100 years ago this year.Covington native Robert Franc Schulkers published the first adventure of the “Fair & Square Boys Club”– as told by Gregory Hawkins, the club “seckatary” – on Feb. 3, 1918, in the Enquirer. At the height of its popularity, the newspaper serial and comic strip reached 10 million households and spawned 30 […]
Sally From Peanuts Made Me a Better TeacherSally, the younger sister of Peanuts’ Charlie Brown, did not perform well in school. She wrote reports the morning they were due. She failed multiple exams. As an overachieving child, I attributed her poor performance to laziness. But now that I’m an educator, I understand where she was […]
Earlier today one of the points of Mike’s column was the casual portrayal of same sex partnerships in the Bliss panel. Commenters at the GoComics page also noticed.I tried to pass on commenting, but can’t resist.As mentioned in the Bliss comments Bud Fisher‘s Mutt and Jeff have been doing the same bed thing for 100 […]
What is today’s Arlo and Janis? Is it an homage? An encomium? Or perhaps a panegyric to Ernie Bushmiller’s 1969 (below) Labor Day Comic. Whatever you may call it, Jimmy Johnson has done it and now it belongs to the world.www.gocomics.com/arloandjanisInteresting to note, that new Nancy creator Olivia Jaimes has also turned in an “I’m […]
I don’t think you could have a better Labor Day commentary than this Clay Bennett cartoon.It could have run just about any time in the past year and a half, because Trump repeatedly takes credit for things that haven’t happened or that he had nothing to do with.But Trump has been particularly vocal lately in […]
Today’s installment of “Hi and Lois” features a remembrance of its co-founder Mort Walker (with Dik Browne). The strip (currently done by Mort’s sons Brian and Greg) is a nice tribute to the cartooning great as we approach what would have been his 95th birthday on September 3rd.See the strip here.
above: the first four Alley Oop comic strips, December 5 – 8, 1932. The Alley Oop comic strip began on December 5, 1932 from the small Bonnet-Brown Syndicate. above: the last Bonnet-Brown strip, April 24, 1933The strip ended abruptly on April 24, 1933 with the bankruptcy of Bonnet-Brown. The strip disappeared for four months, during which […]
Non Sequitur leads us off with this concise history of Labor Day and how it almost worked and then pretty much fell apart, though he applies the principle that history is written by the victors, so it seems, on the surface, to have a happy ending.I blame George Westinghouse, the son of a bitch who […]
Animator/cartoonist Paul Carlson has passed away. PAUL WAYNE CARLSON DECEMBER 27, 1932 – AUGUST 22, 2018 Paul got his start in the animation business at the Walt Disney studio on Lady and the Tramp, filling in the drawings between the animator’s key drawings, a position known in industry parlance as an inbetweener. He contributed to Frank […]
More letters celebrating the obvious greatness of comics (and puzzles). This time it’s from The Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record.From the letter:That’s almost enough to make me drop my subscription, but the comics page and puzzles are still pretty good and probably worth the price. Besides, those diversions keep me occupied so I can’t focus […]
Brigham Young University professor Kerry Soper has released another book on the career and influence of a significant cartoonist of the 20th Century. His most recent subject is Gary Larson of “The Far Side” fame (joining Garry Trudeau and Walt Kelly).From the promotional notes on Amazon:In this first full study of Larson’s art, Soper follows […]
Bumped to the top and updated.Jack and Carole bid farewell in what, for the moment at least, is the last Alley Oop panel. Read the entire final Bender daily strip at GoComics.Carole says Goodbye on her Facebook page –Doing Alley Oop is a dream job we were lucky to have, but make no mistake about it, […]
One of these women is turning 94 today and the other is my great-granddaughter and thus her great-great-grandaughter.So, in honor of the occasion, here are some cartoons my grandfather might have read in the newspaper when he wasn’t pacing the floor on September 1, 1924, which is what expectant fathers did in those days.(Editor’s note: […]
After shutting down the print edition September 2017, now the online Village Voice is shuttered.Three years after buying The Village Voice, and a year after the paper shut down its print edition, owner Peter Barbey told the remaining staff today that the publication will no longer be posting any new stories. Barbey said that half […]
Writing to the editor of the (Tucson) Arizona Daily Star, reader Clifford Schneider offers a common-sense solution for what’s ailing newspapers.From the letter: The comics section of the Daily Star is undeniably the most important part of the paper. So why do I so often have to search for it as a mere attachment to […]