The Invention of the Mass Media, a Printing Revolution; Resizing Newspaper Comic Strips; The Tradition of Comic Art Satire; and Leo Baxendale. The Invention of Mass Media The Grolier Club’s The Second Printing Revolution: Invention of Mass Media exhibit ends in a week: This exhibition tells the story of the second printing revolution that took […]
Comic Strip News and Reviews. What comic is this? If I was shown just the above detail from one of this week’s comics I would never have guessed its origin. (Answer at the bottom.) Walt Wallet has fallen asleep during the church service this wee in Gasoline Alley and dreams of going to heaven. The […]
Comic Strip Roll Call: Dick Tracy, Molly and the Bear, Gil Thorp, Nancy, The Phantom, The New Adventures of Queen Vitoria, The Gumps, Mutt and Jeff, Gasoline Alley, Ignatz Mouse and Krazy Kat, Happy Hooligan, and The Yellow Kid in Hogan’s Alley.With Matthew K. Manning and Howie Noel‘s six week turn as guest creators on […]
Back when I was that age corporal punishment in schools was alive and well, at least in the religious school I attended, and a comeback like that would have sent me to the principal’s office for a meeting with “the board of education”; if not an immediate slap upside the head. A Public Service for […]
Future Funnies The Ghost Who Walks is back, this time, in a future that feels all too close. This week, Comics Kingdom launches Phantom 2040: A New Shadow—a brand-new webcomic that reimagines the world’s first costumed hero for the fractured year of 2040. If you know your comics history, you already know The Phantom’s pedigree: […]
There have been more than a few references to comic strips on the funny pages lately. As has always been the case, most recently shown in Back to B.C. when the art form meant more to newspapers than they presently do. The Back to B.C. reruns about comic strips started August 25 while the Barney […]
A True CrossoverStarting off this week is a true crossover. not just guest appearances. Sometime in the not-so-distant past Bob Scott, who lives in Southern California and whose comic strip Molly and the Bear appears on Andrew McMeel’s GoComics, got together with Deon Parson, who lives in Indiana and whose Rosebuds comic strip appears on […]
A selection of 4th of July comics strips from 2025 and 1925.
The Strange Case of Merlin’s World of Marvels This week saw Andrews McMeel Syndication (AMS) drop Merlin’s World of Marvels from their lineup. There is an amazing dearth of information about the feature. The Wayback Machine shows it was available from AMS since at least 2019, but an Andrews McMeel Universal pdf “fact sheet” shows […]
The Washington Examiner (I know, I know) published an article this morning by Mark Judge titled “Celebrating Superman’s Jewishness.” The writer begins with people doubting Superman’s Jewishness: Yet, in his origins, different names, and even his costume, Superman is a deeply Jewish creation. With a new Superman movie about to be released and American Jews […]
With the stock market, and more importantly GoComics, crashing we could use some laughs. Magic Bus Gracie gets on the bus that takes her to school. Too much the Magic BusHector D. Cantú and Carlos Castellanos offer an alternative reality in this past week’s Baldo.Reality Checking Reality CheckReality Check misses it by thaaat much. In […]
Starting out with… Proof of Publishment The twice weekly Olive & Popeye comic strip has been around since 2022, but now there is proof that it is being published in at least one newspaper via the King Features Weekly Service (KFWS). The Sidney (Nebraska) Sun-Telegraph comics page for their March 6, 2025 issue shows the […]
Breaking Cat People NewsTaking a break from breaking cat news is Breaking Cat News getting into breaking people news this week. People news involves those in control of our lives and governments, and Georgia Dunn goes there: Georgia leads off the comments by telling her readers why: For folks not loving a strip touching on […]
Friday on the comics page seemed to be a preview of National Cartoonists’ Day as a number of comic strips had guest appearances by other comic strip characters. Lio featured Snoopy, Over The Hedge guested Wednesday Addams, and Ziggy had Superman. Cartoonist Gary Varvel utilized a famed Charlie Brown image to represent the flurry of […]
Douglas Rodger saluted American workers with this Labor Day cartoon in the San Francisco News a century ago, but, in Chicago, my grandmother was involved in a different sort of labor, and I am rising to a point of personal privilege today.In those days, fathers were banished to the waiting room, and so in a […]