Timing Is Everything Dept. — Man, I wish I’d had today’s Non Sequitur (AMS) yesterday when I was defending Dylan’s decision to sell his catalog rather than administer it himself. Wiley penned this well before the announcement, but he does sum it up nicely. Arlo, in Arlo & Janis (AMS), frequently reflects on age, and this […]
Some historical essays from the past week. William Gropper: Social Justice Cartoonist GROPPER, who was contributing to other radical magazines (like The Rebel Worker, The Morning Freiheit, and The Revolutionary Age) as well as mainstream magazines (The Bookman, The Dial, and Frank Harris’ New Pearson’s Magazine), married his second wife in 1924, and the two […]
Yes, Jim Keefe is the artist of the Sally Forth comic strip, but he was (1996-2003), and occasionally still is, the writer/artist of Flash Gordon. Sally Forth and Flash Gordon © King Features SyndicateWith King Features Syndicate bringing back Flash Gordon as a limited edition Sunday webcomic Edgar, for KFS, talked to Jim about his […]
Comic artist and illustrator Richard Corben has passed away. Richard Vance Corben October 1, 1940 – December 2, 2020 Dona Corben revealed Richard’s passing on the Corben Studios Facebook page:It is with great sorrow and loss that I must share the sad news that Richard Corben died Dec 2, 2020 following heart surgery. He will be […]
From The Daily Voice: A cartoonist famous for his work in the “New Yorker,” has been arrested in the Hudson Valley for alleged possession of a sexual performance by a child. Dutchess County resident Daniel (Danny) P. Shanahan, 64, of Rhinebeck, was arrested by New York State Police on Wednesday, Dec. 9, and charged with […]
A Finnish horse is among the new characters residing in the comic pages of the Johnson Newspaper Corp. In October, Johnson Newspaper Corp., which publishes the Watertown Daily Times and other publications, announced that due to an impasse over fees with King Features, owned by Hearst, it would discontinue content from the syndication service. That […]
John Cole (Times-Tribune) bemoans Bob Dylan’s decision to sell his catalog to Universal Music, and his worry that meaningful songs will become meaningless jingles isn’t off the mark.Still, Dylan is 79 and I can understand if he feels he should get his affairs in order. I guess his choices were to set up a corporation […]
For some reason I have a few stories relating to animation in the queue.A Charlie Brown Christmas at 55 Multiple generations of kids will agree that it doesn’t really begin to look a lot like Christmas until A Charlie Brown Christmas graces the airwaves. Premiering 55 years ago on Dec. 9, 1965, the beloved animated […]
A potpourri of cartoons today, but I’ll start with this commentary by Ann Telnaes (WashPost) on the latest, and perhaps shortest, rejection of yet another Trump lawsuit.The justices declined to hear the case with no more explanation than it merited:The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court […]
Freelance editorial cartoonist Jake Fuller has lost his spot at The Gainesville Sun due to bad timing and an inattentive opinion page editor. A cartoon using domestic violence as an analogy was published two days after a double homicide, but Jake’s deadline, which he met, was two days before the tragedy.WCJB Gainesville reports: A freelance […]
There’s no comic strip that epitomized the ’80s as well as Bloom County.That is how Ultimate Classic Rock begins their article celebrating forty years since Bloom County debuted. Writer Tyler Sage continues:Unlike current nostalgia-laden depictions of the ’80s, what the comic highlights is how acerbically pop culture was riffed on at the time. In this […]
It’s hard to rank all the disparate pieces of news these days, but let’s start with the destruction of the Republican Party, which isn’t really “news,” since it is part of a process that began a generation or so ago, when Newt Gingrich and his cohorts began a transformation that saw a lot of right-leaning […]
Well, since the Christmas tree has gone up, and St. Nicholas was mentioned here today, it seems a good time for an NEA Christmas strip. Presented below is the first of the long running seasonal strips from Newspaper Enterprise Association as listed by Allan Holtz, Merlin Haas, and couple others. Meant to run one panel […]
I retired in June in a combination of newspaper cuts and my boss’s retirement, but before we shut things down we were facing the prospect of a spring workshop for our young reporters in the midst of the pandemic.Today’s Alex (Telegraph) is therefore particularly relevant, because I telecommuted the editing job except for two in-person […]
Journalist and civil servant Paul E. Fitzgerald has passed away.Paul Edward (Fitz) FitzgeraldNovember 26, 1926 – December 3, 2020 From the obituary: He entered the US Army as an enlisted man during WW2, serving as a heavy weapons crewman. After completing Officer Candidate School, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in charge of troop trains […]