Let’s start with some nonsense. The Walt Disney Company is about to do the unthinkable: retire Mickey Mouse. Inside the Magic reports that Disney is bringing The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse animated shorts to an end with tribute to The Mouse’s first short Steamboat Willie: Since 2020, Mickey Mouse has starred in the animated […]
Disney and animation historian Jim Korkis has passed away. James Patrick (Jim) Korkis August 15, 1950 – July 28, 2023 Mark Goldhaber reported the sad news today on Jim’s GoFundMe page: Friends, I am heartbroken to have to inform you that our friend Jim Korkis passed away this morning. He was unresponsive this morning at […]
In places like New York City, papers were sold to the masses at a penny a copy. Thus this era is called the Penny Press. It’s also the era of what was called Yellow Journalism. The term arose out of a battle between newspaper barons Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst about a comic strip […]
Scott Adams, Mario DeMarco, Jack Lindstrom, Jim Keefe, George Herriman, and the Warner Bros. cartoon studio of Chuck Jones, Michael Maltese, Maurice Noble, Ken Harris, Ben Washam, Lloyd Vaughn, et al. That Other Scott Adams Comic Strip A Butler Eagle reader advocates for the return of Scott Adams. While we can’t help with that we […]
The other day Mike Peterson noted that The Flying McCoys panel was in rerun status. That has led me to speculate on the possible cause. A year ago Glenn McCoy returned to the funny pages after a Hollywood sojourn. Then last month Glenn “abandoned” The Duplex, his last daily being March 18, 2023. That was […]
Joe Cool Type Cool From NBC News: The American Red Cross partnered with the popular Peanuts cartoon brand to create an exclusive T-shirt featuring Snoopy for people donating blood. Now, the shirt is going viral on TikTok and first-time blood donors are showing up to get their hands on the exclusive merch. The Red Cross […]
So you and I missed The Oscars. We can still experience it vicariously through the sketches of cartoonist Liza Donnelly. As MEAWW explains: Liza Donnelly, who started contributing to The New Yorker in 1979, has made her sixth visit to live-draw from the Oscars 2023. Donnelly made history in 2016 by being the first person […]
Morten Morland, a frequent Mike Peterson choice, has been named The Press Awards’ Cartoonist of the Year. Hat tip to Bado’s Blog for the notice and a Morland gallery. Dark Horse and Yoe Books Present “Cartoonists Against Racism: The Secret Jewish War on Bigotry” Cartoonists Against Racism tells the remarkable unknown story of how a […]
From 100 years ago is an article on the then-current comics scene from the February 1923 Vanity Fair. THE largest group, dealing with married life, reaches its lowest level of painfulness in the series “For Better For Worse”, by Tad, and perhaps its highest level in Briggs’ series “Mr. and Mrs”. It includes such varied […]
With the explosion of talkies in the late 1920s, movie studios looked to talent from the New York stage to write dialogue and musical numbers. Studios quickly found that the salaciousness typical of Broadway wouldn’t fly in other parts of the country. The Catholic Church was calling for a purification of cinema, and the movies […]
Bessie Mae Kelley, Kieran Castaño, Robert Ripley, Harry Bliss, Hergé Alex Jay took note of the Bessie Mae Kelley stories and dug up her vitals from birth: Bessie Mae Kelley was born Elizabeth Mae Kelley. The date of her birth is unclear: November 1889 in the 1900 United States Census; November 10, 1890, Minnesota Death […]
Hogan’s Alley and Tom Heintjes remind us that it was on this day, in a 1959 Peanuts Sunday comic strip, Linus first recited a passage from The Gospel of Luke. Six years later Linus’ expanded recital of Luke 2:8-14 would become a memorable part of A Charlie Brown Christmas. It almost didn’t happen but for […]
One hundred years ago there was one woman drawing and directing animated films. From animation historian Jerry Beck: In the earliest days of the animation industry, one woman animated and directed alongside the men who later became titans of the artform, yet her name and work have been lost – until now. The discovery of […]
Award Winning Cartoonists Kevin Necessary (1st Place) and Rich Williams (2nd Place) win 2022 cartooning awards from The Press Club of Cleveland for Ohio Excellence in Journalism. Mercer Mayer Media Publishers Weekly on author-illustrator Mercer Mayer‘s new multimedia deal. Mercer Mayer, author of 300 books including the long-running Little […]
The Evolving Art of Ruffling Feathers © Steve Nease Most newspapers had a full-time cartoonist on staff. Now, the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze. Steve Nease, one of Canada’s premier cartoonists, isn’t surprised. A lot of papers no longer run, not just his, but any cartoons. “Sometimes, it’s a cost-cutting matter,” he admits. Cartoonists aren’t […]