“He is one of the all-time great cartoonists because he makes the craft integral to the entire endeavor look so easy, even enjoyable,” the theoretician and practitioner of comics, Ivan Brunetti, writes in the introduction to an upcoming collection of Gross’s work, “Gross Exaggerations: The Meshuga Comic Strips of Milt Gross.”The New Yorker previews a […]

I don’t necessarily like “Ain’t it the truth?” comics, because they tend to harp on worn-out topics that haven’t been the truth for a long time, or at least, have stopped being innovative and funny.The archetypal “Ain’t it the truth?” jokes start with “And what about airline food?” which might still be funny if airlines […]

Forget Cherry, now Jules Rivera is the woman in charge of Mark Trail. I was contacted by editors who follow my comic on social media. Once I learned about Mark Trail, I saw there was a huge opportunity in this for me and my skill sets: art, science, and drawing dudes punch each other in […]

above: Tom Toles for The Spectrum April 28, 1969 and for The Washington Post April 28, 2019Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt has announced that Tom Toles will be retiring with November 1, 2020 being his last contribution to The Post. From WaPo media reporter Paul Farhi:As of this writing Tom has not yet […]

Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. — Matthew 23:24 This pair of tweets appeared together in my feed. Rob is a friend and a good guy and he’s right about the number, but he’s wrong about “great.”There have already been several fly jokes, and I say “joke” because they are […]

Among the many articles celebrating Peanuts 70th anniversary is the Nashville Tennessean telling the story behind Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron. No, not the Charles Schulz comics, rather the Dick Holler/Royal Guardsman song.   From The Tennessean interview with songwriter Dick Holler: A long time ago, there was a huge hit record called “The Battle […]

This xkcd (Ind) illustrates a lesson I learned a few decades ago, when I attempted to raise money at Denver’s St. Patrick’s Day parade for a non-sectarian job training center in Belfast that was making inroads in defusing the violence there.All I asked for was a quarter. A quarter from one-twentieth, even one-fortieth, of the […]

Wall Street Journal cartoon editor Charles Preston has passed away.Charles M. PrestonNovember 6, 1921 – October 2, 2020 Instigator, idea man, and long-time editor of the Wall Street Journal cartoon panel “Pepper … and Salt” Charles Preston passed away Friday.From the Wall Street Journal: Seventy years ago a Columbia undergraduate named Charles Preston pitched a daily […]

Robb Armstrong has created more than 10,000 “Jumpstart” comics over his 30-year career. To celebrate the comic strip’s XXX anniversary, Robb has selected more than 500 strips that look back at some of the highlights of his three-decade run. Check it out on Amazon here.From Robb’s Amazon page:One of the longest-running African-American comic strips in […]

Venerable “Doozies” cartoonist and “Simpsons” producer Tom Gammill tours the temporarily closed Bushmiller Museum and Research Center with a very special guest, Irish whisky and Sluggo on blues guitar. 

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists announced Rob Rogers, and his “Brewed on Grant” in the Pittsburgh Current, has won the 2020 Rex Babin Memorial Award for Excellence in Local Cartooning. From the Pittsburgh Current notice: “Brewed on Grant,” a strip with musings on local politics and current events, originally ran for more than 20 years […]

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists announced its 2020 award winners during its (delayed and cancelled and now smaller and virtual) “convention” held the first weekend of October.The John Locher Memorial Award, for promising young cartoonists, was announced last month but made official this month.© Catherine Gong The AAEC/John Locher Memorial Award — Congrats to Catherine […]

RJ Matson (CQ Roll Call) provides a starting point today, as Trump cheerfully bounces out of Walter Reed, possibly Against Medical Advice, though he’s going “home” to a White House with a medical facility that’s better than some hospitals, and also possibly high on steroidal optimism, since that’s one reported side effect of the unprecedented […]

Vulture presents one hundred animation sequences chosen by a knowledgeable group that deemed these worthy of showcasing the magic of animation. “[A]nimation is the art of manipulating the invisible interstices between frames.” Animated cartoons fool the brain into believing that static images can move; characters are “brought to life” by putting pen to paper or […]

A young political cartoonist asked the hive mind if things have always gone at this pace.It was a good question: You can barely address one scandal before another comes along and so we forget about Dear Leader’s taxes in order to discuss his lunatic behavior at the debate but then drop that subject to talk […]