E&P reports that this Friday Pajama Diaries cartoonist Terri Libenson is scheduled to take part in the Washington Post’s live chat this Friday at 1 p.m. eastern time.

The National Museum of Health and Medicine recently opened “Cartoonists Take Up Smoking,” an exhibit showing over 55 original editorial cartoons on the topic of smoking.  The exhibit is part of a traveling show that was first unveiled in Kentucky but has also been on display in Seattle, Tscaloosa, and Birmingham.

The Detroit Free had a blurb Sunday that I missed, but it goes something like this – Cathy Guisewite’s Cathy is on vacation until August 6 and the Free Press will run Pajama Diaries as a temporary replacement.  Mark Tatulli’s Lio has gained a permanent place in the Freep taking the place of A Doctor, a Lawyer & a Cop.

In a unusual offer, Ted Rall has announced on his blog that he will be auctioning off all the original artwork (99 full comic pages) of his upcoming book “Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East.”The auction runs now through July 22 and has a minimum bid of $4,500 (or $10,000 if the auction runs after July 22.  Visit his web site for more information.

It will include the complete collection of Katrina cartoons and my Pulitzer portfolio from this year, plus lots of old favorites….  The book should be out sometime in September.If there are any cartoons you’d like to see, let me know.

After six months of battling it out in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Mark Pett‘s Lucky Cow spot has been made permanent.  Back in January, the Post-Dispatch informed readers that it was going to test four new features and ask for feedback on which one should stay.  The other features (and in the order of their popularity after Lucky Cow are: Brevity, Candorville, and Brewster Rockit.

Gary Varvel, editorial cartoonist for the Indianapolis Star, now maintains a blog and as done so since May.  A belated welcome to the blogosphere!

Mad Magazine cartoonist Sergio Aragones will visit the Ojai Library at 3:30 p.m. Friday to share cartooning hints and tips.The free event is part of a monthlong summer “amigos” program at the library, 111 E….  For more information, call 646-1639.

Tony Cochran has made it official: Agnes is a Catholic.  Agnes recently graced the cover of a Catholic publication, Our Sunday Visitor, (June 25th edition) as well as a two pages story inside regrading the spiritual heritage of her humor.

News-Tribune and Cagle Cartoons.Lester drew Uncle Sam holding a copy of the Times that featured a front page with the headline “All the Treason Fit to Print” and the subhead “U.S. Anti-Terror Program: Details Inside.”… He added that the letter that “really gave me second thoughts” was from former Democrat Publisher Carrol Dadisman, who wrote: “In more than 50 years of various responsibilities for newspapers and editorial pages, I’ve defended a lot of editorial cartoons.

I will not be updating the site today in observance of Independence Day.  I’ll resume posting tomorrow.

Two staffers with the “For Better or For Worse” team recently attended the Licensing International trade show in New York City (June 20-22) to promote the Patterson family – the main characters for Lynn Johnston’s comic strip.  According to the “For Better or For Worse” blog, this is the second year they’ve attended the show to “build alliances between companies and the Patterson Family.”While the news blog doesn’t mention the connection, I wonder if an example of these “alliances” is the news back in January that the For Better of For Worse characters would be used by the Canadian Securities Administrators to help people teach people about investing and saving.

Bruce Tinsley’s “Mallard Filmore” has been removed from the Statesman-Journal (Salem, OR) in favor of Scott Stantis’ “Prickly City.”…  But Michelle Maxwell, the Life editor, kindly provided this explanation of the decision:Mallard Fillmore topped our list of the comic readers most disliked.

Pat Oliphant’s sculpture, “George Bush” will be an exhibit item in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, which opened last Saturday….  The story is available online (registration may be required) and the photo of his sculpture is also available along with the story.

As a result, new features were added: Pickles, Mother Goose & Grimm, Prickly City, Stone Soup and Non Sequitur and several were dropped: Cathy, Gasoline Alley, Pardon My Planet, Frank & Ernest, Herman, Marmaduke, Baldo, The Middletons and Mallard Fillmore.Regarding the dropping of Mallard Filmore, the opinion page editor explained:We ink-stained wretches of the Opinion page hold no influence over choice of the comics, alas….  The same cannot be said for Mallard Fillmore, which had a small amount of people who listed it as their favorite.The comics page also got resized to accommodate the change in paper size, “The newspaper will be printed at a narrower width, which will make it a more convenient size.”