Comic Strips

Looking for the unusual? The overlooked? Something a bit different? Take a look here!

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:

By 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...

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.

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:

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!

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.

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.

Long, long delayed by difficulties finding the source materials, Fantagraphics' long awaited reprinting of the complete Pogo by Walt Kelly is finally at the printers, Mark Evanier announces.

Benjamin Ahr Harrison directed this swell animated video that references Winsor McCay's great Little Nemo comic strip. Check out Hoffman's website for more musical stylings.

Those who find the comic strip Garfield the apotheosis of soul-sucking banality in the comics will no doubt be pleased by this press release in which creator Jim Davis frets that a new software that allows children to easily import images, manipulate them and even add sound effects will put him out of business.

"Back in my day we had only pencils and paper. This new software is like adding a jet pack to creativity. Kids can craft characters and backgrounds and tell a story with such ease and speed that I'm a little worried I might be out of a job soon."

But in a surprise twist, it turns out this software is licensed by Davis himself!

Fresh off his Raiders of the Lost Ark/Popeye mashup, Chuck Forsman is mixing Jaws with Peanuts.. Prints are available -- collect the whole set!