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Cartoonists Top The Social Scale

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Ripley’s Believe It or Not details the hierarchy of artists and Kieran Castaño shows, by drawing four claws, that cartoonists are in The Upper Class.

Well. maybe not all of them:

Cartoonists working on the Super-Fun-Pak Comix, edited by Ruben Bolling, are from a more common class.

Along with (some) cartoonists the Prince of Thule is definitely upper class who would never allow the adventures portraying his life to be degraded to gore status. Perhaps he has lost control of his biography.

Throughout Prince Valiant‘s many battles warriors have frequently been “run through” but the exit wounds were always tastefully off-panel, until now.

Is this the first time a piercing has been shown entering and exiting in a Prince Valiant Sunday page?

Were the Comics Code Censors asleep at King Features? Will we have to convene a Senate subcommittee?

Okay, maybe violence and gore are allowed, but blood as part of a natural biological process!!?? Surely not.

Our little Heart of the City is growing up. Is this another first?

There had to be major conferences between Steenz and her Andrews McMeel editors over this week-long (two-weeks?) story and how they would be presenting it. I’m also guessing that newspaper editors were notified about the story. I’m also guessing there will be letters of outrage to the editors running the story.

By the way – good on you Steenz and AMS.

Meanwhile in Tracyville…

Obviously Dick Tracy is, and always has been, based in Chicago though the strip itself has never admitted it. Ironically the Tribune Tower depicted in both of the strips above is now Tribune Tower Residences and is now a Monument to Journalism’s Past.

The new story is again by “guest writer” Eric Costello while Mike Curtis continues to battle health issues.

Lalo Alcaraz spoofs a popular Mexican game in what could be a Cartoonist for Kamala La Cucaracha page.

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Comments 6

  1. The comics code was for comic books, since those were “kiddy” fare. I get really annoyed when strips like Over the Hedge mention compliance. Comic strips are governed only by the editor’s sense of propriety.

  2. Longtime Dick Tracy cartoonist Dick Locher shared stories with his colleague and writer Michael Kilian and me about working in a top floor Tribune Tower studio with Jeff MacNelly back in the day. “Best views in the city and had to be the highest rent,” he said in the late 1990s. And one reason why two of the nation’s best cartoonists lost their lease to higher paying professional tenants. Tribune Company leased space to news organizations like the Washington Post, CNN, advice columnists and even a barbershop. As editor of international syndication 1994-99, we occupied the 14th and 15th floors at at Tribune Media Services. My son enjoyed looking for the hidden escape from the Tribune boardroom. Certainly some meeting attendees long after Col. McCormick wished they could use it.

    1. The barbershop didn’t have an official lease, instead Alfred got free rent in exchange for executives haircuts (We learned about this after a chewing out for including the barbershop on a floorplan update).

      One day he was just gone; rumored to have argued politics with the wrong suit.

  3. In this week’s series, which is a prologue to the story proper, there are indeed a number of Chicago-based sites referenced, and you’re correct in noting Tribune Tower in that first panel. (And it’s Chicago Union Station, and the former Continental Illinois Bank building in the other two panels.) Today’s strip (10/23) is based partially on a shot from Citizen Kane, and partially on before-and-after photos of the United Artists theater in Detroit.

  4. Greg Evans “Luanne” had Luanne address getting her first period back in 1991. I remember reading the comics at breakfast that morning and thinking, ” Wow. That’s pushing the envelope a bit…” ( It WAS pretty groundbreaking for 1991).

    In an interview on the Andrew’s McMeel site, Evans shares the following:

    To keep newspaper editors calm, I had to avoid the words “period” and “menstruation.” So, I used a gimmick: When Luann tells Bernice the big news, she says, “I got my … (.)” Still, I was flooded with mail. Some critical (“The comic page is no place for such a topic!”) to supportive (“As a school nurse, I thank you. So many girls have no idea what’s happening to them.”). Letters like that go in the “Best Thing About Being a Cartoonist” file.

    1. Very much appreciate the information Rev.

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