For many children, their introduction to newspapers comes through the comics page, reading syndicated strips like “Garfield,” “Peanuts,” “Calvin and Hobbes” and “The Far Side.” Cartoons have long been dominated by white men, but the media niche is slowly inching toward diversity. Last year, Bianca Xunise and Steenz, who both identify as nonbinary, became the second and third Black femmes […]
Baby Blues (KFS) sets the stage today, because we’re going to look beyond the cover, much as we might rather not.BTW, Baby Blues seems, of late, less focused on the humorous oddities of raising a family and more centered on how much Zoey and Hammy hate each other. This doesn’t make for many laughs but […]
The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists has released a preliminary schedule of their upcoming online-only convention.The Friday events (so far) are for members only, but Saturdays are open to the public and free.Saturday’s happenings, limited to 300 viewers for each event, include: The finalists for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Cartooning discuss this year’s […]
Perhaps the best works created for children are the ones rife with layers discoverable later in life. That quality encourages intergenerational sharing. It makes the works enduring. Maybe, like me, you’ve read hundreds (or thousands!) of books and generally soaked up a lot of culture in the time since you last visited our spiky-haired boy […]
The past week has been one synchronicity after another.This Joy of Tech cartoon would be valid anytime, but we’re at the very start of autumn and, while the leaves have only just started turning, I am thinking about a run up the Champlain Valley and through the Adirondacks in about three weeks when the leaves […]
In 1963 syndicates and newspapers joined forces with cartoonist and comics historian Gordon Campbell to produce an exhibit of pages from Sunday color comic supplements.From the October 13, 1963 New York Sunday News:The show was free as was a tabloid history of comics handed out to visitors. The Phantom Fan has some background on the […]
Here’s the problem: It’s becoming hard for political cartoonists to satirize our situation, because our situation is beginning to feel like satire itself.So Ruben Bolling lays out a mocking synopsis of how foolish people reject science, common sense and civic decency, and it feels more like a documentary than biting commentary.A very well-crafted documentary, mind […]
Well it’s trending on the spots I check in on.In early 1962 Charles Schulz and United Feature Syndicate distributed to newspapers a Sunday format pseudo-Peanuts comic strip promoting the preeminent news source of the time. The promo ran in late January or early February on weekdays in black and white or on Sundays in the […]
Ann Telnaes notes some bad news coming out of Afghanistan, as the Taliban shows how empty its promises of respecting women turned out to be.She does well to point out the dismal situation, but there’s a question as to whether it qualifies as news, since it seems to fall under the category of “What did […]
Dale Messick and Floyd Norman are the comic artists inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame this year. Known as the “Grand Dame of the Funnies,” Dale Messick … for creating the popular adventure comic strip Brenda Starr, Reporter. Debuting in June of 1940, it was an immediate hit. Each week […]
Everybody remembers Garfield Minus Garfield, where Garfield was edited out of his own comic strip. Now there is a new Garfield meme where a Garfield comic strip is edited by replacing the last panel with one specific shot. As a longtime favorite in the Sunday funny pages, Jim Davis’ Garfield has long been the subject of […]
Timing is everything, and, when I first saw this Matt Wuerker (Politico) piece, I planned to feature it with an amusing discursion on Willie Sutton, who was something of a celebrity bank robber, in that, after serving his time, he popped up on the interview circuit. As it happens, he denied ever saying that he […]
Robin Moore‘s book about The Green Berets in Vietnam was released in the Spring of 1965 and before that season was over it was hitting best seller lists. Before the years was over Robin Moore had written syndicated newspaper articles about the troops and Vietnam, the book would be issued in a mass market […]
Cartoonist and educator Lynda Barry is a favorite here at Open Culture. We’re always excited to share exercises from her books and intel on her classes at the University of Wisconsin, but nothing beats the warmth and humor of her live instruction… even when it’s delivered virtually. Last week, she took to Instagram to inform the fourteen lucky U of W students enrolled […]
If you know me, you know I’m a huge fan of Chester Gould, and I have a number of Dick Tracy originals hanging on my wall. They bring inspiration and a smile to me every day. For my upcoming birthday, my son [Aaron Smith] created a ‘DETECTIVE GRAYSMITH’ comicstrip in the same Dick Tracy style! […]