Mike Lynch Cartoons

Friday, March 21, 2025

Bill Peet's Gag Cartoons

Bill Peet was a long-time Disney artist, not only working on all of the major animated releases from Snow White to 101 Dalmatians, but also contributing to the choices of these projects. He was a major force at Disney, and Walt Disney himself trusted Peet's opinions.

I had no idea that he tried his hand at gag cartooning as well. Here are a few from his wonderful Caldecott Award-winning autobiography BILL PEET AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

He sent his gag cartoons to the top markets of the day: Collier's, True, the Post and The New Yorker. They were all rejected. From The New Yorker he received this note:

"Your humor is too undisciplined, but we would like to see more of your drawings."

Bill writes in his autobiography:

"That small glimmer of hope wasn't nearly enough to spur me on. Doing cartoons week after week, even if I sold them all, would be frustrating work."

Bill would go on, after leaving Disney, to focus on children's books, creating thirty-six books. A lot of them were based on stories he had made up to tell his own kids.

Here's some of his gag cartoons that were never bought. Bill published them in his autobiography. I thought they were great.

- Edited from a March 21, 2018 blog entry.

Thursday, March 20, 2025

Rolling Along: Midcentury Children's Book Illustrations by Ted Carr, Peter Dugan, Tye Gibson, Phoebe Moore and Bradford/Cout Graphic Design

If you're a fan of mid-century illustration, like I am, then this book is for you. The book cover and title page were designed by Bradford/Cout Graphic Design.

Rolling Along is part of the Open Highways "a diagnostic and developmental reading program" series of books published in 1967 by Scott, Forseman and Company, Glenview, Illinois. It's copyright by them as well. This elementary school reader is not only full of different stories and poems and jokes, but it's also full of different illustrative styles, and -- this is amazing -- the actual artists are acknowledged in the back index by name and page number. It's rare that you get to actually know who drew what in these books. Here are a few pages:

Ted Carr drew the cat and dog cartoon. Peter Dugan created "The Little Old Woman and How She Kept Her Geese Warm" illustrations, which was written by Hope Newell.

The "Coats for Katie and Carmen" paintings are by Tye Gibson.

"An Umbrella Joke" is by Ted Carr again, and Phoebe Moore illustrated "A New Place for Old Comic Books."

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

From the Dick Buchanan Files: Gag Cartoons 1948 - 1970

Dick Buchanan has a huge collection of vintage gag cartoons from the 20th century that he has shared with us over the years. You've seen so many of them here: wordless gag cartoons, cops and robbers gag cartoons, cartoons from the old Life and Judge magazines and much more.

Today, he shares some unclassified ones that have yet to be neatly filed away in his NYC apartment. Thanks and take it away, Dick:

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GAG CARTOONS
(1948 – 1970)

Each and every week more gag cartoons are clipped in filed in the Cartoon Clip File, located somewhere in New York’s Greenwich Village. Some of these cartoons resonate right away. So, rather than filing them, which is a loathsome chore best postponed anyway, they are put aside. That simply means they are tossed on in a smaller pile of clippings on our cluttered desk. Today we take a few of these cartoons to share . . . and file later.

1. JACK TYRELL. American Legion Magazine November, 1948.

2. ENIF. Stan Fine sometimes signed cartoons for “men’s interest” magazines ENIF, which is Fine spelled backwards. Cartoons & Gags February, 1962.

3. BORIS DRUCKER. The Saturday Post May 7, 1949.

4. CHARLES RODRIGUES. Laugh Parade May, 1967.

5. HARRY MACE. This Week Magazine March 10, 1957.

6. JOE ZEIS. The Saturday Evening Post March 22, 1957.

7. JOHN ALBANO. The Saturday Evening Post March 23, 1957.

8. JOHN GALLAGHER. January 26, 1957.

9. GEORGE BOOTH. True Magazine February, 1970.

10. ROBERT MARKEY. 1000 Jokes Magazine December, 1955 – February, 1956.

11. CLYDE LAMB. 1000 Jokes Magazine Fall, 1953.

12. ED DAHLIN. True Magazine August, 1961.

13. TOM HENDERSON. This Week Magazine December 4, 1960.

14. MORT WALKER. The Saturday Evening Post August 27, 1949.

15. FRED LEVINSON. 1000 Jokes Magazine December 1955-February, 1956.

-- This has been an edited version of a blog entry that originally appeared back on September 25, 2019.

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium: The Comic Art of James Swinnerton, March 18, 2025

From the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium:

The 417th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, March 18, 2025 at 7 pm EDT. ONLINE PRESENTATION VIA ZOOM. Please email comicssymposium@gmail.com to register for this event. Free and open to the public.

Jimmy! How comics pioneer James “Jimmy” Swinnerton finally got his due.

with Pete Maresca, Michael Tisserand, Paul C. Tumey, Eddie Campbell and Rick Marschall

James “Jimmy“ Swinnerton is one of the most creative, respected and prolific comic artists from the first half of the 20th century — yet his work has seen little reproduction until this year. Jimmy!, new from Sunday Press Books, re-introduces Swinnerton’s six-decade career in comics, from his beginnings as a sports/editorial cartoonist for William Randolph Hearst in San Francisco and New York City, to his long-running strip “Little Jimmy,” to his years cartooning and painting in the America’s Southwest desert.

The team behind the new volume — publisher Pete Maresca, co-editor Michael Tisserand, and contributors Paul C. Tumey, Eddie Campbell and Rick Marschall — will discuss what Swinnerton’s life and work means to comics.

Peter Maresca is the multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning editor and publisher of high-quality reproductions of classic American newspaper strips. He has contributed to more than 100 books and magazines on comic strip history. Maresca changed the concept of comic reprints in 2005 with his original-sized Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays. He has since published over 20 volumes through his Sunday Press, including the upcoming re-edition of the acclaimed Society Is Nix.

Eddie Campbell is a Scottish comics artist and writer now living in Chicago. Probably best known as the illustrator of From Hell (written by Alan Moore), Campbell is also the creator of autobiographical comics such as The Fate of the Artist, in which the author investigates his own murder, lately teamed in a flip book with The Second Fake Death of Eddie Campbell, described as a “Pandemic Graphic Novel.” Campbell also has authored histories of cartooning including the exhaustive and authoritative sports cartooning book The Goat Getters and last year’s Kate Carew: America’s First Great Woman Cartoonist.

Rick Marschall is the author of 75 books, most on popular culture — cartoon history, comics, country music, television history — as well as biographies, Christian apologetics, and politics. A former political cartoonist and comics editor of three newspaper syndicates, he has written for Disney and was an editor with Marvel Comics. Numerous honors include, most recently, the Inkpot Award from Comic-Con International. Among the magazines he founded and edited are Nemo, the Classics Comics Library and Hogan’s Alley, and he is currently “putting to bed” the premier issue of the revival of Nemo for Fantagraphics Books. Marschall never met Jimmy Swinnerton, but did talk to him on the phone, arranged by Milton Caniff.

Michael Tisserand‘s Eisner Award-winning Krazy: George Herriman, A Life in Black and White, explored the art and life of the creator of the comic strip “Krazy Kat.” His other works include The Kingdom of Zydeco, which received the ASCAP-Deems Taylor award for music writing; the Hurricane Katrina memoir Sugarcane Academy; and the photography book My Father When Young. Current projects include a biography of the New Orleans cartoonist Bunny Matthews and a narrative nonfiction account of Charlie Chaplin and the making of the movie The Great Dictator.

Paul C. Tumey is a multiple Eisner-nominated comics historian and author of books including Screwball! The Cartoonists Who Made the Funnies Funny, called a “heroic” work by Art Spiegelman and chosen by Panels & Prose as the year’s best book on comic strips. He co-edited The Art of Rube Goldberg and Foolish Questions, and is a frequent contributor to books on comics. His latest book, The Art of Milt Gross: Volume 1, will be released in 2025.

Monday, March 17, 2025

The Animation Guild Pays Tribute to Howard Beckerman

From my friend, and the chair of the Berndt Toast Gang, Adrian Sinnott:

"Tom Sito and the Animation Guild pay tribute to animation artists, writers, actors, and workers who passed away in 2024. In amongst those is our beloved Howard Beckerman. Howard’s memorial starts at 12:05."

Here's the first part, the part that Howard is in. The second part is here.