After nearly 36 years Sandra Bell-Lundy has decided to ease up on the daily deadline. Beginning March 1, 2026 Between Friends changed its status to new Sundays and, beginning March 2, 2026, rerun dailies. From King Features Editorial Director Amy Anderson: Between Friends has long resonated with newspaper readers because of its honest, character-driven look […]
Visiting: Alex Hallat at Jason Chatfield’s place; Sandra Bell-Lundy goes Inside the Kingdom with Alex Garcia; Cathy Guisewite stops by Brad Guigar and Dave Kellett’s ComicsLab; plus Jack Kirby at Yancy Street and Will Henry in Snug Harbor.Drawing with Alex and JasonAlex (Arctic Circle) Hallatt and Jason (Ginger Meggs) Chatfield spend an entertaining hour discussing […]
Sandra Bell-Lundy has been cartooning Between Friends for 35 years and most of us have thought it was the only comic strip she has done during that time, but there was a four week period when she created a full-page weekly strip for a couple of Canadian broadsheets. It was what comic book fans would […]
Comedy today, but starting with a bit of political humor that makes a point about cartooning as well as Lindsey Graham’s splendiferous rewriting of history.His remark was so ridiculous that I wanted to twist his words by suggesting confusion between “kiss” and “kick,” but it’s hard to phrase it in a way that doesn’t either […]
(Mr. Boffo)(Adam@Home)The pairing here is an artistic juxtaposition, “artistic” in the broad sense, not just of the graphics but of the total piece.With Mr. Boffo, the gag works because we see the scene and anticipate a logical conversation before we read the absolutely ridiculous dialogue, which then touches off a response to all the times […]
A peek behind the scenes to explain why I love Between Friends.The above is yesterday’s strip, part of an ongoing arc about Maeve’s crush on the barista in her office building. It’s been kind of silly, but that’s within boundaries, because Maeve’s love-life is always inadvisedly directed, sometimes in silly ways, sometimes in disastrous ones. But it did […]
Sandra Bell Lundy breaks through the moldy Mother’s Day cartoons with this Between Friends salute to non-average moms.Obviously, it helps that she had already created a non-average parental situation which had previously addressed a real-life issue, rather than simply settling into the Mom-Dad-Bud-and-Sis pre-fab cartoon model.My feed is full of strips that offer up gags […]
(Baby Blues) (Between Friends)I’ve wanted to ratchet things down a bit here without re-introducing the Lenten Political Fast, and how better than to start the week with a Juxtaposition of Warm Parental Feelings from each end of the process.As often as you might say, “Oh, I wish this moment could last forever,” I was always interested […]
One of the fundamental philosophies here (obviously) is that a good cartoon makes you think beyond the few seconds it takes to read it. Whether or not you actually “laugh out loud,” there’s some element of the piece that you identify with or it doesn’t work at all.Between Friends, for instance: I sometimes envy people […]
Between Friends is right at the head of the line among strips that sometimes get it so right that the humor sort of fades into the background and the response is “yeah.”Not “Yeah” and certainly not “Yeah!” but just … yeah.Lovely timing, because not 24 hours ago, I unfollowed — not “unfriended,” but close enough […]
Let’s lead off with some non-political short takes. Monty is particularly well-timed for me, because I was streaming the Sopranos yesterday while I did dishes, and I have to say, people in that show sure got a lot of phone calls.About the fourth time I wiped my hands and reached for my pocket, it occurred […]
I start each day here with a relatively clean slate, but it’s impossible not to anticipate things a bit.Sometimes it’s as direct as a cartoon posted late in the day to which my response is, “Well, it’s gonna take a lot tomorrow morning to push THAT one off the page.”And sometimes it’s less specific.I came out […]
We’ll start today with a David Horsey “Throwback Thursday” panel from 1994, mostly to spare me from trying to pick from among the flood of Indian/immigrant gags that come along this time of year.Not that they aren’t relevant under the current circumstance, but given the gap between what we say we believe in and what […]
This was an exceptionally good day on the comics page, full of doubles and triples and not a few home runs, so let me do a quick NPR rant and say that, if you don’t have a Comics Kingdom and/or GoComics account, well, you’re missing out on supporting some good work, even if you are […]
For a season, and a day, dedicated to rebirth, there sure were plenty of “boy am I old” cartoons today.We’ll ease into this with Between Friends, which is a fairly gentle parent-child-tech gag.(It also, I think, fits today’s topic as a subtle shift in age for Emma. Sandra Bell Lundy periodically nudges her characters forward […]