San Diego Comic Convention (Comic-Con) has announced that the Eisner Awards judges have selected 19 individuals to automatically be inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame for 2024. These inductees include 12 deceased comics pioneers and 7 living creators. The deceased greats are Creig Flessel, A. B. Frost, Billy Graham, Albert Kanter, […]
Some thoughts on scrolling through The Sunday Funnies on the new revised Comics Kingdom site. That gawdawful black background has gotta go. Or at the very least surround every comic with an eight inch (preferably a quarter inch) of white space a la The Saga of Brann Bjornson. Too much clicking. To start my look […]
We’ll start with today’s Non Sequitur (AMS), a relatively gentle example of the sorts of ideas that emerge from the sophomore dorm at two in the morning. But first, a definition of terms: As you may know, “sophomore” is a portmanteau of the Greek words for “wise” and “foolish.” Except that it isn’t. Here’s the […]
A cartoonist who thought his comic strip about a town’s ducks would last a month has retired after 51 years. Mere Quacks was first featured in the Diss Express in 1973 after Mike Webb was approached by a journalist friend. His first editor suggested the theme because the Norfolk town has a six-acre (2.5 hectares) […]
The Reply All comic strip by Donna A. Lewis has switched syndicates this past week. above: Reply All for February 29, 2024; below: Reply All for March 1, 2024 On March 1, 2024 Reply All began carrying a Counterpoint Media notice replacing the WPWG notice. And with the new syndicate Reply All dailies return to […]
The Internets are full of cartoons marking the planned retirement of Mitch McConnell as Republican Senate Leader, many of them using the “My work here is done” phrase, few of them putting it in as colorful a setting as Drew Sheneman has here. Sheneman does a nice job of showing general destruction, with burned-out buildings, […]
New features are popping at King Features Syndicate and Comics Kingdom. This week saw The Saga of Brann Bjornson and Suburban Fairy Tales debut at Comics Kingdom, now comes news from the cartoonist that Rosebuds by Supr Dee (Deon Parson) has signed with King Features Syndicate (KFS). The Rosebuds comic strip first showed up on […]
I like cartoons that make demands on their audience, and Andertoons did a lovely job here of requiring readers to recognize a very unusual name and a key indicator of her voice. If you don’t get it, it’s completely explained in the comments, with a few people taking umbrage at not having been spoonfed but […]
Fleischer Cartoons: The Art and Inventions of Max Fleischer at MoMA March 7 – 14, 2024 More information and a screening schedule at Fleischer Cartoons: The Art and Inventions of Max Fleischer ********** Ohio State U. and The Billy Ireland present Mexico and Comics March 4, 2024 In celebration of our current exhibit, Depicting Mexico and […]
Saga is the story of a Viking named Brann Bjornson and his large family as they cope with the modernization of their Nordic medieval world. Some things, such as mead, magic, and horned helmets, have remained. But now, rather than fight dragons, Vikings, such as Brann, work for them. Trolls work in the IT department, […]
Paul Fell lays out one of the major issues in the upcoming elections, which is that a significant portion of the electorate is being fed a steady diet of, at best, downer takes on everything and, at worst, lies. I understand the concept of spin. When I first began teaching high school kids about editorial […]
Cartoonist Kevin Fagan grew up idolizing Charles M. Schulz and “Peanuts.” Now that his own comic strip, “Drabble,” is turning 45 this week, Fagan is contemplating his long run in the funny pages and once again has Schulz on his mind. “I knew Charles M. Schulz pretty well,” Fagan says from his home in Mission […]
Dale Hale takes on Peanuts; George Lichty Grins and Bears It; Burne Hogarth becomes king of Tarzan’s jungle jive. Dale Hale, cartoonist and Charles M. Schulz Comic Book Ghost When Dell Comics took over the [Peanuts comic book] line in 1957, however, they chose a completely different direction. Instead of reprinting and re-reprinting newspaper strips, […]
Frazz (AMS) starts us off with a head-scratcher. I think the observation is right, but it comes from a direction I hadn’t explored, so it set me back a bit. There are those who object to fans using “we” at all, but that’s nonsense. Why bother having uniforms or selling gear if you don’t want […]
As was reported the National Press Foundation (NPF) awarded Jen Sorensen the 2023 Clifford K. and James T. Berryman Award for Editorial Cartoons. Her four-panel approach has criticized how society worships wealthy people with “big” ideas, satirized the doubling of “frontover” deaths as vehicle height increases, and explored the evolution of Twitter, from the early […]