A Visit to Planet Koren – a photo comic
Paul Karasik joined James Sturm and Glynnis Fawkes who all paid a visit to Curtis Koren and the Ed Koren archives and reported the visit to The New Yorker in what we Americans call a fumetti (photo comic) format.
A wonderful look at Ed Koren art and artifacts.
Which brings up: See Anyone You Know? The New Yorker Cartoons and Covers of Edward Koren
The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is thrilled to present See Anyone You Know? The New Yorker Cartoons and Covers of Edward Koren , a retrospective honoring one of The New Yorker’s most iconic cartoonists. Opening on November 20, 2024, and running through May 4, 2025, this exhibit offers visitors a journey through Edward Koren’s captivating world of distinctive hirsute and anthropomorphic creatures and insightful takes on human nature that have charmed audiences for over five decades.
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Timelapse painting of a Wallace the Brave Sunday comic using watercolor and ink
Watch Will Henry applying colors to a Wallace the Brave Sunday page.
Will Henry was asked how long the two minute video actually took:
This was about 5 hours. It takes a bit longer when I’m trying to film it.
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nerdiness and the importance of single-panel comics
Jeff Grabmeier for Ohio State News reviews Michelle Ann Abate‘s new book, Singular Sensations: A Cultural History of One-Panel Comics in the United States, paying particular attention to The Far Side chapter:
Abate said Larson’s aesthetic style defied a longstanding trend in American newspaper comics. Much of the emphasis has been on making the case for comics as fine art. And indeed, many cartoonists, especially graphic novelists, are known for the beauty and skill behind their incredible artwork. But Larson’s drawing is intentionally unflattering and awkward.
Singular Sensations examines an array of popular one-panel comics from the 1890s through the present day. In addition to her discussion of “The Far Side,” she has chapters on political cartoons, comics from The New Yorker, “The Family Circus,” “The Yellow Kid,” “Little Lulu,” the groundbreaking series “Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger” by Jackie Ormes, “Ziggy,” and “Bizarro.”
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AI Hallucinations vs AI BS vis-a-vis Albert the Alligator
The photo above depicts one of my favorite cartoon characters: Albert the Alligator. Albert is featured in the comic strip Pogo, created by veteran Disney animator Walt Kelly.
What does Albert have to do with the fact that AI hallucinates? And how can my love of this cartoon character help you understand whether ChatGPT is hallucinating or simply trying to bull**** you with poor research and lazy outputs?
Read on, True Believer. The answer may surprise you.
David Recine at Elevate AI Coaching teaches us how to, well, coach AI to get the right responses using his knowledge of Walt Kelly’s Albert the Alligator to call BS on the prompted AI to inform him about Albert.
… As a giant nerd who has read all the Pogo comics multiple times, I can tell you that Albert the Alligator never has said and never will say these so-called “catch phrases”. What do those last two even mean?! At this point, ChatGPT is clearly hallucinating. It’s whimsical stuff a four year old might say if they saw a picture of Albert, and imagined they knew what kinds of things he’d say.
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You Don’t Know Schulz About Peanuts
Good grief! I can hardly believe it.
“You Don’t Know Peanuts: The Untold Stories,” a new podcast from The Press Democrat, produced with Peanuts Worldwide LLC, is live…
Yes, after a year of writing and development, meetings and drafts and test-recording sessions — not to mention months of low-key secrecy and below-the-radar planning — we are finally ready to tell the world that our “Peanuts” podcast, the first ever officially sanctioned by Peanuts Worldwide, is live.
David Templeton of The Petaluma Argus-Courier tells us about a brand-new authorized podcast about cartoonist Charles M. Schulz and the Peanuts gang.
The podcast is a blend of conversation, fun facts, fan correspondence and, as our subtitle suggests, little-known behind-the-scenes stories of the people, places and historic events at the heart of what we believe is the greatest comic strip of all time.
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POPEYE: First Look At “Raunchy And Gory” Horror Take On The Classic Comic Strip Character Revealed
Yes, there’s a horror movie based on Popeye the Sailor (Man) on the way, and we have a first look at the project via a series of promo stills…
Yes, on January 1, 2025 Segar’s 1929 version of Popeye becomes public domain and there is already a film in the can using the character in a horror movie. Mark Cassidy at FearHQ has a few details.
The success of the recent low-budget Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey has led to a number of classic animated tales being given a horror makeover, and Popeye is the latest beloved character to be turned into a bloodthirsty killer for an upcoming indie project.
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The Ed/Op Page: The Department of Government Efficiency at 72
While at Ohio State and The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum we stumbled across Paul R. Carmack:
Caitlin McGurk from four years ago profiles editorial cartoonist Paul R. Carmack and includes the above cartoon from January 1953 about an earlier D.O.G.E.
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Sundays With Mike: Useless Trivia–Sunday Funnies edition!
Among the many fond memories of my early years were the Sunday morning newspapers. This was when newspapers were big and thick–even during the weekdays. But on Sundays, many Americans spent their entire days combing through large papers with numerous special sections…
But, for yours truly, the best part of the Sunday paper was the comics section. Each Sunday, I couldn’t wait to pour through the exploits of “Dick Tracy,” “Peanuts,” “Blondie,” “Garfield,” “Funky Winkerbean,” “Li’l Abner,” and so many others.
In that light, the golden age of newspaper comics is the subject of the latest edition of…Useless Trivia!!!
You know how this works by now. I’ll give you multiple choice questions, and you have to come with the answer.
Mike Peterson at KMALand offers up a comic strip quiz.
No, not our Mike Peterson. The quiz is much too easy for our Mike Peterson. Our Mike Peterson would ask you to name all the characters in our feature image drawn by Herb Cook of the Dayton Daily News in 1928:
