Before the 21st Century’s enthusiastic embrace of computer fonts, letters had personality.© NEA“A good lettering man is to a comic what a good umpire is to a baseball game: vital to the success of the finished product, but most effective when his contributions seamlessly blend into the background.” – Bruce CanwellLetterers Todd Klein and Alex […]
Christopher Weyant captures the moment in a way that, as the fellows say, seems a sign of how bad things have become.There have been a lot of “but I hate her” comments coming from the left about Liz Cheney’s past record, and they’re as much a sign of our societal cancer as those equally vehement […]
Heritage Auctions currently has the original art of a George Herriman/Krazy Kat daily strip, an Alex Raymond/Flash Gordon Sunday page, and a Bill Watterson/Calvin and Hobbes daily up for bid.The Herriman Krazy Kat is a very early sample of before the kat and mouse had their own strip, a time when they starred in a […]
We’ll start off the day with a really stupid idea and then you can judge whether we are moving up or down the scale.Constant Readers will know that First Dog on the Moon is an avid climate change warrior, but will also know that he has no objection to shining a light on stupid ideas, […]
As we jump all over the place let’s start with –The Are You Calvin or Are You Hobbes Quiz.Alison Doherty:I didn’t have the best introduction to Calvin and Hobbes, the comic strip by Bill Watterson that ran between 1985 and 1995 … I thought it was about an annoying, naughty boy with a stuffed tiger […]
Kevin Siers puts our current crisis in plain terms: We’ve somehow become involved in an argument in which the concept of justice has been placed in the dock, forced to prove itself innocent rather than, as in both English Common Law and our own traditional system, being assumed innocent until proven guilty. And it’s not simply […]
News Corp Australia, which publishes about 100 newspapers there, has decided to no longer carry comic strips and panels in its papers as of September 11, 2022. Editorial cartoons will remain.The News Corp Australia statement: Our editorial cartoonists remain as loved and valued as ever and continue to play a critical role in both our […]
There’s an interesting collision going on between routine Back to School comic strips and political cartoons marking the current teacher shortage crisis, in the midst of which Baby Blues (AMS) offers a funny/not funny piece.I’ve seen this scenario play out both ways, one in which the elder sib was hell on wheels and younger was […]
The Australian Cartoonists Association is now calling for submissions for the 38th Stanley Awards.There are nine award categories: Animation Cartoonist, Book Illustrator, Caricaturist, Comic Book Artist, Comic Strip Cartoonist, Editorial/Political Cartoonist, Event Cartoonist, Illustrator, and Single Gag Cartoonist. (Cartoonist of the Year has different standards.)Eligibility:You must be a full member of the Australian Cartoonists Association […]
With content by cream-of-the-crop illustrators like Hal Foster, Frank Godwin, James Montgomery Flagg, F. R. Gruger, William Meade Prince, and Creig Flessel and such best-selling authors as William Saroyan, Daphne de Maurier, Sinclair Lewis, Franz Werfel, Ayn Rand, and Erle Stanley Gardner, it’s a wonder King Features Syndicate’s Book-of-the-Month comic strip isn’t better known today. […]
Cartoonist and advertising artist Kirk Luehrs has passed away. Kirk Allan (Bro Kirk) Luehrs March 23, 1941 – August 1, 2022 From the obituary: He was a talented artist & writer who worked in advertising and had a successful comic strip the Oregonian of newspapers. He attended the University of Washington and Mount Angel University, […]
Premiering at Comics Kingdom, in the middle of the night with no advance notice, isBob Mankoff Presents: Show Me The Funny (Animal Edition). >edited to add< and Bob Mankoff Presents: Show Me The Funny. © Matthew DiffeeFrom the ‘About’ page: This anthology series presented by Bob Mankoff and the cartoonists of CartoonStock promises a best-of […]
Tom Tomorrow demonstrates a pair of things Constant Readers have read here more than once. One of the most devastating tools in the journalist’s box is to simply quote a source accurately. It’s not that “you can’t make this stuff up.” It’s that you don’t have to. It adds up, in this case, to a […]
Below are some comic strip and cartoon books scheduled for August 2022 release. Images and links (mostly) via Amazon, though ordering through your local comic or independent book store is a good idea. Ballard Street Redux: The Comic Art of Jerry Van Amerongen Victorian Comics (re-issue of 1976 edition) Big Nate: Destined for Awesomeness The […]
Grotesquerie is Kevin “Kal” Kallaugher’s bread and butter. For fifty years the cartoonist has rendered newsmakers in a fleshy museum of knobbly noses, splayed teeth, dewlaps, wattles, and vast foreheads. He’s produced some 10,000 cartoons for the Baltimore Sun and The Economist—in 1978 he became the first cartoonist hired by the latter—and his work is […]