The Comic Strip Scene
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Basil and Monte Wolverton; Flash Gordon by Alex, Jim, Dan, and a bunch of others; public domain Popeye and Olive; a hint of next winter’s Doonesbury special art; plus actual comic strips and panels from this week.
Let’s start with the news for the indexers. This week sees the King Features Weekly Service dropping Dan Schkade‘s Flash Gordon Sunday recaps for a return to Jim Keefe‘s Sunday only Flash Gordon.
King Features Weekly Service (KFWS) switched from Jim Keefe Sunday reruns when the first run Dan Schkade Flash Gordon began in October of 2023. The first Schkade Sunday summary ran during the week of October 16, 2023 and has now ended with the week of March 30, 2025 after running through the Lowland Station story. This week of April 6, 2025* sees a return to the Jim Keefe Flash Gordon.
Neither Keefe nor Schkade will see an increase or a drop in income with the switch.
* Since newspapers run the KFWS on different days it is necessary to list publication dates as “the week of.” In this case I am following KFWS strips by way of The Pickens County Courier.
Before we leave Flash Gordon…
I’m curious how closely Schkade will follow The Caverns of Mongo storyline by Don Moore and Alex Raymond from 1935’s Flash Gordon.
The Wednesday Ziggy hit as more of a greeting card type than a gag type panel. It works as both. Check out the panels before and after the April 10th one, Tom Wilson II continues to frequently acknowledge that Ziggy is a cartoon.
Also going meta is Palurdeando by Guillermo Saldaña.
Is that a selfie of Guillermo?
As is readily apparent to anyone who has tried to get a syndicate to pick up their efforts – it ain’t easy.
Al Rozanski notes:
After failing to syndicate two comic strips in the 1990s, I rebooted my cartooning ambition in 2018 by drawing gag cartoons for domestic and international publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Saturday Evening Post, Reader’s Digest, Weekly Humorist, Alta, Woman’s World, The Oldie, The Phoenix, Accounting Today, and others. I also spend a limited amount of time doing freelance cartooning for logos, greeting cards, coloring books, etc.
Al gifts us with a gallery of some of his magazine gag cartoons.
As long as we’re digressing from comic strips let’s note editorial cartoonist Monte Wolverton paying tribute to his father Basil Wolverton with an end of times cartoon comparing Trump’s economic policy with the apocolypse of The Book of Revelations.
Monte acknowledges Dad’s inspiration the small print.
Trump was my first thought on reading today’s The Barn by Ralph Hagen though I’m sure that never entered Ralph’s mind when creating the comic strip weeks (months?) ago.
And Mason Mastroianni’s B.C. yesterday reminded me of the times after Trump 1 and before Trump 2.
Rob Harrell had me laughing out loud with his sibling rivalry in Adam @ Home.
I need to remember that for the next time I see my brother.
1929 Popeye and 1919-29 Olive Oyl are public domain. So…
For the first time, Popeye & Olive Oyl take on tarot’s legendary archetypes. Sailor’s Arcana is a full 78-card deck that stays true to classic tarot symbolism while capturing the humor, grit, and adventure of these beloved characters.
From Mindful Ape comes Sailor’s Arcana, a tarot deck featuring Popeye and Olive Oyl.
I’ll probably take some heat for this but I’m impressed by the artwork, tho I can find no identity for the artist. Anybody know who drew the cards?
Early Saranac Carnival news.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise reports that the 2026 Saranac Lake Winter Carnival theme will be “Cartoonival.”
The name is a combination of “cartoon” and “carnival.” Winter Carnival, which will be held on Feb. 6 through 15 next year, is set to be a celebration of all things animated — ink, cels, panels, word bubbles, hyperbole, — from “Calvin and Hobbes” to “Rick and Morty,” from “One-Punch” to “Steamboat Willy.”
[Carnival Committee Chair Jeff Branch] added that it would be a nice way to pay tribute to Saranac Lake native Garry Trudeau, who has been drawing the nationally syndicated newspaper cartoon “Doonesbury” for 55 years and designing Winter Carnival buttons since 1981.
Back where we started with Flash Gordon and Jim Keefe.
Jim Keefe informs fans that he has a short story in Flash Gordon Adventures Volume 2.
Cartoonists for Vol. 2 include: Art Baltazar, Franco Aureliani, John Patrick Green, Stan Sakai, Mike Cavallaro, Rich Koslowski, Dawn Griffin, Maria Scrivan, Rachel Ordway, Ryan Estrada, TEBO, Chris Giarrusso, Mike Kunkel, Jim Keefe, Alexis Fajardo and Alex Schumacher.
Comic strip afficionados will recognize Keefe, Maria Scrivan, Mike Kunkel, Art Baltazar, Stan Sakai, and others.
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