Out of Sorts

I'm out of sorts. Just a nasty cold. I'm on the couch with the cats, making a fire in the woodstove and watching an old Powell and Pressburger movie ("The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp"). The blog will resume.

Panels and Prose Video: Reprinting Alley Oop with Chris Aruffo

Chris Aruffo just finished an impressive run reprinting all of the Alley Oop comic strip dailies from the early 1930s through the 2000s. 

Chris Aruffo''s Alley Oop library is available at http://www.aruffo.com/alleyoop/

 

New York Times: The Real Horrors of America by Lynda Barry

 

Lynda Barry writes about horrors in the movies and in real life. I have gifted the comic from the October 31, 2025 New York Times so it's not behind a paywall.

Berndt Toast Gang Luncheon October 30, 2025

 

Here are some photos from last week's Berndt Toast Gang get together. We bring a spooky drawing (I offered up my Let Me Out original.) and raise some money for charity. That's Bunny Hoest, me and Karen Evans.

Thursday brought together the Halloween Berndt Toast Gang get together. It's a Halloween tradition first created by Bill Kresse back in the day. So many wonderful, talented friends. The fact I don’t get to see these faces as often as I would like to made it all the more dear. Grand to see National Cartoonists Society president Karen Evans and Mark Habegger, who flew out from California. Thanks especially to Jim Salicrup and Sarah Booth for making the time to attend.

Jim Salicrup and Sarah Booth.

Francis Bonnet and John Reiner.

Roberta Fabiano, Carmen D'Adamo and Bunny Hoest.

Mark Habegger and Andy Eng.

Adrian Sinnott and Karen Evans.

Mike Lynch Cartoon: Let Me Out

 

When I just started drawing strange cartoons that I thought were funny, that was when they began to sell. Here’s an example of a cartoon of mine that was published in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

I will be away for a while from this here blog. Just a short time and then I plan to be back. 

The 125 Year History of the St. Louis Weatherbird Exhibit

 

Original illustrations by the artist Albert Schweitzer, who drew the Weatherbird until 1986 when cartoonist Dan Martin took over. Photo: Whitney Curtis for The New York Times

 

The Weatherbird cartoon has appeared The St. Louis Post-Dispatch front page every day for almost 125 years.

"The Weatherbird, considered the oldest, continuously running daily cartoon in American journalism, is the subject of an exhibit, 'Behind the Feathers: A Century of Weatherbird History,' which opened in June and runs through Feb. 15 at the Field House Museum in downtown St. Louis.

"The exhibition includes drawings of the Weatherbird over the decades, profiles of the artists who have drawn him, Weatherbird collectibles, fan art and instructions on how to draw the Weatherbird on your own." -- A St. Louis Bird That Crosses Divides Gets His Own Show, New York Times, by Valerie Schremp Hahn. I have gifted the article so it's free from its paywall and you can read it. 

 

It's the longest continuously running newspaper comics feature ever. Dan Martin currently draws the Weatherbird. He's been doing it for the past 27 years.

 

 

A Mike Lynch Cartoon: Protest Signs

 

Sometimes I'm asked if I am a political cartoonist. I was just asked this last week. I say I am more of a person who comments on society. Like all cartoonists, I would like to make a point but I also want the cartoon to be funny. I don't get to decide that. Only the editor and then the reader does. But since this here blog is editor-less, then it's all up to you, the reader.

Bennett Cerf’s Pop-Up Silliest Riddles

Selling $10 postpaid in continental US: Bennett Cerf’s Pop-Up Silliest Riddles, a 1967 Random House hardcover. Some wear but intact and the pop-ups work. Fun graphics, but uncredited. Email me to claim.

I have A LOT of kids' books that I have collected through the years because I like the art. I need to downsize! 

 Related:

THE MAN WHO WOULDN'T TALK

 
Carl Rose Illustrations from TRY AND STOP ME by Bennett Cerf

Video: Cartoonists Working

 Via SeanTheAchivist, here is a compilation of clips of cartoonists working:

Preview: The Art of George Wilson by Anthony Taylor

 

George Wilson (1929 - 1999) was a prolific cover artist for Dell and Gold Key comic books, working mostly during the 1960s.

"His main output was for titles about Stone Age/jungle heroes like 'Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan' (23 covers), 'Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes' (64 covers), 'Turok, Son of Stone' (53 covers) and 'Edgar Rice Burroughs Korak, Son of Tarzan' (34 covers). Among his many other credits are adventure, sci-fi and mystery comic books like 'Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom' (13 covers), 'The Phantom' (13 covers), 'The Twilight Zone' (20 covers), 'Magnus, Robot Fighter' (12 covers), 'Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery' (32 covers), 'Mighty Samson' (23 covers), 'Ripley's Believe It or Not!' (24 covers) , 'Star Trek' (32 covers), 'Dark Shadows' (22 covers), 'Space Family Robinson' (14 covers), 'Space Family Robinson Lost in Space' (23 covers), 'Space Family Robinson, Lost in Space on Space Station One' (17 covers) and many others." - Lambiek

If you love comics of this time, then you have seen his work. But little was known about the man. Anthony Taylor's The Art of George Wilson is the first book collection and biography. Here are some cover samples and a video preview of the book. 

 

Video via Rave Sensation:

From the Dick Buchanan Files: "Captions? Who Needs 'Em?" Wordless Gag Cartoons 1947 – 1970

There is the old story of one of my favorite cartoonists, Jean-Jacques Sempé, who was trying to sell gag cartoons from his studio in France after WWII. He worked hard at it and was successful. And he was even more successful when he hit on the simple idea that wordless cartoons had no language barrier and could cross borders. He specialized in pantomime cartoons, and was selling all over Europe.

Wordless cartoons are not common. At least not now. I think so many cartoonists (me included) concentrate on the quip or the wisecrack, instead of just letting the picture tell the story.

My friend Dick Buchanan has scanned in, and now shares, some great examples of the truly wordless and the mostly wordless cartoons. By "mostly," I mean a cartoon with a label or a sign you have to read.

Thanks for sharing this, Dick! Here's more from the massive Buchanan Clip File located somewhere in Greenwich Village, NY:

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Here’s another bunch of clever cartoons of the wordless variety. Cartoons by cartoonists who don’t need one-liners to evoke amusement.

B. KLIBAN. Art school drop-out “Bud” Kliban started his gag cartoon career at the top, with Playboy in 1962. Look February 12, 1963

SAM COBEAN. Collier’s September 25, 1948

BILL HARRISON. Saturday Evening Post Jan 24, 1953

GEORGE SMITH. True April 1950

TOM HENDERSON. Look March 17, 1959

MORT WALKER. Saturday Evening Post September 27, 1947

VIP (Virgil Partch). American Legion Magazine May, 1948

 GARDNER REA. Look Magazine September 15, 1959

ED KOREN. Edward Koren, New Yorker cartoonist and  Vermont’s 2nd Cartoonist Laureate (2014-2016). From Columbia University’s Jester, reprinted in 1000 Jokes Magazine June-August 1963

B. KLIBAN. Kliban was hitting his stride in the early ‘70’s. Evergreen Review December, 1970

TOM HUDSON. Collier’s May 19, 1947

CEM (Charles E Martin) Collier’s June 5, 1948

HENRY SYVERSON. Collier’s August 14, 1948

ALI. (Alfred Isler) Boys’ Life April 1950

-- Edited from an original blog entry of October 12, 2017.