Mike Manley, Tony DePaul and The Phantom crew, David Fitzsimmons, Brian Gable, and Cartoonist Rights Network.
A Mike Manley health update.
Mike Manley explains that he will need more intrusive surgeries:
This whole roundabout of colliding health issues has revealed that my heart is an actually pretty bad shape even though I have never suffered any issues with it, other than hypertension which I’ve had since I was in my 20s. But it appears that I have several major blockages.
That means that the exploratory surgery the other day revealed that they were not just going to be able to fix them with stents, and they’re actually going to have to do what they call CABG. Were they basically harvest arteries from your body and stitch them on basically bypassing the occluded, bad veins or arteries…
In the latest update Mike reveals the operation(s) will take place in January of 2024.
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Tony DePaul on The Phantom artistic merry-go-round:
On Phantom matters, we struggle on. The subset of you who give a hoot already know we’ve had three different artists on the denouement of the Wrack and Ruin series…
My friend Mike Manley’s been in & out of the hospital. There’s more to come from what I hear. Not good…
Jeff Weigel, my partner on the Sunday strip, stepped in to save the day for us on the daily narrative…
Mike with the diabetes, cardiac issues, me with the cancer, Bret with a broken wing that’s still mending (we’re lucky it wasn’t his drawing arm)…
On the new story set to begin soon, you’ll see Bret Blevins on the strip full time.
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Prepare yourself to be heartbroken by what’s coming for those seeking a new life here during an election cycle in which they will be vilified and dehumanized.
In the 18th century when the first waves of famine driven Irish came here, my immigrant ancestors were depicted in newspaper cartoons as vermin, as baboons and chimps, drunken thugs, lazy ignorant disease-carrying addle-brained slack-jawed apes.
David Fitzsimmons describes other times of immigrants being dehumanized for political purposes.
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Nearly every day, The Globe published an editorial cartoon. Around 8,000 of those cartoons were drawn by Brian Gable. After 35 years of drawing cartoons for The Globe, Brian Gable has retired.
Today, we talk to Brian about the complicated art of political cartoons, how he does it, who his favourite people have been to draw, and why he thinks we need editorial cartoons in today’s world.
A short (20 minutes) audio interview with editorial cartoonist Brian Gable.
On cartoons over prose editorial: “The image goes right straight into your brain.”
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Yes, we know.
Your favorite children’s hospital, your local food bank, and your family’s holiday gifts have depleted your charity budget, but…
Maybe find a few bucks for the Cartoonists Rights December Pledge Drive. More at Comics DC.
feature image © Matt Wuerker and Cartoonist Rights