Cartoonist Bill Lee has passed away. William Saul (Bill) Lee November 15, 1938 – November 15, 2023 From the New York Times notice: He attended the School of Visual Arts, which prepared him for his career as cartoonist and cartoon editor for General Media. The self-described “Investigative Cartoonist” won awards throughout his life, and his […]
A lot of things have changed in the past day or two, and I’m covering myself by starting with this handy flowchart from Joy of Tech, because Sam Altman was fired as head of Open AI and then hired by Microsoft and then a bunch of people at Open AI threatened to quit and then […]
Back in “the good old days” of the adventurous decade daily comic strips ran, more than less, four panels wide. World War Two with its material reductions basically ended that and by the 1950s three panels became the norm. These days two panels seem more common than three for adventure and other continuity strips. And […]
This is apt to be a tough week for finding outstanding comics, given the flood of Roz-at-the-Pearly-Gates pieces already flooding the zone, plus the mandatory Thanksgiving cartoons. Nothing against Roz, mind you. Great gal. But I can’t imagine anyone breaking any new ground and, so far, I haven’t seen anything surprising or worth featuring here. […]
It has been a week or so since the brouhaha of the Michael Ramirez editorial cartoon that appeared in The Washington Post that brought accusations of racism and and led to the newspaper pulling the cartoon. Since then Michael has responded with interviews and the right-wing has been all-in for bashing the liberal Post. But […]
This morning’s news of a potential American-negotiated pause in the fighting in Gaza, plus a release of prisoners, puts a lot of current political cartoons on shaky grounds, but adds some punch to Ward Sutton‘s mashup of the Biden campaign and the Golden Bachelor TV show. Which is to say that he hasn’t brought peace […]
It was around this time last year when Comics Kingdom introduced us to the Alex Segura and Nickolej Villiger comic strip Mara Llave: Keeper of Time. After getting a great start the rumor was that actual paying gigs put Mara Llave on the back burner. Now after catching up (and maybe doing some fine tuning?) […]
I’ve long since stopped featuring Santos/Pinocchio cartoons, since there were too many of them and they’d lost all impact. But I got a laugh out of Ed Hall‘s combining of the metaphor with the common “spend more time with my family” excuse. In fact, that lame explanation is as too frequent and as devoid of […]
The Society of Illustrators announced William Joyce and Dahlov Ipcar winners of Lifetime Achievement Awards. The Lifetime Achievement Awards were established in 2005 by past chairs of The Original Art. Nominees must be judged to have a body of work that documents an innovative and pioneering contribution to the field of children’s book illustration, and […]
Mike Peterson has mentioned the episode a few times, at the bottom of this column, at the top here, and toward the middle of this post. But here is Clive Goddard, chairman of the UK’s Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation (PCO), telling it: Back in July 2023 cartoons hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The […]
Everything is horrible. We’ll talk about it over the weekend, which is to say, “Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight.” But we’ll start with a Public Service Announcement from the Other Coast (Creators), with a combination of a caution and a suggestion. A dog for Christmas sounds like a lovely idea, but Christmas can be chaotic and […]
Update: Gary and Lance returned for one final original cartoon to say goodbye to their fans on November 17. original November 12, 2023 article: From the Cleveland Plain Dealer comes news that Real Life Adventures by Gary Wise and Lance Aldrich will come to an end at the end of this week: Not even a […]
Kansas City, MO (November 16, 2023) – Andrews McMeel Syndication (AMS) will assume sales and distribution of The Lockhorns panel by Bunny Hoest and John Reiner, announced Brent Bartram, Chief Strategy Officer and General Manager of AMS. The effective date is January 1, 2024. The witty banter and sometimes-prickly exchanges of Loretta and Leroy Lockhorn […]
Since it’s release in the Summer of 2023 The Talk by Darrin Bell has garnered nothing but praise. Lately it has been making the end of the year lists. Named one of Publishers Weekly‘s Top Ten Best Books of 2023. …a powerful and moving portrait of the experiences of racism across generations One of TIME […]
Graeme MacKay starts us off with something light: Canada has released its new money, with Charlie instead of Liz. You can argue with the kid who doesn’t know who King Charles III is, but MacKay is right that the relationship is somewhat vague and doesn’t come up very often. IIRC, the monarch still has to […]