BEATVILLE U.S.A. by George Mandel

Can you grok a whole book of beatnik cartoons? If you're hip to that, then BEATVILLE U.S.A. is the book for you.

Author/cartoonist George Mandel writes about the beat generation in 6 small essays interspersed between his own cartoons. The book is copyright 1961 by Mr. Mandel.


Above is a wordless 8-panel cartoon that is confident and successful. I kept looking at the compositions, the postures, and illustrative folds in clothing and really admiring Mr. Mandel's draftsmanship. Look at the fellow's legs and arms: angled this way and that, as he preps to look oh so beatnik casual cool.


The way our title characters lean up against the tree or stand in the doorway; there's a bad posture, knobby shouldered, slack-jawed look to these fellows. Even if their clothes change, you can always spot them. Mandel is very good about staying on the beatnik model.


Espresso, wheat germ and Mary Jane was the way of life. I like the happy smile on the woman in the workplace, in the left hand cartoon. And the choice to show her part of the way up, out of her chair, and turning to the rest of the office, is a naturalistic and nicely human touch. Isn't it strange to see an office environment without a computer monitor on every desk?


Was there ever a time in NYC when a guy would walk around with a "I Cash Clothes" bowler hat? Again, I like the posture of the 2 beatniks on the left. Even their knees have wobbly, gravity-stricken posture.


For some reason the "There Is No Zen!" cartoon struck me as wonderfully funny. The only nitpick I have with the book is the use of initial caps in all the gag lines, something I've never seen before or since in gag cartooning. I don't think it's Mandel's doing. My guess is that it was a decision made by an out of touch with gag cartoons editor.


I really did not have high hopes for this book when I first saw it. How many cartoons, after all, can you do about beatniks? "Congratulate Me -- It's a Cat!," with our young beatnik dad holding his beret in reverence over his heart, as he walks down the steps where his pals are splayed, has a wonderful sense of humor about this moment of passage. This is another good cartoon by the good writer George Mandel.

And I forgot that barber shops were once way back before men began going to salons and spas -- barber shops were where you could go and chew over the events of the day.


Mandel wrote a number of books, but was never as famous as his good friend Joseph Heller.

COMPULSORY READING by Alison Bechdel

From the Dykes to Watch Out For blog:

"Lookit! I have a four page story in the latest Entertainment Weekly. It’s for their 1000th issue, whose theme is 'The New Classics.' The issue lists the 1000 best movies, tv shows, albums, books, and other cultural products of the last 25 years. My piece goes with the book section, and it’s about my experience of not being able to read books once someone tells me I have to. Umm..I don’t know if I’m allowed to put it online…"

EW allowed it. Bless 'em!

Alison Bechdel shares "Compulsory Reading," an Entertainment Weekly piece about her growing up with books and why she reads what she reads -- when she has the time!

Another h/t to the one and only Journalista! Thanks, Dirk!

Editorial Cartoonists' Hate Mail

Dave Astor at Editor and Publisher has been writing about the annual Association of American Editorial Cartoonists convention this past weekend. I was just reading one about a cartoonists' panel on hate mail:

"Panelist Ted Rall had a much more frightening experience with firefighters. As many readers know, the Universal Press Syndicate creator did some hard-hitting cartoons after 9/11 -- including the 'Terror Widows' one about how some women seemed to be capitalizing on their husbands' 9/11 deaths.

"Firefighters not pleased with Rall's work came to the cartoonist's New York City apartment building one day. "I was on the sixth floor, and I looked out the window and saw a big red truck," remembered the AAEC president-elect. 'There were 40 guys in front of the building with axes telling the superintendent that they were going to kick my ass.'

"Rall at first didn't know what to do. 'Calling 911 wouldn't have helped -- they would have told me 'don't worry, firefighters are on the scene,' he joked at the AAEC session."

More here.

And congrats on Ted Rall, new AAEC president!

PLAYBOY Cartoonist Kiraz: Site & Video

Playboy magazine cartoonist Kiraz (Edmond Kirazian) has a career encompassing site here.

This is the way it should be done: samples of work through the years, a trove of publications that he's drawn for, a collection of book covers, samples of his cartoons.

A big tip of the bunny ears to Dirk Deppey @ Journalista!

Related: an April 14, 2008 French-language TV profile of Kiraz (with close ups of him drawing and painting) that I pulled from his MySpace page:

Les Parisiennes


Above: I couldn't resist posting one more illustration.

Fave Drawing Tool Poll Results

The very unscientific Mike Lynch Cartoons poll has now closed and the winner of the "What's Your Fave Drawing Tool" poll is ...

Pencil!

Wow! Silly little pencil! Pencil wins! Around of applaues for the wooden shaft containing lead, OK? OK!

Now, I guess the only question is: is it HB, #2, Faber Castell, Eberhard Faber, mechanical, etc. Do you sharpen it with a knife (I do) or one of those whirring electric sharpeners or one like we used to have in grade school that's attached to the wall with the different width telephone dial thingy on the side, etc.

Pen (Sakura, Pigma, etc.) and Pen and Ink were tied for second most popular.

Following closed behind is the 21st century paperless Wacom Tablet. I wonder if we did the poll the year from now if Wacom would come in second?

The loser, receiving the fewest votes of all favorite drawing tools, was toothpick dipped in ink, followed by Conte Crayon and fingerpaints.

What's nice is that most people still prefer one of the most humblest and cheapest of tools: a pencil.




Thanks to all who participated!

Ed Arno Remembered

William Grimes has written an obituary for the late New Yorker cartoonist Ed Arno in today's New York Times.

Jud Hurd, writing for his late, lamented magazine Cartoonist PROfiles, visited Ed and his wife Rita in the early 1990s. The interview appeared in Cartoonists PROfiles #99, September 1993. Here is Jud's write up. It's so darn good that I want to pass it along intact. I am pretty sure it's ©1993 by Mr. Hurd:




One afternoon, some time ago, we had the pleasure of a long conversation with ED ARNO, cartoonist, stage designer, poster-maker, animation producer and children's book illustrator, at the home of Ed and his wife, Rita, on Long Island. Following are some of the interesting things which were revealed that day.

When Ed Arno, newly-arrived in New York City from Romania in 1965, ap­proached The New Yorker magazine, he was told, "We can't use two Arnos here". The reference, of course, was to the publication's most prestigious cartoonist, the famous Peter Arno. But, as you will soon read, that didn't stop the quiet and mod­est Ed for very long. He was used to surmounting obstacles that would liter­ally destroy a good many cartoonists.

Arno says that he grew up with humor as a child, so he began life with a goodly supply of a cartoonist's principal stock ­in-trade. An uncle of his had the knack of inventing great funny stories on-the-spot, and his arrival for a visit with the family was a highly-anticipated event. All the Arnos liked to create fun and surprises, so that Ed, who was very shy, came up with frequent ideas that made the other kids laugh at school.



He's always been able to see the humor in a situation. Here's an example of what I'm talking about: Ed was born in July, during a month when all of the other neighborhood kids were away on vaca­tions with their families. Nobody was around to be able to attend a birthday party, so Ed asked his parents not to bother to try and arrange any celebra­tions. Time passes and, from 1941 to 1944, Ed was in a labor camp operated by the Germans, digging tank-traps to hold off the Russians. Well, as Ed was leaning on his shovel one day, he told a friend that it was his birthday. The friend, who was a journalist, had a way with words, and so when the two got back to the barracks, he announced an Arno birth­day celebration to the assembled crowd. As Ed laughingly related this story to me, he added that this was the first time in his life that he'd not only had a birthday party, but one where the captive-guests couldn't have gotten out of attending, even if they'd wanted to.




Ed was born in the town of Czerno­witz, in an Austro-Hungarian area of Romania, and he particularly enjoyed telling me about the real meaning of the town's name. "If you translate the first half of the name from any Slavic tongue, and the latter half from German, you come out with BLACK JOKE! However, Arno's black humor is gentle — far- removed from the savage, political satire prevalent in the Nazi-saturated years of Arno's young manhood.

In 1935-6 Ed studied art in Paris at L'Ecole Paul Colin. He specialized in Stage Design, and in 1939 returned to his home town to work as a cartoonist, gra­phic and stage designer.

After he survived the 1941-44 labor camp ordeal, he became an art director and artist for children's books and maga­zines in Bucharest, and also drew cartoons for satirical magazines in Romania and the Soviet Union. Then one great day in the late 1950s, he saw a collection of New Yorker cartoons by Charles Addams, on the shelves of the USIS Library in Bucharest. These examples represented the pinnacle of cartoon achievement in Arno's mind. He admits now that he car­ried the book around with him for years after that as an inspiration and a goal. To get ahead of our story a bit, in 1969, four years after Ed and his wife Rita came to the U.S. permanently, Arno made his own debut in The New Yorker, and Charles Addams came to Ed's first one-man show at the Austrian Institute in New York. "Just having him there," says Arno, "was a thrill to me — an affirmation!"



In 1944 German troops were still in Romania, and Arno started to fight against the Nazis by doing 3-color posters such as you see here. Ed is proud of the fact that his work helped educate people on how to fight the Germans. He did a lot of cartooning very quickly and since he was paid-on-the spot, he liked the idea of getting his money also very quickly! Arno is particularly proud of the fact that in 1947 he created, with an engineering friend's help, a film in which live-action was combined with animation drawings for the first time ever in Europe. Readers of a children's magazine, for which Arno had done the cover, expressed interest in the various steps involved in doing the cover. This provided the incentive for Ed to make this film, in which he is shown at his drawing table, looking at some of his characters on the illustration board in front of him. Soon the characters begin to move around and he starts to talk with them. The cover comes alive, and in the process, the children who saw the film had their questions about the making of
the cover answered. Ed did most of the artistic part of the film and the mechani­cal engineering friend handled the tech­nical part.

Arno's European art career included an amazing variety of projects. In Paris he designed and produced animated films for which Dr. Norbert Gingold, the con­ductor of symphony concerts, composed the music.

In 1957 Ed was decorated by the Romanian government for his work as an artist. When Arno came to the U.S. in 1965, he sold his first cartoon to Look magazine where Gurney Williams was Cartoon Editor. A funny incident occur­red at this time when Williams phoned the Arno home to say that the magazine had bought one of Ed's cartoons. However, he reached Ed's wile who didn't speak English very well then. The mes­sage got garbled in translation, and when Arno got home, his wife very excitedly told him that Look had lost one of his cartoons!

A happy coincidence occurred when Ed approached the New York Times which, along with The New Yorker mag­azine, was one of the two prestigious markets that he was determined to crack.

Arno first had gotten the idea to do cartoons about criminals back in his homeland, when Romania was under the thumb of the Russians. At that time, the Russians wouldn't acknowledge that there was such a thing as a criminal in the Communist system. He sympathized with most of the 'so-called' criminals, who had mostly been put in jail for small offenses not committed by themselves, but rather by the Communist government. Ed says he looked at these people through friendly glasses. Well, believe it or not, Ed was told at the Times that they'd like some spot cartoons for the Criminals-at-Large crime story department in the weekly Book Review section. This happy chore continued for about a year! As we menti­oned at the beginning of this story, The New Yorker didn't want two Arno artists in the magazine. However Ed did succeed in selling them some ideas for which Peter Arno did the drawings. Then Peter Arno died in 1968 and Lee Lorenz, whom Ed had met at Cartoonists Guild meetings, encouraged him to submit cartoons. This was 1969 and Jim Geraghty, then Art Editor of the magazine, immediately bought some Ed Arno roughs and pub­lished them, without asking for finishes. Since then there have been hundreds of Ed Arno cartoons in The New Yorker.

At this time Arno started illustrating books for the Scholastic Magazine peo­ple. His first book was The Magic Fish. The famous Arthur Rubinstein put music to it on a record, as he did with Ed's next book The Gingerbread Man.

Mrs. Arno has commented that one of the reasons that her husband was able to come from Europe and to be successful in prestigious cartoon markets in the U.S., was that he is so observant. He's lived and worked in France and Italy, as well as in eastern Europe, and in the course of these travels has become able to speak five lan­guages. And all this while, he was absorb­ing the humorous aspects of life. Of course Ed reads the newspapers and listens to the radio in order to keep his ideas up-to- date. And, very often, the bits and pieces of conversations he overhears, give him the inspiration for funny ideas. For in­stance, on one occasion, he heard his wife talking on the phone with a friend whose husband was sick. In order to make the friend feel good, Ed's wife said something like, "Oh, he only has the flu . . . that's not too serious." This inspired Arno to reproduce a similar scene in black art style. But in his cartoon, a woman is try­ing to console a friend whose husband has just died. The woman asks what illness caused the husband's death, and upon being told that it was the flu, she reassur­ingly says, "Oh, the flu . . . that's nothing!" (It wasn't as big a deal as if he'd died of cancer!)

Arno has long had the habit of writing down ideas which occur to him in his half-dreamy state as he lies in bed at night. Come morning he acts as his own censor, and often decides that nobody could understand these midnight gems. But sometimes they do bear fruit. Many of his cartoons carry no captions. To quote him, "A cartoon should be like a theater joke short and very simple. You put people to sleep when you tell a long, detailed joke." Ed sometimes makes as many as ten or fifteen versions of a car­toon before he gets it the way he wants it. Apropos of this, I've discovered, after many years of interviewing New Yorker cartoonists, that many of them follow this same pattern.

Ed has a sharp eye for the absurdities of the human condition, of politics and of everyday life. He seems to find the point in all situations, pricks the balloons of pretenses, and satirizes the short-lived fads and eternal follies of the world.

His cartoons are in numerous public and private collections.

UPDATE:

Ed Arno London Times obit by Mark McGinnis

Cartoonist Dedication

I just got an email from a young, just-starting-out cartoonist who lives in the UK, and is having a hard time finding markets. He asks for advice. I thought I'd respond here.

"I wanna try pushing"

(Above: an early sale to the Wall Street Journal. Yes, a dog cartoon in WSJ! A refreshing change of pace from the "people in meetings" cartoons and the "boss at his/her desk" cartoons.)

The great thing about cartoons is that EVERYONE loves cartoons. Whether it's cartoons on TV or Mad Magazine or Marvel or gag cartoons -- people love their cartoons. And every time you see a cartoon, there's a real person, somewhere, who drew the cartoon, designed the character, designed the toy, wrote the story, etc.

You all ready know it's a lot of dedicated work to get to be a pro. That's good! Only the most persistent and dedicated cartoonists make it. The real pros out there have seen a lot of rejection. It's normal.

When Joe Kubert is asked what does he look for in a new student for his Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art (which is ints 32nd year in 2008), he replies, "Dedication."

Not someone who is in it for the money, the "the most talented," not the one with all the art credentials, not the one from the city, not the rich one, not the one with the connections.

I draw magazine cartoons. I did not go to school to learn to cartoon. When I was a kid, growing up in the Midwest, there were no schools for cartoonists. I just was dedicated and persistent.

At a 2006 Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art exhibit of the very successful comic artist Todd MacFarlane, there was a case full of Todd's rejection slips; hundreds of them!

Every successful person I know (a) worked at their craft and (b) got rejected. There are no secrets. The good stuff floats to the top and gets noticed.

End of sermon.

(Click to supersize the above early sale from The Chronicle of Higher Education.)

Cartoon Poll: Last Day

The "What's Your Fave Drawing Toll?" poll will close on Friday, June 27th.


If you have a moment and can spare the time to click and vote, the poll is still open (as of this writing). You can vote for more than one item. My thanks to everyone who responded so far.

Also: big thanks to the talented and handsome Brian Moore for giving me permission to use his above beautifully rendered graphic of his drawing tools. Brian, you have really raised the illustration curve here on the Mike Lynch Cartoons blog.

Some Gene Hazelton FLINTSTONES Sunday Pages

From the Comicrazys blog, via Journalista!, comes a lovely batch of Gene Hazelton-drawn Sunday FLINTSTONES strips.

And, while perusing the above site, don't miss the recent Frazetta funny animals posting or the Milt Gross item.

Some Great Books

I received the second issue of the comic book SISTER MARY DRACULA by Gerry Mooney. Thanks for sending it, Gerry! It's on a stack of other terrific books for the Mike Lynch Cartoons summer reading program.

I also have the following:
Fresh off the presses, the first 2 years of LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE published by IDW. I haven't even sat down with the book, but it sure looks great. Very thick (1000 strips!), and with an informative essay by Jeet Heer. This is the first of a series that will, if all goes well, reprint the entire strip ala THE COMPLETE PEANUTS. Memories of Andrea McArdle singing "Tomorrow" aside, the strip was, in its day, very popular and a commercial powerhouse. Remember Ralphie, from the movie A CHRISTMAS STORY, desiring the Little Orphan Annie decoder ring? "A crummy commercial!"

I feel ashamed that I only know the strip thru its commercial incarnations, like the Broadway show and movie, as well as the slight incident from CHRISTMAS STORY. It's like only knowing Dick Tracy from the Warren Beatty flick. The LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE book is an opportunity to sit down and immerse myself in the source material.

Way back when I was a tot and I borrowed the book ARF! THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE (1970) from the Lawrence (Kansas) Public Library. I remember (as well as I can remember, since I was about nine years old back then) enjoying the strip. It was also, like Peanuts, a strip that was graphically accessible. It was one of those times, early in life, when I thought that if I worked hard enough, I could maybe draw as well as its creator Harold Gray (1894-1968) and maybe, oh just maybe, I could draw well enough to be a cartoonist. I hope that Gray's work is going to be rediscovered like Frank King or Cliff Sterrett. I hope my memory of it is still the same as it is in 2008. Time will tell if Gray will join the names of perennial fave comic strip artists like Herriman, Caniff, McCay or Schulz.

Here, once again, is Tom Spurgeon, writing in the Comics Reporter about the strip:

"No one believes me when I tell them just how much I enjoy Harold Gray's long-running newspaper strip Little Orphan Annie at the height of its powers. There's nothing like it in all of comics, in all the artistic world. On a technical level, Gray used white space and spare design in a way that equaled George Herriman when it came to showing the awesomeness of nature. Gray could also use those same elements to suggest how empty a single room apartment could be, or the loneliness of a mansion's Great Hall when people weren't around to fill it."

Also in the incoming stack: the first volume of Gus Edson's and Irwin Hasen's DONDI, beautifully put together by Classic Comics Press. DONDI was a long running post-war strip about a war orphan making his way in 1950s America. It's another one of those fondly remembered strips by people who read it and, without the Classic Comics people, it would have remained unseen. It won "Best Story Strip" awards from the National Cartoonists Society in 1961 and 1962. My edition of DONDI is just gorgeous, with crisp B&W reprints of the dailies & Sundays from the strip's debut on September 25, 1955 to March 17, 1957. DONDI ran until 1986.

On the literary graphic novel front, I have a couple that are arriving today.


CHIGGERS by Hope Larson got a nice write up by Tom Spurgeon; so nice that I thought I'd get it.




Finally, THE EDUCATION OF HOPEY GLASS by Jaime Hernandez is arriving tomorrow (along with a new scanner). I was just paging through the book a couple of weeks ago. I used to buy all the old Love & Rockets magazines back in the day and I haven't read any of Jaime's work in years, aside from his NY Times Maggie story.

Above: a very young Catherine Zeta-Jones, with co-star Philip Franks, from the TV series The Darling Buds of May photo from the 23 September 2007 Daily Mail article by Neil Sears titled "Darling Buds of May village in uproar as pub landlord launches daily strip club." The bucolic rural world of 1950s Britain as portrayed in the series is as dead as a doornail.

I don't know a lot about the above 2 graphic novels, and that's the way I prefer it. On top of this, my local librarian called and the H.E. Bates book that I had ordered via inter-library loan, THE DARLING BUDS OF MAY (yeah, the book that was made into the Brit TV series with Catherine Zeta-Jones) has arrived. I enjoyed MY UNCLE SILAS so much, I had to get more Bates.

Tis a bountiful book harvest. Now I don't care that so much on TV sucks.

Dead Scanner

My scanner died yesterday.

Best known for scanning in old, yellowing cartoon books for this blog, the scanner first arrived in Brooklyn after being bought at an office supply store in Suffern, NY. During its days in Brooklyn, it scanned both cartoon originals and books. When we made the move to New Hampshire in August 2007, we had no idea that it only had 6 months of life left in it.

We had some good times. Who can forget the Scan Your Cat entry of January 23, 2007? As funny as it was then, perhaps it was stunts like that that caused the undue wear and tear on the Canon scanner.

Ah well. All good things ....

Services will be held tomorrow morning at 9am EST at the bulky container at the Milton, NH Recycling Center. In lieu of flowers, please scan a copy of "Taps" into your own scanner. Thanks.

The scanner is dead. Long live the scanner -- the new one arrives tomorrow in a big brown UPS truck.

Inviting Cartoonists to Weddings

Above is one reason you should invite cartoonists to weddings.

As you know cartoonist Stephanie Piro's daughter Nico was married last weekend. Back in March, her daughter mailed out invitations with an RSVP card. Aside from the usual "are you coming? check here" box, there was a space for you to "take a minute to draw a picture of what you think we'll look like" on the wedding day. So, I took out the Micron Pigma and drew up the above, with a little watercolor greying to get a good effect. One challenge is that the groom's a very tall lad. With Nico pulling on his nose ring, that gets him to lurch over and fit in the picture.

This is a great thing and it should be noted that if you are going to get married and you want some good cartoon originals, then just invite a cartoonist.

The fun touch at the reception was that they had on display all of the doodles that people had made for the couple. Most everyone at least tried drawing stick figures of the couple, and a number of guests drew them horizontally, complete with "turn this way" and an arrow, so as to properly show the groom's height.

I wonder if the people who checked "No, I'll have to take a rain check" means that the happy couple must reenact their vows in future for those who want to cash in that rain check. Hmm.

Ed Arno 1916-2008

"It is my sad duty to report that as of this date your company still has not been subject to a takeover attempt."

Above: a cartoon by Ed Arno from the Harvard Business Review.


Cartoonist Ed Arno, a long time New Yorker contributor, passed away on May 27, 2008. He was 92.

As of this time, I have only heard that the cause of death is old age. Ed lived alone, and news was slow to travel to the New Yorker and the New York Times.

Michael Maslin, who was kind enough to send along an email and let me know this sad news, has a lovely write up about Mr. Arno here.

If anyone has more information, please pass it along if you are able. Thanks.

UPDATES:

Ed Arno NY Times obit by William Grimes

Ed Arno London Times obit by Mark McGinnis

Ed Arno Cartoonist PROfiles interview

Unseen Cartoons

Above: Brandweek magazine bought and paid for the above "Gap Store" progression cartoon, with Baby Gap, The Gap, and finally, Geezer Gap. I think they printed it, but I never saw it.

It's always great to sell a cartoon. When you get the email or phone call or whatever from an editor telling you that they want to pay you for your doodle with the words under it.

And then the following week, you pick up a copy of The Magazine They Told You Your Cartoon Is In and ... the cartoon isn't there.

Above: "Another Nutso Cartoonist," a true life adventure drawn with a dying Micron Pigma pen in a new sketchbook last night, freehand, no pencils. There are a number of people who I've met who look at my like I'm crazy because I draw funny pictures for a living. "No one does that," they think to themselves. "People put up drywall, run retail or food industry franchises, or drive a big rig, up and down the highways and byways of this Great Nation -- they don't get paid to sit and doodle! That's preposterous! Outlandish! Balderdash!"

Anyway ....

I remember calling Charles Preston one time and asking when a cartoon of mine was going to run in the "Pepper ... and Salt" spot in the Wall Street Journal. Charles is a nice guy. He really is. But this time, he uncharacteristically laughed in my face. He told me -- and, as we all know, Charles Preston is the editor and creator of the S&P feature -- the guy that's been doing editing it for over 50 years -- even HE, Charles Preston, himself, was never told which cartoon was going to run which day.

Here are a couple of cartoons that I've sold, but to my knowledge, they have yet to run (and may never run) in the publication that bought them.

Above is a wordless cartoon starring our beloved real-life orange multi-toed kitty Opie, who has since passed away. Reader's Digest bought the above cartoon about six years ago and so far as I know it has not run. If you click on it and make it a wee bigger, you can see the gag.

"No, you're not interrupting a damn thing. We're just having our usual argument about who came first."

Above is a cartoon that was rejected by The New Yorker and Playboy, until finally getting snatched up by of all things The Chronicle for Higher Education. I thought it was risque and maybe completely out of character for this weekly journal, aimed at working faculty and administration at postsecondary institutions.

To the best of my knowledge, they never ran it.

"If you can't learn your parts, you'll have to deal with the repercussion section."

The above cartoon was sold to BBC Music Magazine five years ago which published it and now York College is using it in a music publication of their own. I think I saw it in BBC, and but I know I'll never actually see it in the York College book.

So, there ya go. I have some more cartoons like this, but that'll be all for today.

Liza Donnelly Video

New Yorker cartoonist (and editor of the new book SEX AND SENSIBILITY) Liza Donnelly talks about being a cartoonist, the woman's point of view in cartooning and how the just-closed Cartoon Art Museum exhibit came to be.



Hey, I think that's Andrew Farago, curator of San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum, putting up those framed originals ....

Fave Drawing Tools Poll

The "What's your favorite drawing tool?" poll closes this week, so be patriotic and vote, so the Mike Lynch Diebold Machine can get to work "tabulating!"

Related: Illustrator Kevin Cornell blogs extensively about his favorite pencils and pens. Hat tip to Journalista!

June 18 Drinking & Drawing, Boston, MA

Below is the result when a bunch of talented people get together in a bar with an animation light table and take turns drawing a stream of consciousness series of drawings.


Find more videos like this on Channel Frederator RAW


My thanks to the organizer of this fun event, Lenny Boudreau, for the heads up!

2008 Reubens Photos

Above: Mike Peters and Juana Medina, winner of the first Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship. Photo by David Folkman.

David Folkman shares some of the many, many photos he took of the 2008 Reubens over at the Hogan's Alley Web site.

Related: Comics Reporter 2008 Reubens Collective Memory with lots of links.

A big ol' tip o' the hat to John Martz for the heads up! Thanks so much, John!

Congratulations Stephanie Piro

A big week for Stephanie! First, her daughter gets married! And now ....

My cartoonist pal and neighbor Stephanie Piro is the above-the-fold story in this week's Rochester (NH) Times:

"Each year, CHILIS, the Children's Librarians of New Hampshire, picks a theme to encourage children to take part in their local summer reading programs, and this year, it is the Aussie-sounding G'day for Reading. Also, on an annual basis, an artist in the state is commissioned to create artwork which underscores the theme, and in 2008, the designer of the reading logs, clip art and book marks, the posters, T-shirts and reading certificates, is Farmington illustrator/cartoonist Stephanie Piro — who is also on the staff of the Goodwin Library in Farmington."

Congratulations, Stephanie! And if anyone walks into any public library in the state, they are going to see cartoons of kookaburras, kangaroos and other Aussie animals on posters and bookmarks all over the place all summer long!

Happy Wedding Day, Nico & Jeremiah

Above: Jeremiah and Nico, drawn by Nico.

This weekend brings good friends and good weather together in a family-owned New Hampshire vineyard to celebrate the wedding of Nico Piro, daughter of my pal Stephanie Piro, and her beau Jeremiah Cushman.

We wish you much health and happiness today and every day! Congratulations, Nico & Jeremiah!


Above: Stephanie's SIX CHIX panel for today.


Related: Weddings and Other Happy Occasions by Stephanie Piro at the Six Chix blog.

What Are Those Musicians Talking About?

There is a minute from the great TV show FREAKS & GEEKS (1999-2000), where the parents (Joe Flaherty and Becky Ann Baker) listen to a song by The Who to discern if it's decent or indecent. It runs about a minute.



But, even funnier, is Mark Evanier, who found a Joe Cocker video complete with hilarious subtitles.

Today's Drabble

Drabble by Kevin Fagan is getting to be a fave. Above is today's strip. Any punchline with The Shat in it is a good punchline.

DOCTOR WHO "Silence in the Library"

I remember standing in a long line at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema. I don't remember what the movie was, but I do remember meeting this couple. They were chatty and it helped pass the time. There was a general discussion of sci fi TV shows that went something like this:

THEM: "And there's BABYLON 5. You watch BABYLON 5, right?"

ME: "No. I watched the pilot. I couldn't get into it."

THEM "Oh, no. You HAVE to watch BABYLON 5. I highly recommend it!"

And I remember wondering, Who are you? So, what? So you "highly recommend" something! I don't even know you! I did try watching BABYLON 5 once again and once again I was turned off by it.

Another show that I would occasionally watch was DOCTOR WHO, which is seen in the States on Friday nights on the Sci Fi Channel. It was cheesy and silly and overly dramatic. I've gone from watching maybe once a year to really getting into the program now that David Tennant is The Doctor. I can't put my finger on when I went from casual watcher to fan. And I can't help but proselytize.

I urge you to watch/tape/TiVo/DVR tonight's episode titled "Silence in the Library." It's good. It's written by the man who is going to producing the show for the next while. And, yeah, I highly recommend it.

There are 2 Doctor Who episodes on Sci Fi tonight. I'm talking about the second one of the two.

Lowell Hess Web Site

Illustrator Lowell Hess has a new Web site. Go and look. It's full of Mr. Hess' wonderful work! If you grew up in the 50s or 60s, chances are you saw his children's book work or his Boy's Life covers.

Big hat tip to Orlando Busino!! Thanks for letting me know, Orlando!

Tom Engelhardt Video

From KETC St. Louis: a June 16, 2008 interview with veteran editorial cartoonist Tom Engelhardt. Tom was the editorial cartoonist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 35 years.

This is a good interview. Not only does the camera linger over Tom Engelhardt's work, but he also talks about (and we get to see) St. Louis' rich history of editorial cartooning, up to and including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's designer, and current Weatherbird artist, Dan Martin.

Here's the video about Tom Engelhardt. It runs about 6 minutes.



Dan Martin's put together a history of St. Louis cartoonists in his book SEE YOU IN THE FUNNY PAPERS: THE RICH TRADITION OF ST. LOUIS CARTOONING.

Here's Dan:

"Six years ago, when I was digging through the Post archives doing research for the Weatherbird’s 100th birthday, I was constantly stumbling across one famous cartoonist after another that had a St. Louis connection. What I found most interesting was how famous some of these great artists were, yet today are totally forgotten except to historians."

- from "You and Blondie at the Station" by Eddie Roth at St. Louis Today/Post-Dispatch site

Some of the names are: Lee Falk, Clare Briggs, Phil Davis, Clare Victor "Dwig" Dwiggins, Daniel Fitzpatrick, Al Hirschfeld, Joseph Keppler, George McManus, Harry Tuthill, Mort Walker, Chic Young, Elmer Simms Campbell, Mike Peters, Mary Engelbreit, Kevin Belford, Glenn and Gary McCoy, and Dan Zettwoch. To celebrate the book's publication, Dan is curating an exhibit of original cartoons by these great cartoonists at the Bellweather Gallery through the end of August 2008

Related: Dan Martin and the history of the St. Louis Weatherbird from the Great Lakes Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society Web site.

Also related: Dan Martin's Postcard from Mound City feature.

National Cartoonists Society Visits Veterans in US and Abroad

Tom Richmond has the story on his blog:

"The National Cartoonists Society and the National Cartoonist Society Foundation has been working with “Broadside” (Naval Times) cartoonist Jeff Bacon and the USO on a great program that brings cartoonists from various areas to military hospitals and medical centers for them to meet, talk with and draw for U.S. veterans who are convalescing from injuries sustained in defense of our nation. It’s an inspired and inspiring program, and many cartoonists have visited injured veterans in many U.S. military hospitals around the country.

"This fall the NCS and the USO are sponsoring the first cartoonist trip outside the U.S. for this purpose."

The tentative line up of cartooning luminaries:

• Jeff Keane (Family Circus)
• Mike Peters (Mother Goose and Grimm, editorial cartoonist)
• Mike Luckovich (editorial cartoonist)
• Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine)
• Rick Kirkman (Baby Blues)
• Walt Handelsman (editorial cartoonist)
• and of course, Tom Richmond

The NCS began when a group of cartoonists got together regularly to visit VA hospitals in the NYC area over 50 years ago.

October 1960 STARE Magazine Cartoons

Mom always told you it wasn't polite to STARE -- by extension, STARE Magazine is impolite -- and not the kind of thing your mom would approve of. It's sexy, but in a kinda retro Austin Powers "Oh, behave!" way, with a lotta cheesecake photo essays with titles like "Cutey and the Cuticle" and "Overly N. Dowd." You get the picture. It was also a cartoon market. It was also -- surprise, surprise -- published by Marvel Comics.




STARE, Exciting and Lively Picture Pleasure! (yes, that's the whole title from the indicia) Volume 7, No. 3, October 1960 is copyright 1960 Timely Publications (nee Marvel). Steve Andre was the editor.


The digest-sized mag had a lot of good girl photos, as well as over a dozen cartoons by cartoonists I have heard of and cartoonists I have not.


Above is an atypical photo. This is Sylvia Steele, who, I know little else about.



I admire how the cartoonist Beattie is able to draw the frilly underwear and the folds in the doc's clothing.


Above: this is a poor reproduction from this yellowing magazine. The girl sure doesn't look like the kind you want to take home to mother!


Above: Henry Boltinoff, a prolific cartoonist if ever there was one, shows us the goofy-headed love life of the nerd. A tip off: the bow tie.


I don't know who Max Porter is but he knows that by putting black spotting in the boss' suit and in the woman's dress, our eyes will see who we are supposed be paying attention to, and readily get the gag.


Above: a really breezy pen (or brush) style overshadows the weak gag. Look at the juxtaposition of bodies. The cartoonist (I can't guess his name from the signature) knows his anatomy. No pun intended.

"Axsen" (?) gives us a typical goofy gag.


Above: some great B&W work in another so-so gag. Like I said, this copy of STARE has seen better days and some of the scans are not the best, regardless of Photoshop tweaking.


I really admire the working in of the shadows here, helping to pop put the figures.


What's fun about these cartoons are the sexy women who look like they enjoy being naughty. They also seem to all wear the same dark, clingy dress, with bodies like Bill Ward drew.


Above: a boss chasing the secretary cartoon. Sadly, like many corporations nowadays, the boss is outsourcing the job of chasing.

The Time Tunnel

"TWO AMERICAN SCIENTISTS ARE LOST IN THE SWIRLING MAZE OF PAST AND FUTURE AGES DURING THE FIRST EXPERIMENTS ON AMERICA'S GREATEST AND MOST SECRET PROJECT "THE TIME TUNNEL". TONY NEWMAN AND DOUG PHILLIPS NOW TUMBLE HELPLESSLY TOWARD A NEW FANTASTIC ADVENTURE SOMEWHERE ALONG THE INFINITE CORRIDORS OF TIME...."

THE TIME TUNNEL ran for 30 episodes, a full season, back in 1966. I have a distinct childhood memory of the opening credits, specifically that music, and the image of our two leads falling in slow motion against the woozy, sparkling lava lamp efx that signify ripples in time. John Williams, who was then billed as "Johnny," created the dissonant theme music. It alternately scared and thrilled me. When a CD was released in the 1990s with music from the series, I snatched it up. I still love it.

The show, however, was a typical Irwin Allen show of the 1960s. That is, the thing started off strong and then fell back on silly plots, clunky-to-non-existent characterization; with each episode full of running and jumping. Our two leads, Tony & Doug, were forever landing in Krakatoa, on the Titanic, War of 1812, etc. And they were always saying, "You might not believe me, but I'm a time traveler." And then they'd get beaten up. Ugh. Predictable!

I still like the IDEA of the program, but not the execution.

Below is a short documentary overview of TIME TUNNEL, with interviews with all the principle actors. I'm guessing that it was part of the larger documentary The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen (1995). And below those vids are a series of YouTube links to a 2002 revamp of the series that I came across. Please watch it. I haven't. Tell me if it's good.







TIME TUNNEL (2002) Part One
TIME TUNNEL (2002) Part Two
TIME TUNNEL (2002) Part Three
TIME TUNNEL (2002) Part Four
TIME TUNNEL (2002) Part Five


Above photo from the highly informative Time Tunnel page here.

There are a lot of Trek links to the cast. We don't just like Trek here, we love love love Trek. Here are just a few:

TOS (STAR TREK:THE OLD SHOW): Lee Meriweather was in a third season episode , That Which Survives; Whit Bissell was Space Station K-7's Commander Lurry in The Trouble with Tribbles. James Darren was in eight episodes of DS9, as well as regularly appearing on The Shat's show T.J. HOOKER.

And there are more in the TT supporting cast. Of particular note is Lawrence Montaigne, who played "Stonn" in the TOS episode Amok Time (where Spock goes into heat) and then he repeated that same character in the 2007 Web series STAR TREK:OF GODS AND MEN.

Marie Antoinette Action Figure

And, on the heels of this morning's Death of Spock toy, comes this Marie Antoinette Action Figure, with Ejector Head! And Removable Dress! Yipe! A big tip of the hat to Ralf Zeigermann at his The Cartoonist blog!



"This 5-1/2" (14 cm) tall, hard vinyl figure features amazing “Ejector Head Action,” and comes with a removable plastic wig and dress."

Also worth a peek: the Crazy Cat Lady Action Figure ("... has a wild look in her eye and comes with six cats") and the Deluxe Jesus Action Figure ("... with eight amazing plastic accessories: five loaves of bread, two fish and a jug for turning water into wine (not guaranteed to work for real). Also features glow-in-the-dark miracle hands!")

This is no gag. This is toy licensing gone mad!

New Cartoon Poll

What do you like to use? Pen? Pencil? Brush? Wacom tablet? Please vote in the new poll at the top right of the page ....

Thanks!

"The Death of Spock" Playset

So, it's a generation after STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN came out. I did not know it, but Trekmovie reports that way back in 1982, there were no TWOK action figure toys. But, do not grieve, Admiral; Action Figure Express is churning out toys, including the Death of Spock playset which "includes a radiation version of Spock and a grieving Admiral Kirk." Plus three extra hands for Spock! See below!

ONE MOMENT, SIR!

Here's a selection of cartoons from ONE MOMENT , SIR!. a hardcover collection of Saturday Evening Post cartoons edited by Marione R. Nickles and copyright 1957 by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc.



The above cartoon by prolific gag cartoonist Tom Henderson is just as fresh as it was 51 years ago (no pun intended).

Jim Whiting with a funny take on marriage.


Don Tobin, with a gag on the then-small sportscar craze, provides the title cartoon. You could make the same gag today with those Cooper minis.


Above: Herb Green with a study in juxtaposition between the little girls simple smile and the tired, rapidly aging parent.

Yes, there was an Ed Sullivan who drew gag cartoons but it's not the "really big shoe" Ed Sullivan.


Joe Zeis reminds us all that when making a sale, consider your audience. Look buddy, floozies don't need to know this kinda thing.


Above is a wonderful switch of expectations from Bill Harrison.


Chon Day, one of the best, with his simple line & wash technique, coupled with a killer, hostile, funny line. I like how just the suggestion of the 2 car windows and the handle tell us that we're in the limo, post-ceremony.



The above cartoon by Frank Ridgeway is a successful puzzle. The puzzle begins with the drawing, and trying to understand why this slob of a guy is wearing mouse ears. The gag line, citing the then-phenomenal popularity of the Mickey Mouse Club, solves the puzzle.

Roy L. Fox with a reminder of that time when those ranchers were getting rich off of that Texas tea that was found on their land.

Orlando Busino shows us that even cold-blooded bank robbers need to let off a little steam now and then. I like their expressions.


Mary Blanchard with a nice anti-snob surprise gag line. A New Yorker regular, I wonder if she first had the above cartoon rejected by the New Yorker editors before selling it to the Post. Maybe the NYer eds. were too pro-snob to buy it. Hmm.


I wanted to close with another by Chon Day, who makes me laugh. Add Mr. Day to a short list of cartoonists who deserve more recognition.

Marion R. Nickles also edited the collection HONEY I'M HOME! There are selected gag cartoons here and here from the book.

Mailbag Q&A

I get mail. Below are a few of the questions I've gotten recently and my response. Most of these are good solid questions about making a living as a cartoonist and pricing your work.

--------------------

Question: I need some info on the top paying markets.

The best thing is to go out and see what mags are out there (or what Web sites) and gear your work accordingly. By doing this, you will begin to establish that ever-moving shark, proactive, market-seeking-out mentality that all freelance cartoonists need.

On a chatboard, one fellow who wants to be a professional cartoonist was asking me to describe the cartoons in Playboy to him. I don't think anything I would write would be as helpful as him seeing the cartoons they are running for himself.

So, yes, one must be self-motivated to see what's out there and persevere. I'm not sure if this is what you wanted to hear, but, for me, it's what works.

--------------------

Question: I'm an aspiring cartoonist with a weekly one panel strip that I'll be marketing to newspapers. I'm having trouble finding any information about pricing each strip. I'm self-syndicating. Can you help me?

My advice is not to do it, but I figure that you don't want to hear that.

First, you need a Web site. You really need an online presence. I don't know if you have a site or a blog, but it's necessary. [I had searched for a Web site for this cartoonist and not found one.]

Most newspapers pay $5 a week for a comic strip or panel. That's $5 for a week's worth. The bigger papers (Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, etc) pay up to $200 a week.

One of the most successful self-syndicated cartoonists is my colleague Chad Carpenter. I hope he doesn't mind me shining the Mike Lynch Cartoons spotlight on him. His cartoon panel TUNDRA is in about 200 markets and he self-syndicated his panel. I urge you to look at his site and consider creating something similar. Editors will want to see a lot of consistent output, that's why a site is crucial.

And let's keep in mind that Chad has been doing this for 15 years. A lot of success in cartooning is over the long haul.

I would also urge simultaneously submitting your package of cartoons to the major syndicates. Just let them see it and see if you get any comments or interest.

This is my 2 cents.

--------------------

You probably get this all the time, but I've got a great one box cartoon idea. What should I do with it?

Gee whiz, just one? Come up with 9 more and that'll make a decent batch, then mail them out to The New Yorker!

Then, do it again the following week!

Like they say in the Lotto commercials, Ya never know!

--------------------

That's all for now. My thanks to those who wrote. I appreciate! Feel free to add your own 2 cents in the comments section.

Kate Burton Parodies FBOFW

Nova Scotia cartoonist Kate Beaton, who, like so many of us, grew up with the newspaper comic strip FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE, gives us her take on the Elizabeth/Anthony romance storyline.

Big hat tip to Brian Moore for this.

EVER SINCE ADAM AND EVE Part 3

Here we go again with a selection of great cartoons from EVER SINCE ADAM AND EVE, a book dedicated to the National Cartoonists Society by its editors Alfred Andriola and Mel Casson. It's copyright 1955 by them too.

EVER SINCE ADAM AND EVE part one is here.

EVER SINCE ADAM AND EVE part two is here.

"Enjoy yourself while you can, Bertram — I won't live forever!"

Some heavy hitter cartoonists contribute their take on the ongoing battle of the sexes. Al Capp "one of the few cartoonists who is as famous as his creation Li'l Abner," gives us a one-panel gag wherein hubby Bertram is not going to get away with an intimate moment with a devil girl.




Gregory D'Alessio, husband to fellow cartoonist Hilda Terry, draws his wife in this series of wonderfully observed sketches; braiding and washing her hair, drinking coffee, sketching, inking, sewing — ending bottom right with a final drawing of himself, reading the paper.


Otto Soglow is another cartoonist who is due for a big contemporary volume of his reprinted cartoon work. This man is one of the founding fathers of the NCS, and a New Yorker regular as well as a successful syndicated cartoonist. Above is a risque gag with his Little King character, which was syndicated by King Features (no pun intended) from 1934 until Mr. Soglow's death in 1975.


Harry Hanan drew the comic strip Louie from 1947 to 1976. Like The Little King, the character of Louie did not speak.

Allan Holtz at his Stripper's Guide blog gives us a 1952 feature article from Editor and Publisher on Harry Hanan.

Ger Apeldoorn at his All Things Ger blog gives us a series of entries about Louie, with some great insight by Ger.





Above: the one and only Noel Sickles, who will soon get a wonderful hardcover collection of his Scorchy Smith strip, contributes this ink & wash gag.



Rube Goldberg, the man who founded the NCS, is the only cartoonist whose name is in the Webster's New World Dictionary as something other than himself:

"Your mural dresses up the barracks, Killer — but where are the light switches?"

Above: Mort Walker shows us a little more than he can in his strip. Ger Apeldoorn has a great selection of Walker's gag panels.




The one and only Hirschfeld, the Line King, draws some dubious goings on under the dress. Here's a link to the NY Times Hirschfeld Archive.



"I left when he wanted to show me how his outfit in Korea captured Hill No. 234 and Hill No. 235."

Alex Raymond shows us why men go to art school: to draw pretty girls!




Nebraska-born Russell Patterson, who studied under the artist Monet, designed the original (and still in use) logo for the National Cartoonists Society (below):






Frank King draws Skeezix and Nina in separate beds, having a marital tiff. It looks like Skeezix is wearing a Where's Waldo? shirt.



And finally, here is a two-pager by Milton Caniff. From the book:

"Milton Caniff, superb adventure-strip artist, created a vogue as seen in Steve Canyon. Here he satirizes his owne style in which the hero, even in villain's disguise, must triumph."

How not to have an Olympic mascot nightmare

Above: 2008 Olympics mascots ready for merchandising: Beibei the fish, Jingjing the panda, Huanhuan the Olympic flame (because kids love playing with fire), Yingying the antelope and Nini the swallow.

BBC News reports on the history of appallingly designed mascots. The 2008 mascots -- yes, there are more than just one -- carry on in that tradition.

"In 2000, Syd the platypus, Ollie the kookaburra and Millie the echidna were not particularly well received. And the vaguely sinister-looking trio found themselves more marginalised as the games went on. There was competition from Fatso the wombat, a very unofficial mascot, who by the end of the games was the more recognisable figure for many."

The BBC requests that you please send in your designs for the 2012 Olympics mascots which will be lots better than any of these, you bet!

Chad Carpenter Interview

Above: Chad Carpenter, who now gets to eat at the Big Cartoonists table, with Lynn Johnston and Mike Peters at the 2008 Reubens.

Creator of the newspaper panel TUNDRA, Chad Carpenter, won the National Cartoonists Society Newspaper Panel Division Award at last month's Reuben awards weekend. Megan Otts, writing for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, interviews Alaska's hot cartoonist.

"After more than 15 years, Carpenter said new ideas don’t always come easily, but he finds he does his best work when completely relaxed.

"'I have to get in that zone where you’re half-asleep, half-awake and you just think of these funny situations like moose in hot tubs,' he said.

"Carpenter’s advice for aspiring cartoonists? Get into any publication you possibly can, build an audience and, most importantly, 'live at home at long as possible.'"

Hat tip to Megan for letting me know about the article.

Roy Delgado Shares Originals

Prolific cartoonist and friend Roy Delgado has a terrific blog that's worth a visit.

Recently, Roy's been sharing a lot of unseen originals by other cartoonists. Some of these were drawn at cartooning events and, as they talk shop, the cartoonist will draw in Roy's sketchbook Each original has a story that Roy shares with us:

Tom Gill "Lone Ranger" Sketch
Bud Grace "Ernie" Original
Patricia Roberts Original
Eli Stein WSJ Cartoonist
Fred Lasswell Snuffy Smith
Mort Walker Sgt. Snorkel
Orlando Busino 1979 Drawing
Jerry Marcus 1979 Sketch

Left: Tom Gill's Lone Ranger. Tom drew the Lone Ranger for decades for Dell Comics.

Kal Explains His Animation Process

Editorial cartoonist Kevin "Kal" Kallaugher of the London magazine The Economist talks about the process of his "motion capture" animation that he uses in his editorial cartoon animations:



A big hat tip to Comics Reporter!

MIMI'S DONUTS Wins Xeric Award

Congratulations to fellow New Hampshire cartoonist Marek Bennett upon his win of the prestigious Xeric Award for independent self-publishers.

"MIMI'S DOUGHNUTS" WINS XERIC AWARD
Prestigious Self-Publishing Grant Goes to New Hampshire Comic Strip

Henniker, New Hampshire -- The weekly comic strip "Mimi's Doughnuts" has won a coveted Xeric Grant for comic book self-publishing. With this award, creator Marek Bennett will self-publish a trade paperback anthology of the past four years of his comics.

The Xeric-funded anthology, entitled "Breakfast at Mimi's Doughnuts," will collect the best of the strip's first 200 episodes, plus several pages of original artwork and special features. Bennett plans to release the collection in Spring of 2009.

"Mimi's Doughnuts" follows the lives of an extended family that runs a small neighborhood doughnut shop in fictional Claymont, New Hampshire. Bennett bases the strip loosely on his wife's childhood growing up at family doughnut shops and diners in Claremont, New Hampshire.

"The characters and stories are mixtures of people and places we've known, people and issues I encounter in my teaching, and new ideas that come up every day," says Bennett. "It's the perfect setting to address so many of the issues facing small towns all over our country today."

Past storylines use humor to deal with serious topics like diet, politics, littering, real estate development, lung cancer, domestic abuse, and global warming. Often, real-life stories and adventures find their way into Bennett's comics. In 2007, while Bennett's family rescued over 30 stray kittens from an abandoned house in Henniker, his comic strip characters found themselves also rescuing feral cats.

Bennett has drawn "Mimi's Doughnuts" since 2003.

The strip currently appears weekly in New Hampshire and Vermont newspapers. Bennett also offers quarterly mail-order "zines" of his comics, with subscriptions available at his website. Bennett's popular Comics Workshop programs for elementary- and teenaged artists run all Summer long at several locations in New Hampshire. For more information, visit Bennett's website at: www.marekbennett.com

The Xeric Foundation of Northampton, Massachussetts, supports independent self-publishers in the comics industry through competitive grant programs. The Foundation was established by Peter Laird, co-creator of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." For more information, visit: http://xericfoundation.org

Busted for Doodle

From today's Boston Herald: Teacher files charges vs. kid over gun sketch

They're Just Not That Into You

There is nothing so wonderful/heartbreaking/thrilling as falling in love.

Just please oh please, don't fall in love with pens and paper.

The people who make the art supplies do not love you back.

And what do you do if the stop making you pen? Or, even worse, what do you do if they stopped making your pen over 20 years ago?

My brave cartoonist pal Stephanie Piro writes about her personal struggle over making the pen relationship work at the Six Chix blog here. (No permalink, but it's at the top of the page as of today.)

And my friend, cartoonist Sandra Bell Lundy, writes that her favorite drawing paper is going to be discontinued.

I got a call yesterday from a friend who was looking for the non-photo blue bristol with the pre-lined comic book and newspaper strip dimensions. I couldn't help at all.

When I show my cartoons in galleries, the medium is noted on that little card next to framed original as "ink and wash on typing paper." I could lie and just say that I used cheap materials so as to maintain a low overhead, but that's just a side effect to not being in love with any particular pen or paper. A blessing I never counted until I heard about my friends' agonizing ordeals from this past week.

Above photo: Stephanie's beloved 20+ year old Koh-i-noor Artpen taken from the Six Chix blog.

Tangentially related: the MY PEN!!!! film from Kids in the Hall. It runs just over 4 minutes and is one of the funniest things I've seen:



My other weird Bruce MacDonald fave short of theirs is Mr. Mann's Wig Shop.

Mike Lynch Cartoon in June 13, 2008 WSJ

Churchy La femme used to dread Friday the 13th, even if Friday the 13th came on another day of the week. This month, Friday the 13th comes on Friday and it's a pretty good one for me since I have a cartoon in today's Wall Street Journal.

The mental calisthenics that a cartoonist goes through, trying to come up with some interesting ideas for business cartoons can be exhausting. Most of the time, a business cartoon gag will have (a) a business person, and (b) a desk. If you are drawing business cartoons, you soon get tired of drawing board rooms, offices, buildings, ties, suits, briefcases, etc. Any chance to take a biz gag out of its office environment is welcome. And the reader appreciates the change in venue as well.

Above I have a gag that I thought up one time when I was reading about (you guessed it) a corporate retreat. I wondered what would happen if the Appalachian Trail (the 2,175 mile long footpath from Georgia to Maine) snaked through the retreat. The AT has, six months out of the year, many, many of these "through hikers;" people who dedicate themselves to walking the length of the AT.

It was a lot of fun drawing the foliage. But I feel sad the business people in the cartoon. Even though they're on retreat, they still sure look grouchy. OK, I guess I would be too if I my suit smelled of deet, or I had to swat a bunch of gnats while working my Blackberry, or if I got some Smore run-off in my laptop keyboard ....

I redrew this about 10 times before I was reasonably happy with it. Fitting five figures plus the woods was a challenge to show economically in the small WSJ cartoon space. It was a tough cartoon to draw a finish. It was a dreadful process of drawing and throwing away, until the right drawing finally came out of the pen. Maybe not as dreadful as Churchy feels about Friday the 13th, but close.

A big tip o' the cartoonist hat to my pal Dave Carpenter who alerted me to this via email, like an early NORAD warning, in the wee AM hours last night. While I sleep, Dave watches the cartoon markets!

UPDATE: Just got word from a cartoonist pal and WSJ subscriber that the cartoon is not in the print edition. Darn!

Shaenon Garrity on the 2008 NCS Reubens Weekend

Shaenon Garrity has a wonderful first-person account of the Reubens and her impressions of the NCS. She and her husband Andrew attended for the the first time. Here's a paragraph:

"It takes a while for it to sink in that the hands I'm seeing, folding napkins and raising glasses, are the hands that draw the comic strips I've been reading all my life. I taught myself to read with the Sunday paper—Beetle Bailey, Cathy, The Family Circus, For Better or for Worse—and here are all the people responsible. "It's like Battle of the Network Stars," says Andrew, "but for our interests." It's different from meeting comic-book artists I admire. It's almost like meeting your own ancestors. I'm not sure what this says about me, but the enormity of it doesn't hit home until I meet the guy who draws Ask Shagg."

Above left photo taken from her article. That's Shaenon in the NERD t-shirt. Andrew is to the left.

EVER SINCE ADAM AND EVE Part 2

Above: Andriola and Casson collaborate on this pair of not-so-innocent cherubs for the frontispiece.

Here are a series of cartoons from the collection EVER SINCE ADAM AND EVE. This is all just so much great stuff in this book, I'm scanning way too much of it.

EVER SINCE ADAM AND EVE was co-edited by Alfred Andriola and Mel Casson, and copyright 1955 by those two great cartoonists as well. This collection is dedicated to and features a wide variety of National Cartoonists Society cartoonists. The first series of scans from the book are here.

Of the 11 images below dealing with dating and teen angst, five are drawn by professional women cartoonists.


Above: Hilda Terry sketches teenagers -- on the phone, talking, sitting, lounging, dancing, goofing -- for the "Jean, Janes, and Growing Pains" chapter. This looks so much like a page ripped out of her sketchpad. I don't know if it is, but it looks like it. I wish there was more Hilda Terry in print.

From the Mike lynch Cartoons blog:

More on her comic strip Teena.

Hilda Terry remembrance.

"He's ideal for Jane. He has all the qualities she likes to change in a boy."

Above is George Clark, with his dry brush on pebble board, giving us another deft look at middle America. One of my favorite originals that I won is a Neighbors panel by George Clark, that I got from Don Orehek.

Related: Some great originals by George Clark from the Mike Lynch Cartoons blog.

March 21, 1955 Time magazine on feature on George Clark.

"I'm trying to warn you about men, Alicia -- stop screaming 'How wonderful!'"

George Lichty is another cartoonist with a loose style. Don't you love Alicia's expression, and Lichty's choice to have her staring at the reader?! Another sly, smoky glance like those angels that open the book.

More from his Grin and Bear It panels.

"Well, there's one thing -- she certainly isn't controversial."

I like the soft, almost gauzy, wash that Barbara Shermund uses in this slice of teenage life from days gone by. There is little more than a few mentions of her here and there. The Internet needs to catch up on her.

"I think I oughta drop Hughie . . . . I'm learning too much about boys from him, and not enough about men."

Hilda Terry, who created the Teena newspaper comic strip, is neck-and-neck with Marty Links for her ability to portray gangly teens.


Above is a two page spread by Carl Rose. A name that's not familiar now, Rose had a long and prolific cartoon career. His clients included This Week, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New York Times Magazine, among others. His seminal New Yorker cartoon with the mother and little girl at the dinner table is a classic:

MOTHER: It's broccoli, dear.

CHILD: I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it.

Actually, yes, Carl Rose drew it. As was accepted practice back in the early New Yorker days, a writer wrote the line. In this case, the one and only E.B. White.


Alfred Andriola shows he can draw lanky teens that out lank all others.

"No, this is not the home of Emmylou Merriweather -- this is Grand Central Station!"

Above is a cartoon by the creator of Bobby Sox, Marty Links, "one of the top teen-age delinaeators," so states the book. Her long-running comic outlived the bobby socks craze and it was rechristened Emmy Lou.

Related: More Bobby Sox

"Oh, Ronny, you shouldn't have. My father just planted that bush."

Here's the text that accompanies the above cartoon:

" ... Kate Osann, an equally deft artist, does Tizzy for Colliers."

I never heard of Ms. Osann! Perhaps I can find one of her Tizzy collections one day and share it.

"Nothing doing! If this is Dutch treat, I'm handing over my money to the waiter myself!"

Any chance to show more of Irwin Caplan's designerly work. These two are on their way to the getting hitched for life, don'tcha think?



And last, one of the all-time chap cartoonists: Henry Syverson, with a message of love and loss!

Lee Salem Interview

Universal Press Syndicate head Lee Salem answers questions about newspaper comic strip syndication for the Wet Ink blog. Dawn Douglass conducts the interview. Here's just a snippet:

... Many aspiring cartoonists probably do not know that to accept a development contract, they must also sign a full "real" contract, to have it in place should the feature get picked up. Most lawyers will charge about $1,000 to represent the cartoonist. Do you typically give, or even ever give, legally represented cartoonists a better deal than they could get on their own? (For the sake of full disclosure, whether or not to hire an attorney often comes up in cartooning circles. My feeling is that you're not going to budge on the most important parts of the contract no matter what, so the $1,000 is a waste, that creators should just ask for what they want and negotiate their own deals. Am I wrong?)

LEE: Personally and professionally, I would recommend a lawyer. Syndicate contracts are long term relationships and even if a layperson fully grasps all the nuances of a contract, it's best to get an informed perspective. For the sake of full disclosure, I know of contracts that were negotiated by the cartoonist that are better than some negotiated by a lawyer, and vice versa.

Some good hands-on information in this frank and informative interview via Comics Reporter.

Gene Colan LIVE Today

Mr. Media interviews the one and only Gene Colan today at 1pm EST!

Gene has made a lasting impression in comics that will last for many years to come. Not only is he closely associated with popular characters like Daredevil, Batman, Captain America, Dracula, Iron Man, Captain Marvel, Howard the Duck, Wonder Woman, Sub-Mariner and many others, he's also worked just about every genre comics have ever touched on: Romance, War, Crime/Detective, Western, Sci-Fi, Horror, Humor, and of course Superheroes. www.genecolan.com

I Think Too Much About Cartoons

First thing this morning, I read this BBC Headline: "ARAGONES HAILS VILLA AND TORRES."

It doesn't mean Sergio Aragones or Angelo Torres. It's about soccer.

Doh!

More on 2008 Reubens

Courtesy of my friend, the award winning illustrator, Sean Kelly, comes a series of photos of New Orleans and the Reubens weekend. Thanks Sean!

So, here are just a few of the great photos that Sean sent my way to show his impressions of New Orleans.



Above: Bourbon Street, as if I needed to tell you.


How he found all these cool places I don't know! Sean, did you do the voodoo here?


Sean has a really good eye. It's like he's artistic or something! OK, now let's get to the Reubens.



Above is the one and only Arnie Roth and the one and only Al Jaffee. This is in the kiss & cry area. Al has just left the stage after thanking all those assembled, as well as fellow nominees Dave Coverly and Dan Piraro. He reminded all of us that when he was first a member, it was when guys like Soglow talked shop, and that he (Jaffee) had waited 50 years for the honor of winning the Reuben -- a prize he never dreamed of winning.


Above: a peek at the bar area just before the big sit down for the Reubens dinner. That's Heidi Silver (TV animation award winner Stephen Silver's wife), Jack & Dena Davis and Tom Richmond.


Two of the nicest guys: Brian Walker and Reuben Award nominee Dave Coverly.


A nice shot that Sean took of the Reubens evening. You can see all the people and the stage is up there with a couple of screens for PowerPoint & video.


When Daryl Cagle was having trouble opening the envelope with the winning name, Mike Peters tore away his tux (yeah, the guy had a tear-away tux!) to reveal the Superman costume.



Above: a closer look at the stage area with the 15 gleaming awards!


Exterior of the hotel.


OK, let's downshift to some of the doodles and sketches I picked up.


Above: the paper tablecloth of K-Paul's restaurant, with these odd little characters printed on it.


Above: I tore off a part of the paper cloth, turned it over and drew the bottom of this guy (chin, mouth, neck, shirt) and Rick Kirkman took over drawing the top half (ala the exquisite corpse game).


Above: Sandra Boynton and I traded sketches when we saw each other at the airport. She gave a wonderful presentation at the event.

More photos and writeups from those who were there:

• Paul Gilligan's Pooch Cafe blog
• Newspaper Panel Cartoon NCS Division Award winner Chad Carpenter's blog.
• Greeting Card NCS Division Award winner's Dave Mowder's Flickr set
• Alan Gardner's (Daily Cartoonist) Flickr set
• Tom Spurgeon's Comics Reporter Collective Memory: 2008 Reubens

Finally, here's Bill Gallo, long time sports cartoonist for the NY Daily News, drawing his signature character Boxcar Bertha (you know her if you grew up reading the News) while blindfolded. Yeah, blindfolded. This is all part of a series of experiments that David Folkman set up at the Reubens with cartoonists trying to draw while blindfolded. Yeah, kinda silly.



Hat tip to Gerry Mooney, who took the video.


My thanks to the above gold-coin-finding, NCS Illustration Award winning Sean Kelly for letting me post his photos! Thanks, Sean! And let me know if you post them all on Flickr so I can pass along the link here!

Next year: Hollywood! And I hope they have huge big ass beers there too!

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

I like reading Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics over at Allan Holtz' blog Stripper's Guide. Despite the name, it's safe for work cuz (say it with me) it's about comic strips. Well, duh.

I always wind up spending way too much time looking at all that Allan digs up from his old comics files. I mumble Gee whiz! to myself a lot. And it's even more of a time sucking vortex now that my friend Ger Apeldoorn has a blog too. It's linked at Stripper's Guide and full of cool stuff.

But, anyway, getting back to a semblance of a point; Jim Ivey, cartoonist veteran, draws an all new feature every Sunday at the Guide. Above is his take on submitting to the humor mags thru the years, including a factoid about Jack Kent I never knew! Much more here.

Order Jim Ivey's new book CARTOONS I LIKED at Lulu.com or order direct from Ivey and get the book autographed with a free original sketch.

THE NATION Spy vs. Spy Cover

A bright spot in the day was seeing the above cover to this week's THE NATION magazine. Credits appear in the mag and online as:

Cover design by Gene Case & Stephen Kling/Avenging Angels, with apologies to Antonio Prohias and MAD magazine

NPR has a lovely bio and report on the occasion of the Spy vs. Spy book collection (2001), edited by his daughter, Marta Pizarro, and MAD editor, Nick Meglin.

Sick Leave

I'm sick with some kind of virus or something. No blogging today. I'll post here as soon as I'm able.

Mike Peters Videos

Here are two interviews with Mike Peters from, well, several years ago. They're not dated, but one look at (a) the political candidates and (b) Mike's hairstyle, and you'll get a feel for the time. Regardless, they're both very funny and you get to not only see Mike talk (always funny), but you get to see him draw as well (always fascinating to watch).

The first one, running about 6 1/2 minutes, is from the Joan Rivers show.



Next is CNN interviewing him about the then-new Grimmy show. It's just over 2 minutes.



Related: Mark Anderson's recording of the last 7 minutes or so of Mike Peters' wonderful presentation at the 2007 OSU Festival of Cartoon Art.

Mark Anderson's Cool Robots

Here's a drawing of some of the cool Lego robots that Mark Anderson has on his blog!

George Takei on MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE

Science fiction, comedy, drama, fan-made Web films ... is there anything this guy can't do?

HARVEST IS WHEN I NEED YOU THE MOST

I agree with THE BEAT, I really like the cover to this collection of cartoonists, riffing on (as if you didn't all ready know) STAR WARS.

This 36 page, full color comic, HARVEST IS WHEN I NEED YOU THE MOST, will be for sale at MoCCA Fest this weekend.

As Raina Telgemeier points out, HIWINYTM "will be for sale at tables S58 - S59 (upstairs in the Skylight ballroom), but I should have a display copy on my table as well (A7-A8)!"

Online ordering available as of June 14th.

Gluyas Williams Galleries

John Adcock's Yesterday's Papers blog showcases art by cartoonist Gluyas Williams, with links to more. Williams' quiet observational humor and stark line work and black spotting makes for a distinctive look. You've probably seen his work illustrating a Robert Benchley book, or an old gag cartoon of his from The New Yorker. (His 1928 classic was: "The day a cake of soap sank at Procter & Gamble's.")

Mr. Adcock cites that Mr. Willaims also drew a series of newspaper panels, and reproduces a number of them.

Big hat tip: Journalista!

At left, a self portrait.

PRINCE VALIANT & WASH TUBBS to be Reprinted

Above: Roy Crane's NCS bio page.

From ICV2.com:

Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth told us at Book Expo America that the company has acquired (or in one case, re-acquired) the rights to reprint two classic adventure strips with long and illustrious histories: Prince Valiant and Wash Tubbs & Captain Easy. Prince Valiant will be presented in an oversized color hardcover format, with two years per book, beginning in 2009.

The strips will be in better quality format than previous publications.

This is grand news.

Big hat tip to Comics Reporter.

RHYMES WITH ORANGE Guest Cartoonist is Suzy Becker

Above: a cartoon by Suzy Becker from her Web site.

Hilary Price's newspaper comic strip RHYMES WITH ORANGE will have guest cartoonist Suzy Becker slaving away for a week beginning this Monday while Hilary takes a break. Or rather, she all ready took a break and Suzy filled in and we're only now seeing the event.

Here's Hilary:

"Four weeks ago, I went on vacation for a friend's 40th birthday. While I was basking in the shade lathered in 70 spf sunscreen (we redheads have to be careful), my talented cartoonist pal Suzy Becker took over the strip for the week. Her work will start this coming Monday."

Related: Hilary and Dave SPEEDBUMP Coverly will be have a table at MoCCA Fest this weekend.

Marek Bennett May Be Coming to Your Town!

Fellow New Hampshire cartoonist/educator Marek Bennett is going to be doing a lot this summer. Below is his press release. (Image from his "What We Do" blog entry.)

ARTIST-EDUCATOR MAREK BENNETT BRINGS COMICS TO CONVENTIONS AND CLASSROOMS

"Mimi's Doughnuts" Creator Releases New Comics and Music

Henniker, New Hampshire -- New Hampshire cartoonist and educator Marek Bennett has three new comics appearing this month, along with a convention appearance in New York City and an end-of-the-year school program in New Hampshire.

On June 7-8, Bennett will release issue #15 of his quarterly all-ages comics publication, Mimi's Doughnuts Zine, at the MoCCA Art Festival in New York City. Also launching at this year's MoCCA Art Festival are two anthologies bearing comics by Bennett:

Secrets and Lies, an anthology edited by webcomics artist Cayetano Garza, centered around the comics community of White River Junction's Center for Cartoon Studies.

Swingin' Hits, an anthology of original comics by creators in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Western Massachusetts, published by Trees and Hills Comics Group. The anthology's theme is "music", and it forms the centerpiece to Trees and Hills' "Spring Thaw" Tour. Bennett and other comics artists contributed original music to the anthology's soundtrack CD.

The annual festival, hosted by the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art, celebrates independent comics publishers and small-press artists from around the world.

Following these releases, Bennett will lead a Comics Workshop in Marlow, NH, guiding elementary students in creating comics about influential teachers in their lives. The workshop is part of a retirement ceremony for veteran teachers in the school system.

Since 2002, Bennett has led summetime and school-year "Comics Workshop" education programs, teaching students of all ages how to harness the unlimited power of comics as an expressive and affordable medium for imaginative storytelling. This summer he will lead "Comics Camp" programs at several New Hampshire sites. He has taught at the Hopkinton Independent School since 2004, where he teaches Spanish, music, and middle school science. He recently received grant funding from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts and AutoDesk Corporation to conduct a bilingual original comics exchange between school children in Henniker, NH, and San Ramon, Nicaragua in 2008-2009.

Bennett's comic, "Mimi's Doughnuts," is a weekly self-syndicated comic strip telling the story of a group of step-siblings growing up in a small-town family-run doughnut shop in the fictional town of Claymont, New Hampshire. Mimi's Doughnuts Zine is available by mail-order subscription; order individual copies and subscriptions online at: www.marekbennett.com.

###

Montgomery Scott in the 24th Century

Courtesy of the hard working Kelvington, here's the title sequence to a fake TV show titled MONTGOMERY SCOTT IN THE 24TH CENTURY, which will have you laughing if you know the TREK and BUCK ROGERS TV shows. Paul Sibbald steps up and delivers the narration in grand bass William Conrad style. These mash up vids are always great fun to find and I wonder how many hours are spent putting them together; hours that could have been spent with loved ones. Oh well, who cares? They're good fun!

Tom Gill Stories

Above: Tom Gill art originally from the "Haunted Honeymoon" story in BORIS KARLOFF'S THRILLER comic #1, October 1962. Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine has the whole story reproduced -- which reminded me that there was news of Tom.

Tom and I were, for a number of years, co-chairs of the National Cartoonists Society Long Island Chapter AKA the Berndt Toast Gang.

Tom Gill's memoir has been delayed, as I reported last year. After contact with the co-author and publisher, I am told that the book, THE MISADVENTURES OF A ROVING CARTOONIST, is available. I was to get a copy in the mail when I was in New Orleans for the 2008 Reubens weekend, but there was a SNAFU. Regardless, it's out and ready for purchase.

As you may recall, after Tom's death at the age of 92 in 2005, I wrote a remembrance of him. A fellow named George posted this wonderful comment just last month, and I'd like to highlight it:

"I lived in Tom's neighborhood as a young boy. At about 11 years old (now 58) Tom asked me (and my parents) if I would care to be his model for a new cartoon strip entitled The Adventures of Brains Benton. As a tall and awkward glasses wearing kid, he thought I looked the studious, science oriented type. He was right. I spent a summer posing for different action scenes outside his home. At only 11 Tom made me feel like a celebrity. He was a fine man, a gentle guy who was fun to be around. Brains Benton was styled after the Hardy Boys series of books. Unfortunately, the strip was never picked-up by the papers. None the less, I still cherish the prints I have from the experience. In fact to this day, friends of mine from the old neighborhood, still call me by the nickname 'Brains.'"

Tom Gill, a silver age comic artist best known for his two decade run on the LONE RANGER comic book. His legacy lives on.

I would love to see some of Tom's Brains Benton work!

Related: my pal Leif Peng highlights the Brains Benton illustrations by Hamilton Greene.

A Brains Benton Web site

2008 Doug Wright Awards Nominees

Congrats to all the nominees -- and in particular, my friend John Martz upon his nomination for Excelsior 1968.

From the press release:

June 3, 2008 Toronto ON — An eclectic mix of Canada's young and established cartooning talent has made the cut for this year's Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning. Canada's premier cartooning award, the Wrights were established in 2005 to recognize the best graphic novels, comics, and cartooning that the country has to offer. This year, the nominees feature gripping historical fiction and personal memoir produced by well-known cartoonists and—for the first time—self-published up-and-comers.

The 2008 DWA finalists for Best Book are:

365 Days: A Diary by Julie Doucet (Drawn and Quarterly)

Spent by Joe Matt (Drawn and Quarterly)

The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam by Ann Marie Fleming (Riverhead Books)

Southern Cross by Laurence Hyde (Drawn and Quarterly)

The 2008 DWA finalists for Best Emerging Talent are:

Essex County Vol. 1 Tales From The Farm & Vol. 2 Ghost Stories by Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)

Pope Hats by Ethan Rilly (self-published)

Kieffer #1 by Jason Kieffer (self-published)

The Experiment Nick Maandag (self-published)

In addition, the Wright Awards is pleased to announce a new category—the first since its debut—dedicated to works that fall outside the bounds of traditional storytelling. The Pigskin Peters Award (named after a character in the classic Canadian comic strip Birdseye Center) was created to recognize progressive works by Canadian cartoonists that are either more experimental in nature or lack a traditional narrative structure.

The finalists for the first annual Pigskin Peters Award are:

Milk Teeth by Julie Morstad (Drawn and Quarterly)

Little Lessons in Safety by Emily Holton (Conundrum Press)

Excelsior 1968 by John Martz (self-published)

Fire Away by Chris von Szombathy (Drawn and Quarterly)

The finalists for the 4th Annual Doug Wright Awards were chosen by a nominating committee that included cartoonists Chester Brown and Seth, Canadian director Jerry Ciccoritti, comics historian Jeet Heer and writer and Sequential blogger Bryan Munn. The winners will de decided by a jury including writer and film critic Katrina Onstad, gallery curator Helena Reckitt, writer Mariko Tamaki and cartoonist Ho Che Anderson. The winners will be handed out in Toronto in August 2008. For more information go to www.wrightawards.ca.

Above: a sample of Doug Wright's Family from my blog. More about Wright's work on this Wright Awards page.

EVER SINCE ADAM AND EVE

EVER SINCE ADAM AND EVE co-edited, and with contributions from, Alfred Andriola and Mel Casson. It's also copyright 1955 by Mssrs. Andriola and Casson. The hardcover book features a bunch of National Cartoonists Society cartoonists, all doing gags about men and women.

Previously, I reproduced many of the cartoons of Mel Casson's here.


Above: a typical Bushmiller NANCY strip, reproduced nice and large.

Harry Devlin, along with wife Wende, "produced six children and put them in their feature Full House."



Here's Charles Schulz with a rare one-panel style gag and, even rarer, done with a wash!


Stan and Jan Berenstain doing one of their great kids gags.


Above, one of my personal favorites; the British cartoonist J.W. Taylor. I love the little girl's blissful look as all of those cartoon men hurtle to their doom!

Walter Berndt drew the long-running comic strip SMITTY, and is the nickname namesake for the Berndt Toast Gang.


Ronald Searle's messy wash style is so interesting to linger over.



OK, so my question about the above DENNIS THE MENACE cartoon by Hank Ketcham is: Did it ever really run in the paper? It's darn risque!


I love Caplan's line style here.




Alfred Andriola, drawing in a pen and wash single panel style, proves he was a master.




Henry Syverson uses the black spotting to focus our eyes on the poor hubby.


Chon Day's 2 word gag line was one of the funniest in the book.

Tomorrow: More.

Ann Telnaes to End Print Syndication

In Editor and Publisher, Dave Astor writes:

"In a move that shows just how much animation is impacting editorial cartooning, Ann Telnaes will end her print syndication this Saturday."

Telnaes, a Pulitzer prize winning print editorial cartoonist, will produce three animations a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) for WashingtonPost.com.

More and more, editorial cartoonists are doing animations -- and submitting that work for awards consideration. Animated editorial cartoons and print editorial cartoons compete side by side for the Pulitzers and the National Cartoonists Society Editorial Cartoon Division Awards.

These are two different mediums. With one, you watch, passively, with the work flowing over you at the rate of speed predetermined by the animator. With the other, you control the speed and are free to linger on the drawing.

Link to the Ann Telnaes Cartoon animations at WashingtonPost.com. (Begins to play immediately. You see? I told you that you can't control the speed of the thing.)

Best Cartoons of the Year 1964 Part 2

Above: the dust jacket to BEST CARTOONS OF THE YEAR 1964. I thought that I did not have the dust jacket, but it turns out I have 2 copies of this hardcover gag cartoon collection -- one with the cover, one without.


I don't know why Ton Smits isn't better known in the States. He was, after all, a New Yorker cartoonist. He even has a museum in his native Netherlands. Smits draws in that minimalist UPA kinda cartoon style, and he's a great comic writer.

Reamer Keller is one of my favorites. I like his loosey goosey line -- but this one looks so loose that it looks like a rough. Regardless, Parade published it and he chose it as an example of one ofhis best of the year. The BEST CARTOONS books proported to allow the cartoonists themselves to pick their own cartoons for publication.


I love Don Orehek's work. He's a master cartoonist. Above is an early one. Look at how happy the hubby is, counting the money. Nice touch: the heart on the hurdy gurdy.

With postage in the states at 42 cents per letter, this represents a considerable sum of money. Jack Markow wrote a number of how to cartoon books.



Gallagher is right on the money. I've seen this with strollers -- so full of merchandise that the kid has to hoof it instead of riding in his usual style!
Tom Smits once again. All you need to see is her eyes to get the gag.



Al Kaufman gives a great line to the nurse. Look at her feet: one coming up for a step, the other posed down. A good touch for showing a bit of motion. The disheveled pear shaped fellow with the tousled hair wordlessly expresses his surprise.



The goofy goings on of bank robbers as portrayed by Bob Weber. I never knew that the Master Detective magazine had cartoons!


Nowadays, one of those names does not belong. But as of 1964, as we all know, Nixon (pre-presidency, pre-Watergate) had narrowly lost to JFK. I like that flutey, loopy feather in the hat.

Phallic symbols arise in Joe Farris' space age cartoon. Lovely brush work, eh?


Orlando Busino's cartoon reminds me of the almost weekly uproar about cartoons -- Danish or otherwise -- that continues on and on. Folks, they're just pictures!

Happy Birthday, Mark Anderson!

Many happy returns to raconteur and bon vivant, Mark "Andertoons" Anderson, my inky cartoonist pal.

Mark is the Mort Walker to my Dik Browne. He's one in a million. He's a funny cartoonist and I'm glad to call him friend.

I've drawn you a Lego cake! Woo hoo!

Funniest Thing I've Seen This Month

From Tony Carrillo's blog.

Mark Tatulli Interview

Jessica Maher interviews comic strip cartoonist (and three-time Emmy award winner) Mark Tatulli, upon the occasion of LIO starting in the Albany Times Union.

"... I decided to develop a comic strip that I always wanted to do, and that was a comic strip with no words, a pantomime strip. There's nothing like it in the comics pages right now, but there used to be. I thought it was time to bring that back."

Left: Cover image for the LIO collection.

Hat tip to Journalista!

Bill Gallo on the National Cartoonists Society

The New York Daily News sports cartoonist Bill Gallo writes about the history of the National Cartoonists Society, and reflects on the recent New Orleans Reubens weekend, in his Daily News article "Sixty-two years of a grand society."

Big tip of the hat to Sean Kelly!