Comic Strip Caravan
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Unfortunate Truths
An unfortunate truth from WuMo:
Background on lorem ipsum from Jack Shepard. Not to be confused with Charles Brubaker’s Lauren Ipsum.
On a related journalistic note from Susie MacNelly and Ben Lansing and Shoe:
The above comes with my repeated plea for GoComics to replace the Gary Brookins credit above the comic strip with Ben Lansing, the actually cartoonist on the strip for over four years now. Reminds me of those newspapers that still credit Judge Parker to Woody Wilson or Hagar the Horrible to Dik Browne or Alley Oop to Jack Bender or …
Another unfortunate truth, this about the world’s oligarchy from Sherman’s Lagoon by Jim Toomey.
Happy Happy Joy Joy
On to more cheerful content.
I was pleasantly surprised how Lincoln Peirce ended Valentine’s week for Big Nate. Starts here on Monday and ends on Saturday with an ending not often seen on the comics pages. Certainly not at The Duplex or with The Fusco Brothers. Maybe puppy love is the answer, as Brian Basset has it is working over at Red and Rover this past week too.
Speaking of Love – Do You Remember Love Is…?
Love Is is a syndicated comic strip that started in 1970 The comic strip [was] created by the New Zealand animator Kim Casali.
Eric C Productions presents a seven minute audio-visual history of the Love Is… panel by Kim Casali, Bill Asprey, and Stephano Casalli for Valentine’s Day.
Not quite as happy as the young’uns above but I was pleasantly surprised by Alexa Votruba’s note that GoComics and Tom Batiuk had added the entire Funky Winkerbean archives to their website.
I had no idea this had been added to GoComics, and couldn’t tell you when it happened.
Comic Strip Anniversaries in the News
The big comic strip news this past week was the 25th anniversary of the ending of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts.
…It’s also true that, while the most memorable Peanuts themes are emotionally complex and sophisticated—Charlie Brown’s chronic insecurities and Lucy’s utter lack of them; Linus’s precocious wisdom counterbalanced by his infantile attachment to a blanket and to the Great Pumpkin; the boundless imagination of a pet dog—a majority of Schulz’s strips rely on basic visual jokes that adhere to the traditional grammar of the comic strip medium. Charlie Brown blasting off the pitcher’s mound by a line drive; Snoopy lying flat on a tent, an igloo, or his owner’s bedstead; Violet confiscating her exact “half” of a snowman; Pig-pen’s personal cloud of dirt: week after week, month after month, year after year, the reassuring slapstick made the intermittent sequences of regret and rejection all the more poignant. Charles Schulz’s moral genius emerged, slowly and subtly, alongside his abilities as a master craftsman.
George Case at Quillette puts Peanuts in Perspective.
A 25th anniversary of a beginning rather than an ending.
Twenty-five years ago today, I posted my first comic on the Web. Greystone Inn first appeared on a GeoCities site on February 14, 2000.
On April 16, 2001, it began running in the Philadelphia Daily News. I self-syndicated the strip to other newspapers
Cartoonist Brad Guigar celebrates a Greystone Inn/Evil, Inc. silver anniversary with a history of his comics.
Whew! It’s been a busy 25 years!
Also Brad notes his Bluesky account:
If you follow me on Bluesky, you know I’ve been sharing memories from my career in comics for the last 25 days, counting down to today.
Which gives me an opening to note others who have recently joined the non-twitter world of Bluesky.
Rina Piccolo a week ago: “My 1st Bluesky post! Good day, fellow #Bluesky folks!”
Terry (Rex Morgan) Beatty from earlier this month:
Signed up on Bluesky — but have no idea what to do there, exactly. Just grabbing my spot, I guess. Left Twitter before it was X. No plans to leave FB, though I certainly find plenty to annoy me here.
Was going to upload them to our TDC Bluesky directory but either Alan or Mike has beat me to it.
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