© RL Crabb Let’s start with a cartoonist’s cartoon about cartooning. © EC Publications I grew up in central Maine in the ’60s and ’70s, and while we weren’t exactly the Mayberry of the North — the fictional town of “The Andy Griffith Show” — if you were looking to find a nearly 100% […]
Heidi MacDonald reports on the WEBTOON advertising blitz: I don’t take the subway very often here in NYC, but other local Beat staffers (and a smattering of other social media postings) have noted that Webtoon has launched a pretty prominent subway advertising campaign around town. I witnessed these Webtoon subway ads myself last Friday night […]
Deadline breaks the news: CBS has put in development JumpStart, a multi-camera comedy based on Robb Armstrong’s long-running comic strip. Wayne Conley (The Best Man) will pen the TV adaptation, which hails from Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment and CBS Studios. Based on the popular comic strip that debuted in 1989, JumpStart is set in Philadelphia […]
I think we could use a few laughs at the moment, though they needn’t be completely frivolous. Man Overboard, as so often is the case, makes a point about our responsibilities and our debts that gets both a chuckle and a sigh.I’d add, too, that we often see things online about how gentle and thoughtful […]
Below are some comic strip and cartoon books scheduled for June 2022 release. Images and links (mostly) via Amazon, though ordering through your local comic or independent book store is a good idea. Back Issue! 136 Red and Rover: Fun’s Never Over My Perfect Life Dirty Pictures You Know Exactly Batpig: Too Pig to […]
It was all a con.Matt Wuerker (Politico) extracts the most damning revelation from yesterday’s Jan 6 Committee Hearing:Trump knew he’d lost, he knew there was no chance of an effective appeal, but he pulled the old pigeon drop on his True Believers, conning them with the promise that he’d use their money to counter massive […]
The Phantom cover art by Bret Blevins and Terry AustinThe Chronicle Chamber has revealed that Bret Blevins is the ghost artist temporarily relieving Mike Manley on The Phantom daily comic strip. They stress that it is a temporary situation. Due to some personal reasons the popular daily artist has had to temporary hand over the […]
Beginning today Mike Manley has handed over his comic strips to other artists. Hopefully this is a temporary issue until Mike’s health improves.A couple weeks ago Mike posted on his Facebook page that he was feeling very bad, though a Covid test came up negative. Beginning today (June 13, 2022) Mike’s name has dropped from The […]
Editorial Cartoonist Stuart Carlson has passed away.Stuart Scott Carlson September 1955 – June 10, 2022 The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting Stuart’s death: Stuart Carlson, the former Milwaukee Journal Sentinel political cartoonist, died Friday at age 66. Carlson, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease about seven years ago, was hospitalized over the Memorial Day weekend […]
The modern day swamp creature began with Theodore Sturgeon’s 1940 short story “It.” It would be adapted as a Marvel comic book decades later. A couple years after It The Heap appeared in Hillman comic books. The Heap would be revived in 1971 by Skywald Publications. In the years spanning the 1940s and the […]
I’m writing this a few hours before the second of the Jan 6 Committee public hearings goes on the air, but there’s already plenty to be said, and Pearls Before Swine (AMS) sets things up nicely.The Watergate Hearings happened during the day but managed to gain a wide viewership in large part because, back then, […]
History of the Comic Strip (in a nutshell) Through 1960 Rudolphe Töpffer – Primitive comic book creator. His books were known as “Graphic Literature”. He developed the concept of the cartoon face more than anyone previous. With a jump from Töpffer to Hearst/Pulitzer/Outcault and with short blurbs listing some of the more important comics up […]
Today’s F-Minus (AMS) touched off an odd bit of nostalgia, because when I was a small lad, we had a mother-and-daughter teacher team — Mom was music, daughter was art — who were reportedly convinced that the poles were about to swap any minute, at which point the land would be flooded, and so kept […]
The past week starts with today’s future Zippy where Griffy refuses to modernize. © Bill GriffithCheck earlier in the week for more comic characters mentioned. As long as we have comics featuring cartoonists, Thursday’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not, where Kieran continues to delight with the fun he is having drawing (and writing?) the panel. © […]
Like most of us in the world of journalism, Citizen Times cartoonist David Cohen has developed a pretty thick skin over the years. More like a hide, you could call it. When you skewer politicians, public officials and other prominent folks in your editorial cartoons for 17 years, you’re going to ruffle some feathers, irritate some […]