Patria by Keith Boynton

The above is from Sandra Boynton's Instagram page today. She adds:

"My son Keith wrote this powerful sad strangely inspiring poem this morning, and it completely upended me." #IndependenceDay

JIm Shooter 1951 - 2025

 

 

Comic book writer, editor and publisher Jim Shooter passed away on June 30th. He was 73 years old. The cause was esophageal cancer.

 

Via DailyCartoonist:

Jim Shooter is mostly famous in comic book circles for writing the Superboy and The Legion of Super-Heroes series as a teenager and creating the best-selling Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars. And as the Marvel Editor-in-Chief who, in the late 1970s, got Marvel Comics back on track by insisting things be done his way.

Jim Shooter’s career is detailed in number of obituaries by comic books sites such as Comic Book Resources, and Comics Beat and non-comic sources like Forbes and Wikipedia, with more to come.

 

Comics Journal has more links here. 

 

The Garden As of July 1st, 2025

The garden as of July 1st. Everything (tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers and zinnias) is in and doing well so far. The humid, jungle heat days have made for happy plants. And the hogwire fence has kept out the deer. There’s still a dozen perennials to be planted. More pics on or about July 15th. 

 

 

A Short History of America (1979) by Robert Crumb

From the R. Crumb Facebook page:

Crumb originally drew the 12 panels of A Short History of America in 1979. He created 3 additional panels of three different future scenarios for the Kitchen Sink serigraph in 1994. This version, with the three additional panels, became known as the 15 panel edition. Crumbproducts.com (or rcrumb.com, same site) created a 500 print unsigned giclée edition based upon that 15 panel serigraph edition (with some color changes) in 2018, and it sold out several years later. But we’re constantly besieged by requests for this image by many Crumb fans almost on a daily basis.

Robert and Alex came up with the idea to modify the art slightly by adding clouds thereby creating a different sky in each panel, instead of the blue sky which remains constant throughout all the previous editions. So Alex enlarged each panel, printed them and sent them to Robert in France. Crumb used gouache and water colors to paint over the sky and sent them back to Alex who then placed the new artwork behind the existing landscapes using Photoshop. The result is this new and very beautiful 15 panel giclée edition of one of Crumb’s most famous pieces – A Short History of America (15 panel Cloud version).

The white Somerset archival paper is 24 by 21.5 inches. The image size is 19 by 17 inches. There are 600 unsigned, hand-numbered prints in this edition, with 40 signed artist proofs and 3 signed printer proofs. We do NOT have any of Robert’s artist proofs to sell! The printer proofs are also not available because they’re not signed yet. Prints will be mailed in a 4 inch tube via USPS around the world. Release date is Monday, June 30th (https://crumbproducts.com/.../short-history-of-america-15...)

Robert estimated the time each panel depicts:

 

Panel #1–Before Whitey; Panel #2–1860's; Panel #3–1870's; Panel #4–1880's; Panel #5–1890's; Panel #6–1900's; Panel #7–1910's; Panel #8–1920's; Panel #9–early 1930's; Panel #10-1940's; Panel #11–1950's; Panel #12-late 1970's.

Turkish Cartoonist Zehra Ömeroglu Acquitted

 

Via DailyCartoonist:

"After five long years of proceedings, punctuated by postponements, the Istanbul Court of First Instance finally ruled in favor of acquittal on Thursday, June 26.

"The Turkish cartoonist was tried for 'obscenity' for a cartoon published in LeMan magazine in 2020 and faced a prison sentence of six months to three years and a fine.

"In the expert report dated March 5, 2025, it was declared that the work was protected by the Intellectual and Artistic Works Act. The Istanbul Court of First Instance ruled in agreement with this opinion and acquitted Zehra Ömeroğlu."

Cartooning for Peace has the details.

Dick Buchanan's Cartoon File: Wordless Gag Cartoons 1944-1964

My thanks to Friend-of-this-blog Dick Buchanan. He has wandered the dusty piles of his old magazines and scanned in a selection of fifteen cartoons without words and shared them with us. Take it away, Dick!

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At one time or another several magazines had a feature titled “Too Funny for Words” featuring cartoons without captions. Here are some cartoons that fall into that special category--some amusing if not necessarily “too funny” cartoons by some of the best cartoonists of their time.

1. AL ROSS. For Laughing Out Loud. July-September, 1963




 

2. GEORGE la MENDOLA (George Dole). 1000 Jokes Magazine. Fall, 1950




3. CORKA. (Jon Cornin & Zena Kavin) Liberty. August 10, 1946




 

4. CLYDE LAMB. Judge. October 1953




 

5. TOM HENDERSON. Collier’s. July 8,1955




 

6. VIRGIL PARTCH. Liberty. September 9, 1944



 

7. TON SMITS. 1000 Jokes Magazine. March-May, 1962





8. CEM (CHARLES E. MARTIN) The Saturday Evening Post. September 29, 1962




9. CHARLES ADDAMS. True Magazine. October 1949






10. BOB BARNES. 1000 Jokes Magazine. Fall, 1950




 

11. JOHN GALLAGHER. Collier’s. March 16, 1953



 

12. HENRY SYVERSON. Look Magazine. January 28, 1964




 

13. PETER PORGES. The Saturday Evening Post. September 29,1962




14. STAN HUNT. 1000 Jokes Magazine. May-July, 1955



15. CLYDE LAMB. 1000 Jokes Magazine. Summer, 1951



FYI: In May, 1955, The Gag Re-Cap (a publication for cartoonists and gag writers covering major magazines) reported that out of 94 magazines there were 924 cartoons published, of which 20% were no caption gags—194 to be exact..

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Thanks, Dick, for this amazing selection.

- This has been an edited rerun from December 22, 2016.

"Hidden Things" 1938 Hidden Picture Children's Book

"Hidden Things" is a 1938 staple-bound booklet full of hidden pictures. This is an inexpensive product designed to keep a kid busy. The publisher, Saalfield Publishing Company of Akron, OH was one of the biggest publishers of children's works in the world from 1900 to 1977. There are no credits on this book (aside from a "D + D Downs" on the cover), but they employed Ethel Hayes and Frances Brundage for many of their books. 

The drawings are inky, complex and not necessarily very cute in, for instance, a Raggedy Ann sort of way. Saalfield owned the rights to Johnny Gruelle's Raggedy Ann and Andy. 

Confession: I was not always successful in finding all of the hidden things and, sadly, there isn't a kinda "teacher's edition" page where we see any sort of solution.