After its Spring 2020 issue Playboy magazine will stop printing regular editions in the U.S.“We have decided that our Spring 2020 Issue, which arrives on U.S. newsstands and as a digital download this week, will be our final printed publication for the year in the U.S.”They addPlayboy will now operate on a “digital first publishing […]
J.D. Crowe extends the invitation and we should all accept it and gather together, separately.I’m good with that. I’ve worked at home for the past decade and I don’t miss going into the office.But even JD Salinger used to come into town once in awhile to check his mail and have a cup of coffee.Today’s blog […]
above: Clay Bennett of the Chattanooga Times Free Press With all the important places closing, some comics people are trying to make our lives a bit more tolerable while we all huddle at home shelter in place. Cartoonist Joe Wos has his YouTube channel for kids of all ages to learn How To Toon. As libraries and bookstores […]
The Herb Block Foundation has announced that the ceremony honoring the 2020 Herblock Prize winners has, for now, been cancelled:
Peter Brookes joins the ranks of cartoonists who are posting what you might call “stiff upper lip” cartoons, which are intended less to critique and comment as they are to encourage.Which, by the way, is permitted. These are quite different than the celebratory “We won the World Series!” pieces that follow local triumphs, and, for […]
On March 17, 1985 we met a 13-year-old ( a pre-teen?) Luann. above: the first daily Luann – March 18, 1985Over the the 35 years the strip has been around Luann has grown to be a young adult. On the occasion of the anniversary Andrews McMeel Syndication interviewed creator Greg Evans.What is your favorite Luann […]
Nick Anderson captures the moment, and I would add that not only has Facebook (and Twitter, for that matter) become a seething cauldron of coronavirus stupidity but seems to be ramping up the political idiocy as well.And while I chuckle, too, at all the cartoonists saying they’ve practiced social isolation all their lives, part of […]
Kids’ author Mo Willems is here to make Mondays a little better for a while: Starting today, he’ll release a new “Lunch Doodle” video each Monday at 1 PM.The Kennedy Center and Mo Willems informs:When I became the Kennedy Center Education Artist-in-Residence, I didn’t realize the most impactful word in that title would be ‘Residence.’ With […]
Cartoonist Basil Wolverton made a name for himself as a comic book artist, with weird humor and art. Like most cartoonists of the time he tried to create a syndicated newspaper comic strip. But he never made it – well, he did make it for one panel.One of Basil’s attempts at syndication was a Buck […]
The 2020 Reuben Awards Weekend and Dinner is being held in Kansas City, Missouri.The choice of Kansas City has to do with it being the home of Andrews McMeel, and has been since the company started 50 years ago. So it is A Golden Anniversary for the syndicate.Origins from ReferenceForBusiness.com:The company that became Andrews McMeel […]
Ben Jennings scores.This is one of those pieces where the only real response is, “Good for you,” because there are plenty of paintings that depict crowds but this is the right one. Here’s the original, not that you haven’t seen it but I wanted a second look to see how crowded the scene really was and […]
Six weeks ago Little Oop, the Sunday Alley Oop, began a time travel story. Three weeks later (a week earlier than in our timestream) the strip jumped ahead, and the snarkers had a fit.Me? I’m not married to continuity, so have been enjoying Little Oop in general and this bit in particular. (And the snarkers […]
In 2019, more Americans went to the library than to the movies.A Coronavirus Library Update from Publishers Marketplace:Overdrive tells libraries it is “assembling a series of digital content options to respond to the challenges your communities are facing.” For academic libraries and customers, Proquest issued a list of over 50 publishers that have joined in […]
Kal Kallaugher gets away with the tired iceberg metaphor for two reasons: One is his art, through which he can draw just about anything and make it fun and fresh, and the other is his ability as a storyteller.A couple of years ago, the featured speaker at the final banquet of the AAEC convention couldn’t […]
I’m going to try to be mostly critical in a literary rather than a social sense today, starting with Steve Breen’s simple expression of the situation.I had our next issue planned with a review of “My Spy,” but the reviewer dropped me an email to say she’d gone to the screening, but the release date […]