‘Cul de Sac’ goes on hiatus
Probably the most universally admired comic strip running right now is going on hiatus for a few weeks: via his blog, Richard Thompson announced a hiatus while he receives treatment for his Parkinson's Disease.
Continue ReadingNCS announces first Reuben Award for webcomics
National Cartoonists Society president Tom Richmond announces a major, inevitable evolution of the comic strip with a new webcomics division for the Reuben Awards. The Reubens have traditionally honored the best in comic strips and illustration -- two artforms now mostly associated with Mad Men-era martinis and horn rim glasses on the "up to date" scale. Richmond's post has all the salient background info but here are the guidelines and the screening committee:
Continue ReadingNice art: Tony Millionaire’s Griffith Observatory
Tony Millionaire reposts this full page wonder from the LA Weekly when alt.comix strips were an important feature and people actually read alternative newspapers.
Continue ReadingGil, A New Strip by Norm Feuti, Debuts Nationwide
A new comic strip debuts nationwide (yes, newspapers are still being sold) and it's quite good!
Continue ReadingThe Perfect Cartoon?
New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff asks cartoonist Michael Maslin, and the results are two by James Thurber, a man who created many perfect cartoons. Although one of the picks is one of Thurber's best known, we'd like to spotlight the above, along with Maslin's analysis -- of course, analyzing any humor -- especially New Yorker cartoons -- is like programming your Garage Band to the sound of one hand clapping....but sometimes you have to try:
Continue ReadingComing Attractions: Fall 2011: Miscellaneous
Looking for the unusual? The overlooked? Something a bit different? Take a look here!
Continue ReadingRuss Cochran launches SUNDAY FUNNIES
Russ Cochran, a pioneer of deluxe comic reprints through his past efforts reprinting classic comics of the 50s, has just launched a new publication called SUNDAY FUNNIES, which will reprint classic Sunday comic strips in full color:
Continue ReadingReconciling Strip, Film and Cartoon: Reviewing Flash Gordon Zeitgeist #1
Share this link on Facebook!TweetBy Todd Allen Flash Gordon is a media property has been around long enough that people know it from a few different sources. The original comic strip, may be the least common exposure. You’ve got the 1936 movie serial which has been rerun on TV at regular intervals to this day (and [...]
Continue ReadingPREVIEW: IDW to publish Skippy
Okay you can mark off one more from the list of great comic strips without a deluxe reprint series: Percy Crosby's Skippy is getting the Library of American Comics treatment. The whimsical childhood strip was immensely popular in its day -- the film version starring Jackie Coogan was nominated for four Academy Awards -- but Crosby eventually ran into severe personal problems and spent the last years of his life in a mental hospital. Despite Crosby's sad story, the strip remains a much loved gem that influenced the great kid strips like Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes, and Cul de Sac. Library of American Comics Series co-editor Dean Mullaney sent along a swell preview of the first volume, which is due next summer.
Continue ReadingBil Keane remembered
Following the death of Bil Keane yesterday, remembrances are coming out. In a widely linked to piece, Lynda Barry explains how the idyllic family served as an inspiration for her growing up in a broken home:
Continue ReadingComing Attractions: Fall 2011: Fantagraphics
Mark Twain and Flannery O'Connor! Estonia and the Andes! Armed Gardens and Treasure Island! Joe Kubert, Tony Millionaire, Jack Davis! Old Comedians and Young Romance! And Gahan Wilson's Nuts!
Continue ReadingNice art: Garry Trudeau draws Cul-de-Sac
Team Cul-de-Sac launched as a fundraising effort for Parkinson's Disease Research after Reuben award-winning cartoonist Richard Thompson was diagnosed with the disease. The plan is to publish a book next spring and auction off some of the all-star art. Along the way it's featured art by retired cartoonists like Bill Watterson and Cathy Guisewite, all drawing Thompson's Otterloop characters. Here's a new piece by not-retired cartoonist Garry Trudeau. This is gonna be some book.
Continue ReadingIDW to publish Otto Soglow collection
Another cartoon luminary of the past has joined IDW's Library of American Comics with the announcement of Cartoon Monarch: Otto Soglow and The Little King, a survey of Otto Soglow, the New Yorker minimalist who created The Little King, a much-admired character that influenced such design-heavy cartoonists as Ivan Brunetti and Chris Ware.
Continue ReadingWebcomics alert: Dick Tracy in “The Black Bag Mystery”
To mark the 80th anniversary of the Dick Tracy comic strip tomorrow -- the fearless crime solver who introduced the world to such things as wrist-watch radios and villains named Pruneface -- The Library of American Comics is reprinting The Black Bag Mystery, an interactive mystery strip which 1948 readers tried to solve to find a real $25,000 prize.
Continue ReadingInternational Comic Arts Forum 2011 underway in White River Junction
BY JEN VAUGHN - From all over the globe, scholars, professors, panelists and attendees are swooping into White River Junction as this weekend The Center for Cartoon Studies hosts the International Comic Arts Forum. Past incarnations of ICAF have been hosted at SPX (they used to plan programming too!), the Library of Congress and the School for the Art Institute of Chicago.
Continue ReadingOur Sponsors
CLASSIFIEDS
RECENT COMMENTS