Industry news for the professional cartoonist
Peter Schrank notes the almost-too-late move by the Americans to resupply Ukraine, and it’s good to get an outside view, because our internal reasons for the delay don’t much matter to people facing conquest. That more pragmatic point of view makes “Better late than never” a dubious expression, which Schrank emphasizes by showing Ukraine on…
Fiona Katauskas sets a familiar scene divided between old and young, which may be a stereotype, but putting the old fellow in a suit rather than Archie Bunker mode suggests another division, that between those who have and those who are still setting their goals. The parallels between the Student Strike of 1970 and the…
In case you hadn’t noticed, when I feature a syndicated cartoon here, I add the name of the syndicate with it. For instance, I would label this one Barney & Clyde (Counterpoint). A few months ago, I’d have said “Barney & Clyde (WPWG)” but the Washington Post Writers Group has recently ended its syndication of…
A couple Sundays ago we noted Bob Weber, Jr.’s use of Lucky Bucks and crediting Paul Fung. We also linked to Mark Johnson’s thoughts on the origins of such comic ephemera: If I recall it right, it was Jimmy Murphy who started the extras like comic stamps, play money and cut-out dolls in Toots &…
If you haven’t been reading Crabgrass (AMS), you should start now, and begin here because today’s would be too much of a spoiler to start with, plus you need to catch up if you’re going to enjoy it. Yes, this is from two months ago, but Tauhid Bondia likes long story arcs and this one…
Frazz (AMS) starts us with a reminder that some things can’t be purchased, except of course that they can. As it happens, the strip ran just after the Boston Marathon, as likely planned, but also after a local news story here mentioned that they used to put the medallions indicating that you finished on a…
Pickles (AMS) offers a lovely example of tightrope walking, with a gag that its audience will get, even if they aren’t all that computer literate, but with a wink as well to any cyberly-literate types. “According to my research” is a key phrase for identifying crap thrown together by Artificial Intelligence, the confirming step being…
Kal Kallaugher could run this anytime, but it’s particularly relevant at the moment, as we face the twin factors of emerging technologies that make forgery and fraud easier, and political operatives who are willing to lie in your face. There have always been kooks in the world, but in addition to the gullible who believe…
This Far Side sure seemed funny in 1984, but that was 40 years ago and times change. Also, it’s based on a janitor’s innocent error, not on the irresponsible, egotistical jackassery of editors and reporters. It came immediately to mind yesterday when two jurors dropped off the Trump trial because of having been effectively doxxed…
There are enough cartoons about Trump falling asleep in court, and, while they say nothing about his guilt or innocence, they make a reasonable argument about his overall fitness for office. From the earliest days of his administration, we heard about him coming to work in the late morning and being unwilling to sit through…
Rabbits Against Magic is swimming upstream against a rapid current, because whatever idiotic thing Elon Musk says today, he’s bound to exceed tomorrow. His latest brainstorm is that he wants new Xitter members to pay for each posting, which would discourage bots, his announced intent, but would also discourage people from signing up at all….
Let’s start with some King Features funnies … oh, wait it’s been two days since the last time and I have to log in, again, and check off my favorites, again. So, again, I will plead for Comics Kingdom to put a “select all” box on their favorites page that would automatically check all the…
Ernest Lawrence Thayer with Brian Nelson and Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Davis, Garfield, Steve Brodner and The Herblock Prize, Jay Stephens’ homage to EC, AI gag writing, a centennial Annie-versary, and Dan Piraro and Wayno and Bizarro. Batter up! Brian Nelson, at The Worcester Telegram, offers a brief history of Casey at the Bat in…
There’s a lot of political stuff I won’t be addressing today, because I’m tired of politics but also because there are several recent developments that will become cartoons over the next couple of days and I want to wait for them to mature. My objection to Clay Jones’s latest cartoon is purely editorial. I agree…
Brewster Rockit (Tribune) gets to lead off for a second day in a row, having shifted from the informational back to the absurd. As noted, I stayed home rather than driving the four hours to my old digs in the Adirondacks, and I missed both totality and a good party, but we had a nice…