Video: Wally Wood Exhibition at Angoulême

Thanks to Columbia University's Curator for Comics and Cartoons Karen Green for this video of the big Wally Wood show at Angoulême. Here's Karen:

If you can’t get to Angoulême to see Stephane Beaujean’s extraordinary Wally Wood exhibition, this is the next best thing. (if you don’t understand French, that’s okay; just look at the pretty pictures.)

Video: Todd McFarlane Interview

The duo known as Cartoonist Kayfabe (Jim Rugg and Ed Piskor) interview comic book artist Todd McFarlane in this video. It's about an hour and 24 minutes.

Video: Liza Donnelly | TEDxCharlottesville

New Yorker cartoonist, Liza Donnelly, takes us on her creative journey, live drawing the transformative moments in her life. She shows us that creativity act as a selfless act; an act of connection and generosity. Liza Donnelly is an award winning cartoonist and writer for The New Yorker Magazine, The New York Times, Medium, and a CBS News and CNN contributor. Donnelly is the innovator of a form of visual journalism called digital live-drawing, wherein she covers news and cultural events by drawing them in real time for news outlets. She’s reported press conferences, the DNC, the 2017 Presidential Inauguration, Oscars, Women’s Marches, etc. Donnelly delivered a popular TED talk that was translated into 38 languages and received over one million views. The author of 17 books, Donnelly is currently a Barnard College Athena Fellow. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. 

14th Anniversary of This Here Blog

Ha ha ha. Well, believe it or not, I missed an anniversary.

Yesterday was the 14th anniversary of this blog, which began on February 6, 2006. Let's take a look at the first entry, and then, a week later, a typical "look day."

My First Blog Entry: Meet a Cartoonist February 7, 2006

Below is my first blog post from February 7, 2006.

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This cartoon of mine appeared in Punch Magazine, before it folded. I thought it was an appropriate thought to start this, my first blog entry.

I'm a full-time freelance cartoonist living in NYC. Mostly, I draw what are called single panel or gag cartoons for magazines. I've got a couple of cartoons to draw for Wall Street Journal. WSJ approved a couple of roughs and now I have to draw finishes. I don't like drawing finishes since they never look as good as the roughs. So, I was putting it off, reading blogs, and I read Jim Salicrup's blog. [Sadly, Jim's blog is no longer.] I like Jim and his blog was really interesting -- even just the lists of stuff he bought at the comic store. And then I thought, what the heck, I'll defer drawing for even longer and start my own blog!

I better go draw now. After all, it's 3 weeks till rent's due! More cartoon talk another time ....

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And here's an entry from Valentine's Day 2006, about a typical "look day," the day when cartoonists take their cartoons in to The New Yorker. This is more about the journey than the destination. A whole typical morning like this was easily 4 hours.

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Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Valentine's Day in Midtown
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

Double knotted the snow boots and trundled off to the subway. Took the F train to 42nd Street. Stopped at the ATM, then to the Conde Nast building. My ID didn't work, but security called Stanley, the 20th floor manager, and I got cleared to take the elevator up to the New Yorker offices.

The elevators have those little TVs in them that flash news and headlines. They're from a company called captivate.com. I don't look at them because I don't like them. A cartoonist colleague of mine tried to sell them his cartoons. Captivate was interested in his work. It got so far as them talking about money, and they laughed, saying they do not pay for content. Jerks.

So, I silently avert my eyes and grit my teeth.

When I got off the elevator, I was in an institutional hallway. This was weird, since normally -- for years at least -- there is a wonderful art gallery on the 20th floor that Stanley runs. One time there were paintings by cartoonist Sid Harris. Another time Stan had framed originals of Ed Koren. Wonderful stuff. Stan told me that the gallery is closed. The Big Boys (He didn't give me any names) will bolt some framed NYer cover prints on the wall permanently and that's that. A sad day, said Stan.

Dropped off a batch at the New Yorker. I've been going to Cartoon Look Day for a couple of years now. Decades ago, all magazines had one day of the week when cartoonists would do the rounds in person. NYer is the only place to keep that tradition. I mailed cartoons in for a couple of years, and have been coming in person since 2002. I have yet to make a sale. Cartoon editor Bob Mankoff's assistant renewed my ID, and I left. Sometimes I stay and see Bob and then go to lunch with some of the cartoonists. But I don't feel I have the time this week.

Walked to the post office, where I was going to use one of those automatic kiosks that weighs your packages automatically so you don't have to stand in line. It was broken. Stood in line. When I got to a real postal employee, she weighed the envelopes and then put on three 83 cent stamps, and then searched and found three 4 cent stamps, and put them on. Why she didn't have one of those machines that spit out the exact postage on a sticky I don't know. Heck, I got a drawer full of stamps. I could have done this at home.

Well, OK then. 3 more batches to 3 other magazines mailed out. Hope springs eternal!

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Things have changed. Mailing submissions is a thing of the past (mostly). And I have moved out of NYC.  It doesn't matter where I live, so long as I have a phone and the internet. I do a lot more than gag cartoons now, and that keeps things interesting.

Fourteen years have passed quickly. I'm glad to keep blogging so long as people stop by.

And I will try to remember my own damn blogiversary next year.

Video: Russell Patterson "Pin Up" Film

Cartoonist and illustrator Russell Patterson (1893 - 1977) shows "how to create a successful pin-up" in this short film "Pin-Up Girl." This is back in the (non-PC) day of "cheesecake" or GGA (Good Girl Art) -- where sexualized paintings of women were believed to "keep the men's spirits up during war" and, well, post-war too.

Models Leona Fredericks, Ruth Sitarr, Dorothy Partington and Carol Ohmart are part of this as well.

Video: Carol Isaacs "The Surreal McCoy" Talks About Her New Graphic Memoir "The Wolf of Baghdad"

Carol Isaacs, better known as "The Surreal McCoy," is a magazine cartoonist as well as a musician. She has just completed a new graphic memoir The Wolf of Baghdad.

In this short video interview, she talks about being a musician, drawing and her new book.

Video: Robert Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Their Fifty Years Together

From the Louisiana Channel, here is a rare, new interview with Robert Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb. They are interviewed by Martin Krasnik upon the occasion of the Louisiana Literature Festival at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark in August 2019.

"'If it repulses you, do not look at it.' Watch the iconic 'cartooning couple' Robert Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb on stage. In this video, they talk about their close to fifty years together, from their first meeting to collaborating and giving the world a version of their marriage – their 'love story' – through their joint comic strip.

"'It was the early seventies, it was crazy, it was a time of free love, and nothing was normal. So why should our relationship have been normal either?' The couple shares how, before meeting Aline, Robert was already drawing a character with her last name – Honeybunch Kominsky. At the time of their first meeting, Robert already had a wife – and a girlfriend – so 'it was a little bit complicated,' but the two were drawn together, and in the autumn of 1972, they started doing comics together. Initially just for fun and to pass the time because Aline had broken her foot: 'We made it really crazy, but then a publisher saw it and wanted to publish it, and so we said: Why not?' They recall how many feminists from the women’s comics collective in the 1970s disliked not only Robert but also Aline, who didn’t portray herself as a heroic figure 'conquering male-chauvinism.' Aline too considered herself a feminist, but wanted 'to be as free as a man, and have as much sex as I possibly could, and be as bad and wild as I could.' In connection to this, Aline is quite clear in her response to people, who find the cartoons degrading: 'It’s a lot better to draw it than it is to impose it on other people.'

"Robert and Aline also talk about how they work and both agree that working together is much easier than working alone: 'She’s just such a natural-born Jewish comedian, it just comes out of her, it just pours out of her all the time. She always keeps me laughing,' Crumb says of Aline, who adds that she likes working with Robert because he can keep her on the subject. The couple feel that people take things too seriously nowadays and that sometimes you have to go back to the very beginning of why you do things: 'I wanted to do art that people read in the toilet, and now I have my work shown in New York at the fanciest art gallery in New York, fifty years later.'

"Aline Kominsky-Crumb (b. 1948) is an American cartoonist. Kominsky-Crumb’s work, which is almost exclusively autobiographical, is known for its unvarnished, confessional nature. Solo work includes ‘The Bunch’s Power Pak Comics’ (1979-81), ‘Love That Bunch’ (1990), and ‘Need More Love: A Graphic Memoir’ (2007). She is also one of the cartoonists behind ‘Dirty Laundry Comics’, and cofounder of ‘Twisted Sisters’. In 2016, Comics Alliance listed Kominsky-Crumb as one of the twelve women cartoonists deserving of lifetime achievement recognition.

"Robert Crumb (b. 1943) is an American cartoonist. Crumb, a counterculture comic book artist and social satirist, has enjoyed cult status for his underground comic strips, full of anti-heroes. Among these is a wide range of popular characters including Fritz the Cat and Mr Natural. Much of his work has also appeared in Weirdo magazine (1981-1993), which he founded himself, and which was one of the most prominent publications of the alternative comics era. Crumb has received several accolades for his work, including his induction into the comic book industry’s Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Angoulême Grand Prix in 1999. Crumb was also among the artists honoured in the exhibition ‘Masters of American Comics’ at the Jewish Museum in New York (2006-2007). In 2012 a retrospective of Crumb’s work was exhibited at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. He has frequently collaborated with cartoonist Aline Kominsky-Crumb, with whom he is married, and the couple has made a joint comic strip based on their life together through four decades. A collection of the comics, ‘Drawn Together’, was published in 2012. In 2017, David Zwirner Gallery in NYC held a joint exhibition of Robert and Aline’s artwork: ‘Aline Kominsky-Crumb & R. Crumb: Drawn Together’.

"Robert Crumb & Aline Kominsky-Crumb were interviewed on stage by Martin Krasnik in connection with the Louisiana Literature festival at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark in August 2019.

"Camera: Simon Weyhe and Jakob Solbakken

"Produced by Kasper Bech Dyg and Christian Lund

"Edited by Kasper Bech Dyg

"Cover photo: Detail from ‘Drawn Together’ (2012) by Robert Crumb & Aline Kominsky-Crumb

"Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2020

"Supported by Nordea-fonde"

Related:

Video: Robert Crumb Interview: A Compulsion to Reveal

From the Dick Buchanan Files: Even More Cops and Robbers Cartoons 1939 - 1970

Cat and Mouse, Boss and Employee, Husband and Wife ... the history of gag cartooning is replete with these adversaries who go after each other, and, so far as we're concerned, it's all to get BIG cartoon laffs in the end. Today, the adversaries are cops and robbers.

Here's a great collection of gag cartoons that were saved through the years and now presented by the great magazine cartoon connoisseur of our time, Dick Buchanan.

Oh, did you miss the first parts? That's criminal! Here they are:

From the Dick Buchanan Files: Cops and Robbers Magazine Gag Cartoons 1899 - 1965
Dick Buchanan's Cartoon Files: More Cops and Robbers Gag Cartoons 1947 - 1968

Thank you and take it away, Dick!

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COPS and ROBBERS

1939 – 1970

The misadventures robbers and the bumbling cops who pursue them has been a subject of gag cartoons ever since the 19h century when gag cartooning began. Here are some cartoons featuring the humorous side of crime as illustrated by some of the leading cartoonists of the mid 20th century. As always in the cartoon universe, it’s all in fun and no one gets hurt. 


1.  HANK KETCHAM. The Saturday Evening Post  December 10, 1949.

2.  ROBERT DAY.  This Week Magazine  April 13. 1952.

3.  BARNEY TOBEY.  The Saturday Evening Post  May 15, 1948.

4.  TOM HENDERSON.  The Saturday Evening Post  July 17, 1948.

5.  CHARLES RODRIGUES.  Laugh Parade  May, 1967. 

6.  MELL LAZARUS.  The Saturday Evening Post.  September 24, 1949.

7.  LARRY REYNOLDS.  Collier’s  May 13, 1939.     

8.  CLYDE LAMB.  1000 Jokes Magazine  Fall, 1950.

9.  ROBERT BUGG.  Collier’s  April 26, 1941.   

10. VIRGIL PARTCH.  True Magazine  November, 1948. 

 11.  LEE LORENZ.  1000 Jokes Magazine  March – May, 1965.

12.  GEORGE RECKAS.  Liberty Magazine  December 28, 1946.

13.  CHON DAY.  The Saturday Evening Post  June 12, 1949.

14.  RICHARD OLDDEN.  True Magazine  February, 1970.

15.  VAHAN SHIVANIAN.  1000 Jokes Magazine  March – May, 1964.  

Want more?

From the Dick Buchanan Files: Cops and Robbers Magazine Gag Cartoons 1899 - 1965

Dick Buchanan's Cartoon Files: More Cops and Robbers Gag Cartoons 1947 - 1968

Some Late 2019 Sketches

Here are some sketchbook sketches. I post these from time to time on my Instagram. That's why you can see these slightly milky little toggles on the images.

Audio: Hank Ketcham January 25, 1971 UCLA Interview

This March 14th will be the 100th birthday of Dennis the Menace creator Hank Ketcham. In this presentation, Hank asks, "What is a cartoonist doing talking?" And jokingly calls it ridiculous. He then talks frankly about his life and work. This is from the archives of the UCLA Communications Studies Department, which digitized the tapes in 2013.

From the Dick Buchanan Files: Gag Cartoons by Comic Strip Cartoonists 1951 - 1964

Here is Professor Dick Buchanan with a spotlight on four syndicated newspaper cartoonists who began in the business by selling gag cartoons.

Drawing gag cartoons is haphazard way to live to say the least. You really live by your wits. Syndication, with its steady income and its syndicate salespeople doing the flogging on your behalf -- now THAT'S where it is. A syndicated cartoonist could make a good, steady living. As long as their comic strip connected with readers, natch! Same with getting a contract with a comic book company. If you look at old magazine cartoons, you'll see some names that may be better known from their work in comic books and newspaper comic strips.

Of course, nowadays, with the decline of newspapers and editors cutting content, syndication is not as lucrative or as stable as it once was.

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GAG CARTOONS
by COMIC STRIP CARTOONISTS
(1951-1964)


Today we dip into the Cartoon Clip File and look at the magazine cartoons by four cartoonists who began their careers as magazine gag cartoonist but eventually became most successful as the creators of some of the funniest comic strips of the last half of the 20th century -- Johnny Hart, Frank Ridgeway, Ralston Jones, and Frank O’Neal. Their work appeared in all the national magazines—Collier’s, The Saturday Evening Post, Look, This Week, and True.

As always, these cartoons are in the same vein, subject wise, as most of the cartoons appearing in the national general interest magazines at the time. In other words, they were in every-which-way politically incorrect. Nonetheless, the wit and verve of these cartoonists is apparent.


JOHNNY HART ("B.C." and "The Wizard of Id”)

Hart was a Korean War veteran whose first cartoons appeared in Stars and Stripes. Upon separation in 1953, he began pursuing a freelance gag cartooning career. His comic strip, B.C. debuted February 17, 1958. B.C. was awarded the National Cartoonists Society Best Humor Strip in 1967. In 1960, Hart developed a new strip, “The Wizard of Id”, working with the cartoonist Brandt Parker. In 1968 he received the Society’s Reuben Award as the Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year. Hart worked on his 'B.C.' comic strip up until the day he died in April 2007. The strip has continued, produced by a quartet of family members.

1. JOHNNY HART. Collier’s October 29, 1954.

2. JOHNNY HART. The Saturday Evening Post June 14, 1956.

3. JOHNNY HART. American Legion Magazine June, 1956.

4. JOHNNY HART. For Laughing Out Loud October - December, 1956.

 5. JOHNNY HART. American Legion Magazine July, 1958.

RALSTON “BUD” JONES. ("Mr. Abernathy")

Jones signed his gag cartoons Ralston. Together with fellow cartoonist Frank Ridgeway, he created the long running comic strip Mr. Abernathy, syndicated by King Features beginning October 14, 1957. A Sunday strip was added from 1959 to 1986. Jones drew the strip and Frank Ridgeway wrote the gags until 1980, when Jones retired and Ridgeway took over both chores

1. RALSTON JONES. 1000 Jokes Magazine December, 1955 - February, 1956.

 2. RALSTON JONES. 1000 Jokes Magazine June-August, 1959.

3. RALSTON JONES. The Saturday Evening Post April 6, 1957.

4. RALSTON JONES. The Saturday Evening Post August 17, 1957.

5. RALSTON JONES. 1000 Jokes Magazine December, 1955 – February, 1956. 

FRANK RIDGEWAY. ("Mr. Abernathy")

Frank Ridgeway studied at the Art Students League and the School of Visual Arts, in New York. He created the newspaper strip about multimillionaire 'Mr. Abernathy' with Ralston Jones in 1957. Ridgeway was the writer and Jones drew the strip. When Jones resigned in 1980 Ridgeway continued, writing and drawing the strip until his death in 1994. Ridgeway had also scripted the 'Lancelot' daily for artist Paul Coker, Jr. He was a teacher at the Famous Artists' School.

1. FRANK RIDGEWAY. The Saturday Evening Post February 20, 1954.

2. FRANK RIDGEWAY. True Magazine May, 1955.

3. FRANK RIDGEWAY. The Saturday Evening Post April 13, 1957.

4. FRANK RIDGEWAY. The Saturday Evening Post May 4, 1957.

5. FRANK RIDGEWAY. 1000 Jokes Magazine. June – August, 1964. 

FRANK O’NEAL. ("Short Ribs")

Frank O’Neal studied at the Jefferson Machamer School of Art, in Santa Monica, California. He sold his first magazine cartoon to The Saturday Evening Post in 1950. O’Neal’s Short Ribs, a gag-a day strip with a selection of characters, first appeared November 17, 1958. A Sunday strip was added in 1959. In 1964 O’Neal won National Cartoonists Society’s Division Award for Newspaper Strips: Humor. O’Neal drew the strip until 1973 when he handed the strip over to his assistant, Frank Hill.

1. FRANK O’NEAL. Collier’s May 26, 1951.

2. FRANK O’NEAL. Here! November, 1951.

3. FRANK O’NEAL. American Legion Magazine December, 1952.

4. FRANK O’NEAL. The Saturday Evening Post May 18, 1957.

5. FRANK O’NEAL. The Saturday Evening Post May 24, 1957.