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Willie McCovey and Charlie Brown

Excerpts from Bruce Jenkins’ San Francisco Chronicle obituary: Willie McCovey was the gentleman superstar, often described as a man without enemies. McCovey, who died at the age of 80 on Wednesday afternoon, was among the classiest athletes ever to grace the Bay Area. Humble and soft-spoken, always clearly grateful of the life he was able […]

Cartoon Collections – New Cartoon Licensing Firm

Bob Mankoff is about to launch Cartoon Collections, a new website which will house Mankoff pieces and other material from famed sources including The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy, National Lampoon and many more.Cartoon Collection will be the largest digital collection of licenseable cartoons in the world.  Bob Mankoff on his new concern versus Cartoon Bank, which […]

See Your Linus and Raise a Garfield

Earlier today Mike Peterson presented us with the origins of The Great Pumpkin.Linus and The Great Pumpkin was an annual event in the Peanuts comic strip that became a perennial favorite as an animated TV special.And while Garfield’s Halloween Adventure tried to compete as a television tradition, it never rose to the beloved status of […]

Comic Strip of the Day: The Origins of the Great Pumpkin

There were a lot of cartoons today about the grownups eating the candy and other stalwarts of the season, which kind of made me think maybe after five or six years cartoonists should stop drawing Halloween cartoons and simply rotate the ones in their archives.Halloween cartoons are like obituary cartoons: They’re expected, but they’re not […]

Cartoonists’ Comic Strip Autobiographies

In 1948 Collier’s started a brief series of comic strip cartoonists presenting their life story to the magazine’s readers. The individual entries occupied one three column page, one column of text with the other two columns filled with autobiographical comic strips. Presented below are the comics. (Clicking on the images and then clicking again should […]

CSotD: The Demands of Mourning

Paul Fell notes the futility of “Moments of Silence” followed by “Months of Inaction,” which puts his piece head-and-shoulders above the multitude of “We’re So Sad” cartoons currently out there.There are times when all you can say is “We’re So Sad,” and editorial cartoonists have an obligation to mirror those moments for the nation or, […]

Kristallmorgen

 For the latest horror Rob Rogers alludes to another place, another time – days short of 80 years ago.Kristallnacht was not the beginning nor the end of the troubles then, and this is not the start or, unfortunately, the last we will see of such atrocities now.“I was a little hesitant to compare this violence […]

CSotD: Days of Hope and Despair

It may seem odd, with all the horrors of the past week, to start today with Rick McKee‘s lottery cartoon, but the lottery is not only another way in which We The People exploit the gullibility of our fellow citizens but it is too often a good example of how the media helps in the […]

First and Last – Li’l Abner

 Alfred G. Caplin was riding high with his success on the Joe Palooka comic strip and creating the hillbilly character Big Leviticus (a claim disputed by Ham Fisher) when he decided he could become a big-time cartoonist instead of a low paid assistant.And so he did – with Li’l Abner. above: the first Li’l Abner […]

CSotD: One or More for the Ages

Mike Luckovich replaces the now-familiar firehose metaphor with something closer to everyone’s heart.Though it’s only fair to note that Luckovich penned this humorous commentary a day or two before Trump’s delusional ravings began to cost lives.At this stage, the challenge for responsible editorialists is not keeping up with the flow but dealing with two emerging […]

Henry Quietly Retires to the Old Comics Home

 With the October 28, 2018 Sunday strip Henry ceases its King Features syndicated run.The daily strip ended with the Saturday October 27, 2018 issue. Henry by Carl Anderson first appeared as a (mostly) panel in the Saturday Evening Post issue of March 19, 1932 and ran there until February 2, 1935.King Features and Carl Anderson converted […]

The Funny Pages (for October)

 Good Stories for Children – Illustrations From 1902 to 1905 Walt McDougall provided art for his Sunday newspaper page of children’s stories.Monster Brains presents the more disturbing of the illustrations.John Adcock provides a bit of history.    The Gay ThirtiesA treasure trove of slice-of-life panels by Milton Caniff and Hank Barrow from The Great Depression.    Cats and Raccoons […]

Comics and Cartoonists in the News

 James Bond and Playboy Playboy continues its slow return to the glory days when cartoons and comics were a major part of the magazine’s content. The November-December 2018 issue contains a six page exclusive about the origin of 007.Dynamite Entertainment and Ian Fleming Publications Ltd. announced today that the latest James Bond series, James Bond […]

CSotD: Covering the News as Sports

There’s nothing much new in the commentary on the bombing attempts, though Michael Cavna has a nice roundup of editorial cartoons on the topic.However, here’s an oddity I came across while poking around in the archives to see how the Wall Street Bombing of 1920 was covered.Some of what I came across wasn’t terribly surprising. […]

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