Today’s comics provided a cascade of health-related juxtapositions to write about, starting with Candorville (which happens to be a rerun, but it’s a really good rerun) and, yes, exactly, Lemont.And this is a good argument for having kids before you’re too old to get down on the floor with them and disappear into their world, […]
I’m not feeling blabby today, so here are some strips from a half century ago. I’ve cleaned them up a bit but, of course, there are limits to what you can do. There are also limits to what you can figure out about a strip when you drop in on a random date for a […]
The other day, I belittled comic book collecting and other speculative bubbles, and now comes the Blabbing Baboon to make the excellent point that, as long as buyers believe in the value, value exists. As it happens, when I went through my (mercifully shorter) period of unemployment seven years ago, I sold off the bulk […]
I think the place to start this foray back into politics is with Prickly City, because the biggest issue facing the country is not who’s right or who’s wrong but the incredible divisions growing between us.And we shouldn’t pass it off with a shrug and “they all do it.””They’re trying to kill me,” Yossarian told […]
The joke here is that, if I had used pen-and-ink instead of doing this on the computer, the results, given my artistic skills, would be pretty much the same.The point is more serious, though only my opinion and perhaps more of a kvetch than a critique. The old guys in the backshop at one of my […]
Since Jim Horwitz posted Watson’s tribute to the Phantom yesterday afternoon, I’ve been on a nostalgia trip almost as directionless and disjointed as the strip itself.I’m not even clear on whether “directionless and disjointed” is criticism or simply an accurate description of Lee Falk’s strip, which not only pioneered the costumed superhero genre — appearing before […]
Valentine’s Day seems to have gang aft a bit aglee this year, with so many strips saluting endangered or destroyed relationships that I can only feature a few, starting with Luann, who appears to have cut things off with her Aussie.I say “appears” because she also “appears” to be jumping the gun and assuming things […]
The John Locher Award has a new website and an expanded criteria for eligibility that includes graphic journalists and web cartoonists. Application for the award is now free. For full eligibility details, visit the new site. Entry deadline is April 15.
As this Lenten avoiding-political-cartoons things progresses, I’m finding how hard it is to draw the line, not simply because so many strips specifically include politics, but because even the ones that don’t — like today’s Daddy’s Home — take on a political spin when your feed is suddenly full of conspiracy theories based on Scalia’s […]
Tank McNamara’s “Sports Jerk of the Year” awards are one of my favorite annual events, but, when I was thinking of potential nominees, Sepp Blatter never crossed my mind.I think the reason for that is that I don’t think of his style of corruption as being part of “sports” so much as being part of […]
While I’m adjusting to apolitical weekdays, here are a pair of worthy publications I’ve been meaning to review.Ed Stein’s Sleeper Avenue is a sometimes sweet, sometimes slightly biting, memoir of growing up a half century ago, and he’s gathered his stories into a book format.I was looking back in my archives for a sample from a […]
I doubt anyone but Clay Jones would have had a Scalia cartoon ready by this morning. Not sure when he sleeps, but it doesn’t seem to be in any particular pattern.The GOP took the lead in demanding respect for the dead and simultaneously using it as one more political ploy, and their announced plan to […]
Okay, I’m not this cynical about Valentine’s Day, and it’s not an entirely made-up holiday like Mother’s Day, or Father’s Day, though all three are based on marketing and guilt.But saying you’re not as cynical as Rat still leaves you with a fair amount of wiggle room, and it makes no difference how you feel […]
Lent is arriving a couple of days late here, but that’s okay, because I’m feeling like the fellow in today’s Pros & Cons.Unlike him, the problem isn’t boredom but rather a lot of unproductive stress. However, it leads to a debilitating sense of anomie that I think can exhibit as either rage or lassitude depending on the […]
Scott Stantis on the results in New Hampshire, and the general demise of Hillary Clinton’s “inevitability.” I love her facial expression, and — issues of whether carriage wheels have tires aside – I’m intrigued by the sickle he chose as the tool of deflation.Communism? Or the more basic symbol of peasantry, from which the communists borrowed it?Either […]