This past weekend’s Cartoon Crossroads Columbus was a celebration of not just comics but cartooning in all its many forms. One of the most vital of those forms is that of newspaper comics, and CXC held a spotlight panel on Saturday featuring some of the big names of that industry. Moderated by Shena Wolf, Director of Comics Development at Andrew McMeel Universal, the panel included Heathcliff cartoonist Peter Gallagher; Heart of the City creator Steenz; Flash Gordon writer/artist and Sally Forth artist Jim Keefe; and Where I’m Coming From creator Barbara Brandon-Croft.
Wolf noted how much syndication has changed over time, and asked how each panelist got into cartooning.
Gallagher said he’d always loved to draw, and comes from a cartooning family …
Steenz started on Heart of the City in April 2020, but said they’d been ‘steeped in comics’ for a long time …
Keefe spoke…about the Joe Kubert School, he realized there was somewhere he could actually learn to make comics, and his enrollment there led to his becoming a colorist for King Features …
Brandon-Croft…credited her father, Luther cartoonist Brumsic Brandon Jr., for ‘training’ her her whole life, from having her zip-a-tone his comics to filling in on lettering when he was injured.
John Grunenwald, for The Beat, covers the panel.