty years ago was a very sad weekend for comics fans. Already dismayed with the news that the Peanuts comic strip was ending, the day of February 12, 2000 became unbearable when news broke that cartoonist Charles Schulz had died. The very next day came the announced end of Peanuts, a planned end and so…
Career women was not a new concept in 1961, but those shown on the comic pages were rather old-fashioned. Nick Dallis, creator of Rex Morgan and Judge Parker, decided to update the concept for a modern audience – within reason. Three independent, liberated women in the big city, who would not pass The Bechdel Test….
January 18, 1970, fifty years ago today, heralded the debut of the first “mainstream” comic strip starring an African American heroine: Friday Foster by Jim Lawrence and Jorge Longaron. above: the January 18, 1970 Friday Foster debut strip (hat tip to Doc Vassallo) The strip would run four years never getting a large number of…
Burne Hogarth took over the Tarzan Sunday page from Harold Foster and, like Foster, became very famous drawing that feature. After eight and a half years Hogarth walked away from the strip. From a 1982 Comics Scene interview: CS: Why did you leave Tarzan after 10 years? BH: Very simply, you’re talking about United (syndicate)…
Bob Lubbers was a “good-girl” artist. He began drawing girls in a very good way in 1940s comic books. In 1950 Bob moved from comic books to comic strips. Starting at the top with Tarzan. After a few years in the jungle, Bob joined Al Capp Enterprises where, partnering Lubbers with Capp, the inevitable…
From the Wikipedia introduction to Nero Wolfe: Nero Wolfe is a fictional character, a brilliant, oversized, eccentric armchair detective created in 1934 by American mystery writer Rex Stout. Wolfe was born in Montenegro and keeps his past murky. He lives in a luxurious brownstone on West 35th Street in New York City, and he is…
With the news that The Far Side is returning, in some fashion; and we are only months away from celebrating 40 years since Gary Larson began running the Far Side, the San Francisco Chronicle has dug up that January 1, 1980, Tuesday page, where it debuted. “Laugh in the New Year,” The Chronicle headline read….