Industry news for the professional cartoonist
Last night, a whole bunch of cartoons suddenly became, if not obsolete, at least blunted. For instance, Joe Heller (Ind) was absolutely right that, given the financial pressure on people impacted by the pandemic, a relief payment of $600 was ludicrous, if not insulting, but possibly both. He wasn’t the only cartoonist to say…
It used to be a tradition this time of year to break the fourth wall and wish readers a Merry Christmas, these being some examples by classic strips back in 1925. I didn’t see many examples today, though it may be that, come next Friday, more cartoonists will do that. It’s a clumsy situation…
Harry Bliss, who lives about 20 miles south of here, cites 40 inches of snow from yesterday’s morning dump, and I got a laff over his having bought JD Salinger’s home and then joking about having to dig himself out. Salinger wasn’t a hermit — he came into town and was sociable enough — but…
Clay Jones (Ind) strikes the right note on the ridiculous question of whether people deserve the titles they’ve earned. Spoiler: Yes. Plenty of people have noted that the term “dottore” was applied to educators before it was applied to physicians. For that matter, it was applied to educators before there was such a thing as…
Reply All (WPWG) speaks for me, though even in a virus-free world, I wouldn’t have to go through all that. It’s one of the chief benefits of retirement. I knew I had settled into my middle-management niche when I grasped the proper way to handle the holiday party: Show up, get one drink, eat some…
The Best Comics of 2020 Heart © AMS; Six Chix © KFS; Nancy © UFS Pop culture site Nerdist has picked The Best Comics of 2020. The list is mostly graphic novels and floppy comic books, but a few comic strips make the list. Heart of the City by Steenz … Steenz’s gorgeous redesigns and…
Timing Is Everything Dept. — Man, I wish I’d had today’s Non Sequitur (AMS) yesterday when I was defending Dylan’s decision to sell his catalog rather than administer it himself. Wiley penned this well before the announcement, but he does sum it up nicely. Arlo, in Arlo & Janis (AMS), frequently reflects on age,…
For some reason I have a few stories relating to animation in the queue. A Charlie Brown Christmas at 55 Multiple generations of kids will agree that it doesn’t really begin to look a lot like Christmas until A Charlie Brown Christmas graces the airwaves. Premiering 55 years ago on Dec. 9, 1965, the…
It’s hard to rank all the disparate pieces of news these days, but let’s start with the destruction of the Republican Party, which isn’t really “news,” since it is part of a process that began a generation or so ago, when Newt Gingrich and his cohorts began a transformation that saw a lot of right-leaning…
We’ll start with the easy one today: Greg Kearney (Ind) reminds me of when I lived in Maine and you didn’t dare complain about the cold, because the Yankee response was, “Well, ya live in Maine …” They weren’t expressing resignation. I was used to places where, at winter break, everyone fled to Orlando, so…
While we avoid politics on Friday, the term “funnies” doesn’t preclude serious commentary, of which this Non Sequitur (AMS) is a good example. There are all sorts of comics about masks and social distancing, and some are silly, which is fine, since escapism is a good thing as long as it doesn’t lapse into denial….
Stuart Carlson (AMS) picks up on a twisted saying that I’ve just noticed entering the conversation, and which we need to nip in the bud. It’s different than my oft-raged-upon misuse of “rats leaving a sinking ship,” of which I spotted two examples today, both by cartoonists I greatly admire. As noted before, there is…
We’re entering the holiday season, which is normal, but still in lockdown mode, which, of course, is not, and Joe Heller (AMS) remarks on a year that has somehow managed to have troughs without peaks. Which is, of course, ridiculous: You can’t have troughs without peaks. It’s just that the troughs seemed very low and…
As today’s Non Sequitur (AMS) points out, there isn’t any going back to normal anymore. To start with, as seen here, if you relax all the rules because the curve has peaked and is receding, you will guarantee that the curve has not peaked after all. Unless you are in a church or synagogue, in…
This Madam & Eve (Ind) isn’t the first I knew that Black Friday sales have become a global phenomenon, but it struck me that they’re not only in places like South Africa and Australia, but so well-known that you can reference them in puns. Which is bizarre, given that Black Friday is the Friday after…