Remembering Charles Schulz

 

Remembering Charles Schulz, who passed away the night before his final Peanuts Sunday comic strip appeared, February 12, 2000.

From his biography at the Charles M. Schulz Museum site:

"On the morning of Sunday, February 13, 2000, newspaper readers opened their comic pages as they had for nearly fifty years to read the latest adventures of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts Gang. This Sunday was different, though; mere hours before newspapers hit doorsteps with the final original Peanuts comic strip, its creator Charles M. Schulz, who once described his life as being 'one of rejection,' passed away peacefully in his sleep the night before, succumbing to complications from colon cancer. It was a poetic ending to the life of a devoted cartoonist who, from his earliest memories, knew that all he wanted to do was 'draw funny pictures.'"

A video of Charles Schulz drawing from Matt Barnett. Matt adds:

"2:52 Drawing Illustrations for the book "Charlie Brown & Charlie Schulz" written by Lee Mendelson.  

"3:52 Drawing Snoopy using a "Pentel Sign Pen" with the cap unposted. You can still buy this exact pen today at Amazon. They're wonderful pens."

 His studio and drawing board are preserved as a permanent display at his museum.

 

Dexter the Cat RIP 2003(?) - 2024

I will tell the story of Dexter the cat. Dexter was an outdoor cat that just appeared on our lawn in 2009. He was a rather large orange cat who, while very friendly, did not want to be touched much less coaxed into the house where it was safe and warm.

 

Resigned to the fact that our shy friend Dexter may be hanging around all winter, we made a cat house on the porch with three straw bales. What was amazing was that he "got" what it was and would sleep in it. 

Here he is: Dexter yawns as we bring him food in his hay house:

S l o w l y coming out for kibbles:

A rousing shake of the head to begin the day:

Dexter, this shy, stray cat, was, finally, thanks to my wife singing tunes to him (Dexter is a sucker for "A Little Bit in Love" by Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Comden & Greene from the Broadway show Wonderful Town.), lured into the house and down the stairs to the basement. (To be honest, there was a lot of deli meat and treats laid out on the steps.) He was, from then on, our house cat. Safe and sound, and out of the cold weather and away from wolves, fisher cats and hunters.

And he never wanted to go back out again. 

The vet guessed at his age then. He said he was maybe 6 years old in 2009.

Here he is. This is just 18 hours in to being the new "house cat." You can see he took to it well. 

 

From ten years ago today, February 8, 2013:
 

Riding out the snow storm lounging in bed ...

Rufus and Dexter. One from Red Hook, Brooklyn, the other from New Hampshire. Both used to be abandoned kitties, both now have a home. And they are pals.

He was a wonderful member of the family for fifteen years.

Dexter caught a serious chronic cold that beginning about three years ago. The cold would come and go. We tried a lot of things, and then in June 2022, we decided he had to have an operation to remove his teeth. That helped tremendously, and he lived on in comfort and love until 2am last night when no steroid or pill would help any more. We drove him in the dark to the 24 hour emergency vet's and this big, strong maybe twenty year old orange gentleman we love so much was put peacefully put to sleep in our arms.

A terrible sad day. Many happy memories. I am glad he shared his life with us. I wish it could have been even longer.

It's the Mike Lynch Cartoons Blog Anniversary!

 

 

It's been 18 years to the day since I began my cartoon blog.

 

I've written over 7,500 blog entries (This is #7,548.), had millions of visits from all over the world, and I still can't believe it.

 

My thanks to everyone who is a professional cartoonist, on his/her way to becoming a pro, or just a big fan of cartooning. 

 

You have kept this going. Some of you have been stopping by since 2006! 

 

Wow.

 

My blog is free for all. Please consider making a contribution upon this occasion by clicking on the link.  

 

Thank you!

 

 

Rumpole of the Bailey Captioning

Here's some bit of editorial comment that I discovered since I watch TV with the subtitles on. Also, this morning I was up pre-dawn thanks to an insistent cat and couldn't get back to sleep. Then I remembered this oddball thing that I've noticed these past weeks (see paragraph below) and took these pics of the TV screen in the dark living room while I got the woodstove going.

Below are a dozen of the same opening caricatures of Leo McKern from the Rumpole of the Bailey TV show. This is the subtitled version I stream on Amazon Prime. Odd thing: the closed caption description of the theme music changes from show to show, describing the signature tune as “jaunty theme music,” “whimsical music,” “whimsical melancholic,” “brooding,” “gentle, “upbeat,” and so on. The music never changes, but the captions sure are all over the place in describing it. I haven’t a clue as to why whoever is captioning this hasn’t locked down a standard description, but there it is.

 

Oh, and if anyone can tell me why Amazon won't allow Rumpole of the Bailey Series 2 Episode 4 to be streamed in the States, let me know. (My guess: inappropriate racial content from 1979. Fortunately, I have the series on DVD and can check that out myself.)

And the description of Rumpole is all off. He doesn't drink whiskey, he drinks claret (Chateau Thames Embankment or Pomeroy's Plonk) and he is far from a successful attorney, always scrounging for a new brief and not paying the phone bill, etc.

Washington Post: "How a teen’s job violated child labor laws" Comic by Julia Mata

 

Julia Mata draws a nonfiction comic for The Washington Post's "How a teen’s job violated child labor laws" by Lauren Kaori Gurley and Emmanuel Martinez that was published on February 2, 2024.

"Fast food companies fueled a surge in child labor violations in 2023, with thousands of teenagers illegally scheduled to work late and long hours. Among them was high school senior Sebastian Marek, who got a job at a McDonald’s in Los Angeles to help his mom pay rent.

"Managers scheduled Marek to work too long on school nights when he was 17. He lost sleep, missed classes and received warnings that he might not be able to graduate high school.

"This nonfiction comic is based on extensive interviews with Marek, now 18, his mother, his co-workers, as well as data from the U.S. Labor Department, photographs and California labor commissioner records. Scenes and dialogue reflect their memories and The Post’s extensive reporting on child labor violations."

 

 

 

These are the first four pages. The rest is here.
 

Some of My Recent Cartoon Sales at Cartoonstock

One of the things I bring up in the History of Comics class I teach is how you make money from drawing. I think it's important to talk about the real world aspect of cartooning. I tell them about my income streams and how every year my income is from a variety of things. 

Last year, it was teaching, illustrating a book, some commissions, original art sales, cartoon rights research fees, a cartoonist residency, and gag cartoon sales. One of the places that people can buy my cartoons is Cartoonstock. Here are some of the my recent sales. 

Hey, did you know that I have cartoons for sale for magazines, books and newsletters over at Cartoonstock? So do many of my cartoonist friends. Easily searchable by keyword, too!

RIGHT AROUND HOME by Dudley Fisher

If you had a big hardcover dictionary of cartoonists by state, then Ohio would be the thickest chapter. So many great cartoonists came from the Buckeye State. The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum has compiled a list of names with strong ties to Ohio that includes James Thurber, Milton Caniff, Bill Watterson, John "Derf" Backderf, Matt Bors, Jim Borgman, Edwina Dumm, Billy DeBeck, Cathy Guisewite, Richard Outcault, one of the co-creators of Superman, and more here. 

The Washington Post's Michael Cavna asks "Wait — just how did Ohio become the cradle of great cartoonists?"

From the article:

"'As a cartoonist, your job is basically to sit alone in your room, drawing on a never-ending deadline,' [Bill] Watterson, who grew up in Chagrin Falls, tells Comic Riffs. 'For that kind of work, it helps to grow up with sober Midwestern values and to live someplace without a lot of exciting diversions.'

"'Cleveland is especially good,' the “Calvin and Hobbes” creator notes, 'because it has eight months of cloud cover and snow.'"

Well, who am I to argue with Bill Watterson?

Today I want to talk about another great Ohio cartoonist: Dudley Fisher. Born in Columbus, OH in 1890 and schooled in the same town at OSU. It was in his sophomore year, during the mid-year break, that he visited some friends who were working at The Columbus Dispatch. There was a job opening, and so he began doing layout for the newspaper. This was a lot better than his previous job of working in a pool hall during the evenings. It would change his mind about his architect career. He worked at the paper and enjoyed it.

He participated in The Great War, and upon returning to Columbus in 1919, continued at The Dispatch. Mentored by renowned Dispatch editorial cartoonist Billy Ireland, he became known for a feature titled Jolly Jingles. He also drew an occasional Sunday, Skylarks, that incorporated an aerial view. In early 1938, he began Right Around Home and it was an immediate hit.

The feature took advantage of the size of the page, and it was a sweet look into an innocent, small town America. King Features took notice, and quickly syndicated it nationally. 

From Hogan's Alley's The View from On High: Dudley Fisher’s “Right Around Home” by Jonathan Barli:

"The drawing style of Right Around Home evolved from a variation of Ireland’s into one that would influence future generations of cartoonists. The compositions of the strip were concerned with surveying the ground, not with breaking ground. Large, single-panel cartoons went back to the early days of newspaper comics: the Yellow Kid, Jimmy Swinnerton’s Mount Ararat and crowded genre scenes by Walt McDougall, to name a few ....

"Just as Gasoline Alley, week after week, depicted the passage of time, so too did Right Around Home, making note of seasonal changes throughout each year, announcing 'Signs of Spring' and 'Autumn Leaves,' and marking Halloween, 'Thanksgiving at Grandma’s' and 'Christmas shopping.' Right Around Home’s thematic concerns are rarely concerning: whether it’s neighborhood picnics, screening home movies, going sledding, waffle parties, gathering around a radio mystery or automobile problems like tire blowouts and fender-benders, everyone in the neighborhood is there; even if they are dragged out by a spouse.

The feature diminished in size as all newspaper strips did beginning during WWII. This reduced its impact. Fisher died in 1951. His assistant, Bob Vittur, continued the strip, along with the assist of Stan Randal, until the end of its run in 1965.

-- From a blog entry of October 17, 2017.