Schulz, the man who birthed the lovably hard-luck Charlie Brown, was known to have wrestled with self-doubt. Yet when it came to taking the reins of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” in 1965, the “Peanuts” creator was a thinker of unwavering confidence and cool-headed belief, his longtime screen collaborator and late producer Lee Mendelson — who […]
Christmas with Will Eisner, C. E. Mondfort, Joe Kubert, Walt Kelly, Bill Watterson, and many more. Newspaper cartoonists have been celebrating Christmas since The Nineteenth Century. We, however, will remain a bit closer to our times. In the comic book newspaper insert of the 1940s, commonly called The Spirit Section, Will Eisner regularly celebrated Christmas […]
You’ll note Santa’s helmet at the left. This banner was from 1944, 80 years ago, six months after D-Day and right in the heart of the Battle of the Bulge, which explains the light in the window at the right. The war was also in the heart of most comic strips on Christmas that year. […]
The Mail on Sunday’s peerless cartoonist Stan ‘Mac’ McMurtry has been chosen as an Oldie of the Year. Praised for ‘making news pages brighter by putting in a laugh’, 88-year-old Mac was selected for The Oldie magazine’s award, alongside former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman, also 88; film director Mike Leigh, 81; and actress Nanette Newman, […]
A mischievous cartoonist landing an invite to the White House? It could only have happened during the heyday of the daily comics page. Throughout the 1980s, a series of spirited young strips — including “Bloom County,” “Calvin and Hobbes,” “Cathy,” “The Far Side,” and “For Better or Worse” — together drew hundreds of millions of […]
Christmas Eve, that is. Not to be confused with the Turgenev novel, though his portrait of over-educated Russian intellectuals dithering around as the rest of Europe explodes in revolution seems sadly relevant at the moment. But we’ll get back to that, and, if we don’t, it will get back to us. As Fiona Katauskas says, […]
SuprDee Parson, Jack Davis, Bill Watterson, Liz Climo. Plus notable comic strip compilations for 2024 and an animation In Memorial for those we lost in 2024. ANDERSON, Ind. — The bonds and rivalries of three sisters are the focus of a comic strip that is now syndicated in newspapers around the country. The comic behind […]
Saturday’s Alley Oop held out the promise of an actual adventure. Monday’s Alley Oop hasn’t disabused me of that hope. We’ll see. I could very well be wrong, it wouldn’t be a first, but I think last week was the first full week of Slylock Fox dailies that had Scott Underwood co-signing with Bob Weber, […]
Wallace the Brave (AMS) and Spud the … um … the Spudacious … offer a holiday take that breaks through the usual seasonal noise. And speaking of noise, I’d rather have a couple of kids come by with an absurd but amusing rap than hear Musak at the store in which nameless singers flail at […]
Gag cartoonist Wayne Horne has passed away. Wayne Laverne Horne September 29, 1927 – December 21, 2024 From the obituary: Wayne Laverne Horne, a talented artist, cartoonist, and graphic designer, passed away peacefully on December 21, 2024, in Phoenix, Arizona, at the age of 97. Born on September 29, 1927, in Omaha, Nebraska, Wayne lived […]
Alexandra Bowman has announced ( Bluesky –Facebook – X/Twitter – LinkedIn ) that she has signed to have Cagle Cartoons distribute her political cartoons around the nation: Here’s the big news… I’ve signed with Cagle Cartoons, America’s largest editorial cartooning newspaper syndicate. Newspapers nationwide will have the opportunity to select and publish my work. Syndicate […]
There are scores of cartoons questioning who is the president, Donald or Elon, but I particularly like Jeff Stahler (AMS)‘s take because it suggests some sneakiness on Elon’s part, rather than a willing handover by Dear Leader. The way to get Musk out of government is not by direct demands. Trump hates being told what […]
Linda Finck on Saul Steinberg; Keith Knight on Little Victories; Michael Maslin on Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell; Walter Scott on criticism; Vincent Alexander on Rob Schribner; Brian Anderson on transitioning from comic strips to graphic novels. It feels wrong to describe Saul Steinberg’s work in words; it simply transcends them. Steinberg called himself “a writer who […]
I’m mixing political cartoons with humor today, and starting with a question: Does anybody really care about this issue anymore? Clay Jones isn’t the only left-of-center cartoonist to bring it up, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen anyone right-of-center whining about the whole “Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays” kerfuffle. I suppose maybe I have […]
British cartoonist Merrily Harpur has passed away. Merrily Harpur April 3 1948 – December 4 2024 From The Telegraph obituary: Merrily Harpur, who has died aged 76, was an illustrator, writer and poet, organiser of poetry and literary festivals – and an authority on big-cat sightings. She was best known as a freelance cartoonist with […]