Weekend Quick Hits – Comic Strips

Last month Kirk Walters and The Toledo Blade celebrated 30 years of Maumee Dearest, the local weekly comic strip.

This weekend the paper and the cartoonist looked back.

In 1988, a young cartoonist at The Blade named Kirk Walters submitted a multi-panel strip he’d drawn in the hope the paper would consider running it on the editorial page just once.
To his surprise — and delight — then-editor Bernard Judy ordered the strip published the very next day, thus launching a 30-year love affair between northwest Ohio and “Maumee Dearest.”

While later this month (June 19) Jim Davis‘ Garfield turns 40.

Ancient history:

Early 20th century cartoonist Ed Mack’s art found behind layers of wallpaper and paint.

Coming soon:

John Kovaleski reminds us that in two weeks Daddy Daze debuts.
Get your tickets now by calling your local paper and asking them to run it.

In just a couple of days you have a chance to get original cartoon and illustration art.

Charles Schulz, Chic Young, Rick Meyerowitz, Charles Addams, Ludwig Bemelmans, and more.

Sylvia cartoonist Nicole Hollander recalls her formative years in graphic memoir.

Nicole recalls her childhood for this article in anticipation of her appearance June 9 and 10 at the Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago.

What keeps Dan Piraro busy now that Wayno does the weekday lifting on Bizarro? He Paints.

Dan posted this adorable Zebraphant a month ago and I needed an excuse to post it.

And finally…about a month ago Tom Armstrong reworked his Sunday Marvin comic strip title panel. With newspapers these days printing half page format strips in one-tenth page size and quarter page formats being published six to a page (that’s mine), Tom has found a way to stand out.

The bold all-caps title always stood out but now, encased in that box, the logo really pops! Tom has a habit of changing things up so we’ll see how long this lasts but, for what it’s worth, I think it’s a keeper.