Hare Tonic
Unsung Al Smith, Record-Holding Unknown Cartoonist
Smith, like Jones, is a name so plentiful in English-speaking countries that it achieves virtual invisibility and thereby anonymity. And the only Al Smith who ever broke free of the amorphous mob of Smiths is the one that was a picturesque governor of New York: he attracted enough notice that he was able to run… Read more »
Alex Raymond: Becoming a Cartoonist
An encyclopedic look at the master of fantasy and romance.
Social Media, Freedom of Speech, and Editorial Cartooning
Ann Telnaes, editorial cartoonist for the Washington Post, discussed recently the implications for her profession of the social media reactions to the notorious “Ted Cruz monkey children” cartoon she drew last December.
Outcault, Goddard, the Comics, and the Yellow Kid
How They Unwittingly Conspired To Bring a New Mass Medium into Popular Culture.
Consider the Source of the Crisis in the Newspaper Comics Strip Kingdom
A Perverse and Cynical Contrary View Full of Hope.
The Economics of Comics: How Money Influenced the Art
It is ironic that the economics of the industry have for so much of its history worked against the art.
Ted Rall vs the Los Angeles Times
A look at the varying accounts surrounding the Los Angeles Times’ firing of Ted Rall, and whether the LAPD told the newspaper to do it.
Modesty Blaise and Peter O’Donnell and the Last Great Adventure Strip
To me, Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin are a literary pair that ranks with Damon and Phintias. Or Roland and Oliver. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.
Trudeau’s Charlie, PEN’s Charlie, and Geller’s Charlie
The question of offensiveness abounds.
From Figure Drawing to Storytelling
A quick eccentrically skewed tour of the comic book’s crucial 1970-1990s from corporate creation to individual expression.
Roger Armstrong: Conversing with One of Cartooning’s Better Sprites
Armstrong (1917-2007) was a man-sized pixie with a gray beard and a haystack hair-do and dark Mephistophlean eyebrows, an archetypically elfin presence who saw the humor in humanity’s parade and delighted in it.
The Passing of a Giant: Roy Doty, 1922-2015
Roy Doty was a cartoonist, artist and illustrator, creating humorous pictures in books and magazines, packaging, advertising, comic strips and television.
Winnie the WAC
Winnie the WAC was to the Women’s Army Corps in World War II what Dave Breger’s Private Breger and George Baker’s Sad Sack and Bill Mauldin’s Willie and Joe were to the entire U.S. military—a moral booster nonpareil.
When a Dog Was Art: Clifford McBride and the Immortal Napoleon
Back in those dear, dead days of yesteryear, cartoonists drew comic strips; they didn’t rule them with a straight-edge. And one of the best examples of the truth of this freshly brewed axiom is Clifford McBride’s dog strip, Napoleon.
Edward Gorey and the Eccentric Macabre
He could make us shiver as we grinned and vice versa (mostly vice)
Etta Hulme: Trailblazing with Ettatorial Cartoons
Etta Hulme is an icon in editorial cartooning, a trailblazer for women cartoonists. She was a full-time editoonist on the staff of a major metropolitan daily newspaper before any other woman cartoonist was; she was widely syndicated at a time when no other woman cartoonist was.
National Cartoonists Society Pats Itself on the Back But Who Better Qualified To Do It?
The big takeaway from the Memorial Day weekend meeting of the National Cartoonists Society is that Non Sequitur’s Wiley Miller was named Cartoonist of the Year and presented with the Reuben, a heavy metal statuette in the shape of a pile of comical characters.
The Perversion of the Graphic Novel and Its Refinement
The pleasures and problems of the new graphic novel boom.
