How on earth did we get here? Robert Ariail notes the positive messages of past presidents, contrasting them with Trump’s declaration that we’ve become a “garbage can.” But how many times can you marvel over how, in the past, such-and-such an action would have ended a political career but those rules don’t apply to Donald […]
Below are the title panels of the Sunday Dennis the Menace comic strips for October. One is not like the others. “That’s different!” was my reaction to seeing today’s Dennis the Menace, and the difference continued beyond the title panel with the absence of those muted pastels of the past few years. Then toward the […]
Chef and cartoonist Phil “Bunk” Griffin has passed away. Philip M. (Bunk) Griffin June 17, 1940 – October 16, 2024 From the family obituary: A lifelong resident of [Saranac Lake], he was by professional cook, having worked in The Dew Drop Inn, Tyson’s, The Mar-Mac, and finished out his career at the Adirondack Medical Center, […]
This Buckets (AMS) is as close to the Washpo/LATimes thing as I’m getting today. As I wrote yesterday, I’m impressed that the Post has allowed so much pushback from staff, so it’s pretty clear that nobody in the front office feels they speak for the CEO. OTOH, I’m somewhat confounded by all the calls not […]
V. T. Hamlin’s Alley Oop; Bob Chambers’ Halifax; Pogo’s letterers Walt Kelly, George Ward, and Henry Shikuma; and a couple cartoonist self-portrait galleries. Sunday Adventures in History with Alley Oop Alley Oop portrays the exploits of a time-traveling caveman (yes, you read that correctly). The comic, which has been running since 1932, was created by […]
Billy Ireland & Jenny Robb, Marshall Ramsey, Ernie Bushmiller, Ward Sutton & Stan Kelly, Paul Gilligan, and Mort Walker, Bill Hoest, & Bil Keane. Chillicothe, Columbus, and the World — A boy who grew up in Chillicothe and then worked for the Columbus Dispatch to became a world-famous cartoonist was part of the focus of […]
There have been a number of cartoons responding to Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos having spiked an endorsement for Kamala Harris, many of them playing on the Post’s motto “Democracy Dies in the Dark.” Ann Telnaes gets the top spot in part because she works there and her cartoon joins with 16 Washington Post columnists […]
Cartoonist Charles Fredrick has passed away. Charles Wright Fredrick November 3, 1942 – October 4, 2024 From the obituary: Charles attended Springfield, Missouri schools, graduating from Parkview in 1960, before heading to Texas to attend Baylor University and graduating in 1964. The beginning of his adult work life took him for brief stints in federal […]
It is late October in The Year of Our Lord 1968, a Presidential Election year. The election is two weeks away and Walt Kelly, as is his wont, has decided to satirize American politics. Kelly’s subject is third party outlier George Wallace, most famous for his performance of blocking a schoolhouse door in 1963 to […]
We’ll get to knaves and fools in a minute, but first a salute to unintentional genius, as The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee (KFS) magically riffs on the McDonald’s e coli outbreak despite having been scripted and drawn well before it happened. Sometimes the Fates smile and make you look really smart, but, alas, there […]
Auctions featuring original comic and cartoon art and comic books. Occasionally a comic book collection of immense value goes public. Such is the case up Mike Peterson way. From Seven Days last month: Following the death in April of Vermont comic book retailer and collector Christine Farrell, her legendary collection is about to go up […]
Featuring Bianca Xunise, Chip Beck, Alan Hardman, Eli Valley, Patrick McDonnell, Herblock, Larry Todd, Matt Wuerker, Ann Telnaes, Michael Ramirez, Pedro Molina, Vladimir Kazanevsky and Rachita Taneja. Bianca Xunise is the Ignatz Award-winning author of comics including GothThrob, Imaginary Boyfriends, Keep Out, and Say Her Name. She is one of the authors of the daily […]
I don’t know the lead time for Prickly City (AMS), but it’s been a very long time since Harris began a whirlwind of appearances and interviews. There was a fair amount of whining from the Usual Suspects that she wasn’t sitting for interviews with them, but she’s hardly been invisible. What I will grant is […]
Palestinian artist/cartoonist Mahasen al-Khateeb died in an Israeli airstrike in Jabalia on October 18. She was 32. Mahasen was a popular digital illustrator, storyboard artist, and character designer for domestic and international clients. Two weeks before the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, she had opened a private studio. During the Israeli response, she lost […]
President Joseph R. Biden presented the 2022 and 2023 National Humanities Medals, in conjunction with the National Medals of Arts, on Monday, October 21, 2024, in a private ceremony at the White House. The 19 distinguished medal recipients include writers, historians, educators, and filmmakers. And a cartoonist! Cartoonist and author Roz Chast was among those […]