Al Scaduto 1928-2007 (Updated)

Just got word that Al Scaduto passed away yesterday. He was 79. I have no more details at this time.

Al Scaduto was one of the nicest guys ever and I am glad to say he was a friend. He brought his love of singing to every get together of the Berndt Toast Gang, giving us all a chance to hear his lovely voice sing a couple minutes of opera.

He was generous with his time and stories of cartooning. He had been with King Features for over 60 years, soon after graduating from high school. He went from being an assistant, to actively taking over Jimmy Hatlo's feature THEY'LL DO IT EVERY TIME.

Al went to high school with Joe Giella, Sy Barry and Emilio Squeglio -- fellow cartoonists and fellow Berndt Toasters -- and they shared their friendship with all of us.

I will miss him very much, and this is all damn hard to take in.

UPDATED December 9, 2007:


Photo: Al Scaduto sings at a recent Berndt Toast meeting while girlfriend Claire kvells. ("Kvells" being a Yiddish word meaning to rejoice and be prideful.)

"'What I like most about being a cartoonist is starting with a fresh piece of paper and ending up with an idea,' he said. 'You're the writer, the actor and the director. I never thought about retiring. I enjoy what I do.'"

- Al Scaduto, from a February 11, 2007 Connecticut Post interview written by Dirk Perrefort.

A few more notes about Al Scaduto, perhaps the last, great "bigfoot" style cartoonist. A guy who knew Milt Gross, for heaven's sake!

These are all notes I made from the Berndt Toast Gang meetings. The BTG is the nickname for the National Cartoonists Society Long Island chapter. I was chapter chair for about five years.

+ + +

Back in 2005, Al told the Gang about The School of Industrial Arts reunion. SIA was founded by four young art teachers in 1936, who built desks from old orange crates and plywood. Even though it’s changed its name to the High School of Art and Design and moved from its former Civil War hospital building to a modern building on Second Avenue, it’s still referred to as SIA by those who graduated.

After the graduation ceremony from the High School of Industrial Arts in 1946, Al's father told him he would starve. That same year, Al started at King Features. By 1948, he became a full time assistant for Ben Dunn, but still found time for lots of other work. A multiple winner of the NCS Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award for the strip, he’s been soloing on They’ll Do It Every Time since 1989. Not bad for a boy from the Bronx!

+ + +

OK, we have a number of BT Gang traditions. The group has been meeting in one shape or from since 1966. For instance, every month we ask someone to bring in some samples of their work. Al Scaduto brought in dozens of originals from his years on They’ll Do It Every Time, Sick magazine, Little Iodine and so many, many illustrations. A Certain Major Syndicate surprised Al with a beautiful cake that was inscribed ”Congratulations Al from your Friends at King Features.” Al told us a little about his career. After the graduation ceremony from the High School of Industrial Arts in 1946, his dad told him he would starve. That same year, Al started at King. By 1948, he became a full time assistant for Ben Dunn, but still found time for lots of other work. A multiple winner of the NCS Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award for the strip, he’s been soloing on They’ll Do It Every Time since 1989. Not bad for a boy from the Bronx!

Photo: Children's book illustrator and current Chair Adrian Sinnott, Al Scaduto, Mike Lynch from a May 2007 get together.

And another Berndt toast tradition (actually, more of a running gag): Al Scaduto announces that he has brought a guest. This happens every time, and every time, he introduces the fellow sitting at the same table: “Jumpin'” Joe Giella. Then Al tells a disparaging joke at Joe’s expense. This is all forgivable since we all love Joe and the joke is an old joke. On those rare occasions when Al can’t make it, we all worry that there will be no one to introduce Joe.

+ + +

On April 24, 2006, legendary cartoonist Creig Flessel wrote a letter to me (on real paper, since Creig's not an Internet-kinda guy) about what he's up to

I keep busy doing watercolors and cartoons for local residents and our grandchildren. Tell Al Scaduto (my mentor) that I'm concentrating on my cartooning and he is my god.

+ + +

Al had this to say in the days after Jay Kennedy's death:

"Many years ago, when I was still working at Bob Dunn's office up at King Features on the 17th floor, Jay Kennedy was assigned the job of Comic Editor. He was always very 'low key' and a true gentlemen, with a tremendous knowledge of comics. I met him several times, either at cartoon conventions or at King Features affairs, as well as at NCS meetings and, of course, at Bunny Hoest's Annual Bash. Talking to him on the phone one day, he praised me by saying, 'Al, you do a handsome feature.' I'll truly miss this gentle man."

+ + +

Photo: a display of some of Al's originals on a display table at our January 25, 2007 get together

Al was just a very sweet guy. He would call me from time to time, to let me know how much he enjoyed the monthly BT meetings. He would drive from his home in Connecticut, pick up his girlfriend in Tarrytown and then drive out to Huntington, Long Island. When new or wannabe cartoonists would drop in, he would always spend time with them and ask them more questions than they would ask him.

He was an integral part of the Berndt Toast heart, and he will be missed.

Al, we were all kvelling when you were around. We'll miss the cartoons and the music and the man so dearly.



Links:

Mark Evanier on Al

King Features bio

Comics Curmudgeon, with a comment from one of Al's daughters.

Holiday Cards and Shopping

Correspondent Martha White writes that "year-end photocopied brag sheets and e-cards can never replace the original handwritten holiday note" in this article from the Christian Science Monitor, which includes the above card.

"My grandfather, a prolific letter writer – his updated "Letters of E.B. White" goes into paperback this month – managed a personalized, printed card in 1950 with his own verse and a drawing of his dachshund puppy descending steep stairs – a feat that occasionally resulted in a nose dive."

And good ol' Alan Gardner The Daily Cartoonist purveys cartoonist-related sites that have holiday card themes.

Tom Spurgeon serves up a mega-list of cartoon related items that are on the market in his Comics Reporter Holiday Shopping Guide. Not for the weak of wallet! And it's so big that, even after a minute or two with my high-speed cable connection, it's still loading the page.

Big hat tip to dear ol' Dad for the E.B. White link. Thanks Dad!

Related: E.B. White Quotes.

Bikini Audacity

BETWEEN FRIENDS creator Sandra Bell-Lundy writes about good comic strip writing, a bikini, and its relation to human rights.

In this entry, she honestly talks about the value of writing to please yourself, and what she learned from the late Jay Kennedy. Here's Sandra:

If there's one thing a cartoonist has to learn, it's that you have to write for yourself and that your work is not going to appeal to everyone. When I was working with my editor, Jay Kennedy during the development stage of my cartoon strip, I would fax my ideas to him and he would call me back with a critique of my work. He'd tell me why this strip worked and that one didn't and if he thought a particular strip was very funny. Every so often, I would catch myself writing my strips according to what I thought Jay would find funny. And you know what? ...not once did he tell me that the strip I wrote trying to appeal to his funny bone "was very funny". After a few times, it dawned on me that I should just write what I thought was funny. If someone else found it funny, well...consider it gravy.

It's so hard to be a cartoonist because, despite the fact that there is a skill set that you can learn (learn to draw, learn to write), there is NOT a standard operating procedure to apply. A cartoonist has to offer something unique -- and, harder still, a cartoonist has to self-generate all this.

Related: No Ta-tas or Pee-pees in Children’s Publishing, But Most of All, No Balls? from the Chronicle Books blog by Melissa Manlove. It's about a terrific series of children's books, all ready best sellers in Europe, that were not printed in the US (until Chronicle Books picked them up) due to "American prudishness."

Don Martin Sound Effects

Darren Garnick, of the Nashua Telegraph, writes about the life of "MAD's Maddest Cartoonist" Don Martin.

He talks about the new big 2 volume slipcased Don Martin collection of cartoons. I agree with him that it's a trip down memory lane -- and I also agree that a lot of cartoonists love Martin. So many of were MAD readers. I remember copying his characters when I was a wee lad.

Below is a sidebar from the article, which mentions a site I visit all too little. So here, via Mr. Garnick, are a few of the fantastic Don Martin sound effects as documented in Ed Norris and John Hett’s Don Martin Dictionary:

• Ack gak gark! Man having a heart attack.
• Blorf breedeet: Gagged man trying to talk.
• Clink cloink bzzt: Putting money in Vend-O-Hair machine.
• Grunch grunch gashlikt! Sculptor pressing thumbs into man’s head
• Snap ploobadoof: Wonder Woman releasing her Amazon brassiere.
• Spa-zunch: Superman swatting a fly on Lois’ back.
• Spaloosh: Mafia informant dumped in river wearing cement shoes.
• Stroinggoink: Olive Oyl falling down a sidewalk grating and being saved by her nose.
• Thwak: Tooth being knocked out of mouth with a hockey puck.
• Tip-tippity tap: Tadpole tap dancing.
• Unklik: Man being released from dungeon wall.

More at the Don Martin Dictionary!

And it should be noted that Don Martin's original Signet paperback books (CAPTAIN KLUTZ, DON MARTIN FALLS 13 STORIES, etc.) are not included, despite the book being touted as a complete collection. I have heard that the book is all ready sold out, so I hope that this other material will be reprinted in 2008!

Little Lulu Exhibit

The sons of LITTLE LULU Creator Marjorie Henderson Buell donated her papers to Harvard last year. LULU paper ephemera will be on display at the Schlesinger Library thru March 29, 2008. More information, including the hours of the exhibit, is here. And, if you go there today, there's a reception this afternoon, between 4 and 6pm.

Here's a detailed list of what the Library has from the press release:

• Cartoons and comic strips including eighteen of Buell’s earliest cartoons, among them the very first cartoon she drew before age seven; original “Little Lulu” and “The Boy Friend” sketches; and the entire collection of “Little Lulu” comic strips published from 1935 to 1969, appearing first in the Saturday Evening Post and then in national newspapers.

• Personal correspondence with publishers, agents, fans and colleagues. Also included are fan magazines and Buell’s personal notebooks.

• Official business documents including original contracts with Rand McNally, Milton Bradley and Paramount Pictures. Also included are royalty statements, licensing agreements and copyrights.

• Lulu merchandise and memorabilia including toys, sheet music, children’s books, comic books published in multiple languages and Kleenex advertisements.

What's missing is the name of John Stanley, who, along with Irving Tripp, wrote and drew the bulk of the LULU comic book stories. I don't mean to diminish Ms. Buell's work, but it was Stanley who created the whole world of Lulu. I hope that there's an acknowledgment to his work in the exhibit.

Dark Horse Comics is reprinting the LITTLE LULU comic book series. Their 17th volume is below, with #18 (previewed at their site, click "Next Page >>" at the top right of the cover) coming out next month.

Snow Snow Snow

Can't blog. Busy snowblowin'!

Glad to report that there has been -- so far -- no loss of life nor limb, as so graphically pictured on the snowblower warning label.

Best Thanksgiving Cartoons

We were around the Thanksgiving table, talking cartoons. The one and only Stephanie Piro invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner with her friends and family. So, if there's more than one cartoonist at the table, then, of course, there is going to be cartoon talk.

"Here are the 4 best Thanksgiving cartoons," I announce, loudly and boorishly, letting everyone know that two of them are mine. "There's the one of the Mayflower sailing toward America with a big sign, 'Contents May Settle' on the back." I drew this up (see above) and then took it out of circulation when I saw that the cartoon had been done all ready! I saw it in an old collection of cartoons later, and I just did not know it had been done before. These things happen!

"And then there's the one of all these turkeys at a party, all wearing those little nametags that say 'Hi, I'm Tom,' 'Hi, I'm Tom,''Hi, I'm Tom.' This is by my pal Mark Anderson.

"And then there's one where a turkey is being X-rayed at the doctor's office and the doctor turkey is pointing to the patient turkey's solar plexus and saying, 'Well, Bob, here's you problem: your internal organs have been shrinkwrapped!'" I drew that one a couple of years ago, and it appeared in, of all things, a higher education journal. And I can't find a copy of the cartoon just now.

"But the best one I've seen," I continued loudly, for tryptophan has zero effect when I'm hepped up on Cartoon Talk,"is Roy Delgado's cartoon from the November 21, 2007 Wall Street Journal."

Roy is, as I've mentioned before, on a one-man mission to sell a cartoon to The New Yorker.

This makes over 19,500 cartoons REJECTED by The New Yorker in my lifetime. If they ever DID buy one, I'd probably have a heart-attack! I can't win either way!

I read his Roy Delgado Blog to check his progress!

The Great Ham Caper

My wife wrote a poem for Christmas 2006. It's about us and the cats. I thought it was fun, and maybe a bit indulgent. To my delight, Stacy's poem got a lot of kind emails. Hard to believe that since then we've moved and gotten another cat.

For auld lang syne, here it is again:


The Great Ham Caper
Words by Stacy Lynch
Pictures by Mike Lynch

’Twas the week before Christmas
When Rufus and Sam
Hatched a devious scheme
To make off with the ham!

The ham that would grace
The holiday table!
Roo was the brains.
Sam, wiry and able.


They devised a plan
Of Goldbergian proportions
With pulleys and weights
And kitty contortions.

And on Christmas day
They’d eat until stuffed
(The very idea
Made their tails slightly puffed!)

’Til then, they’d lay low,
Little angels to see.
But that made us suspicious –
Wouldn’t you be?


So we snooped and we sleuthed
And uncovered their caper -
“The Ham-Stealing Plan”
Diagrammed on a paper!

“No silly cat’s gonna
Steal my roast beast,”
Exclaimed Mike. “Just watch,
I’ll ruin their feast!”So he countered their scheming
With mad plans all his own
And all I could do
Was inwardly groan!

Who’d win this contest
Of wits they were planning?
Would Mike, Roo or Sam -
Be last man or cat standing?

As Christmas day dawned
The four of us waited
For the ham to be served
With breaths that were bated.

But before the main course
Could even be plated
Their plans took a turn.
Some say it was fated...

What happened to stop them
So cold in their tracks?
Why, cat-nip and husb-nip
(in big canvas sacks)Was all that it took
To stop their foul warring.
And they rolled and purred
And drooled on the flooring.And as long as I kept
My fingers and toes
Away from a hubby and two cats
In nip’s throes -
My own Christmas day
Turned out merry and calm;
The ham moist and succulent,
The champagne, a balm.

When they “awoke”,
hostilities abated,
We all ate some ham
And went to bed sated.

And such peace we wish
To you and to yours:
An end to fighting;
An end to wars.

Happy Holidays!

Mike and Stacy and Rufus and Sam

James Kemsley Passes Away

Sad, shocking news. Australian cartoonist James Kemsley, best known for his work on the Ginger Meggs comic strip, passed away today due to complications from motor neuron disease. He was 59.

Mort Walker Interview

Mr. Media interviews Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker here. And there are a couple of other cartoonists who added some questions for him:

Ray Billingsley, creator of the “Curtis” strip and an old friend of Walker’s, kindly contributed questions today. So did a newer member of the fraternity, Mark Tatulli, creator of “Heart of the City” and America’s fastest-growing new strip, “LIO.”

The thing I like about the Mr. Media site is that you can choose to read an interview or listen to it.

Above photo of Mr. Walker stolen from Tom Richmond's blogarino.

Canadian Chapter National Cartoonists Society 2007 Holiday Party Photos

Photo: the skilled hands of illustrator Patricia Storms hard at work at the NCS Canadian Chapter Holiday Party. She never takes a day off. Let that be a lesson to us all on how to get ahead!!!

Debbie Ridpath Ohi reports on the National Cartoonists Society Canadian Chapter Holiday party that was held on November 30, 2007. The event was held in Toronto and organized by chapter chair John Martz.

A tip o' the Canadian toque to Ms. Storms!

Star Wars Deleted Magic part 1

Here is something interesting for those of you (like me) who haven't heard of this project. Filmmaker Garrett Gilchrist put together a version of STAR WARS (1977) incorporating alternate takes and filmed but deleted scenes. It's "a look behind the scenes at what didn't make it to the final cut of the Star Wars trilogy."

STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC

Submitted for your weekend viewing pleasure ....

STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC (2005?) is a version of STAR WARS (1977) that's full of filmed alternate takes, actors speaking through imperial soldier masks and c-3PO masks, and deleted scenes re-cut in according to early existing script drafts.

It's "a look behind the scenes at what didn't make it to the final cut of the Star Wars trilogy," put together painstakingly by fan and filmmaker Garrett Gilchrist. I was hooked early on. Here's the first couple of minutes via YouTube:




I'm not a huge WARS fan (more of a TREK guy, as ya'll know), so this was all new to me. Better watch this now as those YouTube folks tend to yank vids like this. It's in 17 parts:

1. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 1
   
2. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 2
   
3. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 3
   
4. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 4
   
5. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 5
   
6. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 6
   
7. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 7
   
8. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 8
   
9. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 9
   
10. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 10
    
11. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 11
    
12. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 12
    
13. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 13
    
14. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 14
    
15. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 15
    
16. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 16
    
17. STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC 17
    

Eldon Dedini Illustrations 1959

Via Goofbutton.com comes copious scans of a Dedini-illustrated 1959 paperback book.

And there's a book's worth of Dedini cartoons, from FEETS & CHEEKS, also scanned in by those lovely folks at Goofbutton, here.

H/t Comics Reporter!

Happy Friday

Above: a bit of the front yard & driveway when we got our first snow last week. More expected soon! Have a great weekend.

NEW YORKER Steals from FAR SIDE???

Above: Lee Lorenz's NYer mag cartoon of this week.

Similar ideas happen all the time in gag cartooning, but Newsarama smells cover up!

Personally, I don't think Lee Lorenz is stealing from an old Gary Larson cartoon.

Above: Gary Larson, FAR SIDE, 1984

The Gelflog has more here.

Mankoff explains that the sheer volume of cartoons produced by artists means that there is often overlap of ideas. "Often in the same week different cartoonists will independently come up with identical ideas," he says. "Other times cartoonists generate ideas that have been previously published in the magazine. This is not plagiarism; rather it is the result of very creative people developing many ideas from a few well-established, well-traveled cartoon settings"

H/t to Comics Reporter.

Jon Witcomb Famous Artist

My pal Leif Peng over at Today's Inspiration always, always, always has a great blog entry. Really great. Great, great, great. How I hate him.

Today, it's Jon Witcomb Famous Artist, and we get to see lots of great old magazine art and the above ad as well, with Mr. Witcomb, smoking Fatima (!?) cigarettes and -- what is that next to his drawing board -- a bowl of, uh, lemonade? No ... hopefully, it's paint thinner. There is also some how to draw lessons from Mr. W. too.

Note to the kiddies out there: open flames + paint thinner = KABOOM!

Holiday Presents Not to Get

So many sites will give advice about what to buy this year for your friends, loved ones and geeks this Holiday season. The Mike Lynch Cartoons blog will showcase the ones that should have hazard lights flashing around them. I'm your flagman, telling you to move along, move along, nothing good to buy here.

These items should have that Federation President guy from STAR TREK IV (above) saying, "Avoid the planet Earth at all costs -- but especially avoid these terrible gifts."


Under the heading of Strange Product Tie-ins, come this porcelain decanter in the shape of Mr. Spock. It was originally full of some odd liqueur. Now, if this was, let's say, the head of Montgomery Scott and it was filled with scotch, ooookay! Then, it would make sense. Thanks to John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Film/TV blog!
Above image taken from Nostalgia Central's Give-a-Show page.

Kenner's Give-a-Show Projector was a little red projector for kids that would show a series of slides on the wall. This was big time entertainment in the 1960s. Jon's Random Acts of Geekness blog shares one slide show a week with us. Here is the most recent one with Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear. It's terrible, in a Leonard Pinth-Garnell* way.



Booksteve's Library parses a 1950s ad for guns for kids for unintended sexual innuendo.


Johnny C.'s A-Hole-in-the-Head blog shares the above scary advertising photo (among other things) for Bernadine's Wigs from a June 9, 1971 Las Vegas souvenir newspaper. I think Toby of Bernadine's Wigs is the devil and if you buy a wig from him you MUST DO HIS BIDDING!

* Leonard Pinth-Garnell was an SNL character first played by Dan Aykroyd in 1977. Here are some of his memorable quotes from Answers.com:

• "Stunningly bad!"
• "Monumentally ill-advised!"
• "Perfectly awful!"
• "Couldn't be worse!"
• "Exquisitely awful!"
• "Astonishingly ill-chosen!"
• "Really bit the big one!"
• "Unrelentingly bad!"
• "There... That wasn't so good now, was it?"

THE REJECTION COLLECTION 2

Monday night was the launch party for THE REJECTION COLLECTION 2 edited by Matt Diffee, and Neel Shah of Radar was there to blog about it.

"The guys who contributed to this book probably send Mankoff around 500 cartoons a week. He takes about 20. The odds aren't great," laments Diffee. "The good thing is, by the time you realize yours didn't make the cut, you're already working on next week's submissions."

H/t to Journalista!

CARTOONS THE FRENCH WAY by Jean-Jacques Sempé

Above: the back cover to CARTOONS THE FRENCH WAY with a wordless Sempé gag.

Yesterday, I blogged about CARTOONS THE FRENCH WAY and showcased some single panel cartoons by J.M. Bosc.

Today: scans from one of the cartoon masters, Jean-Jacques Sempé, from that same 1955 paperback book.


Sempé was in his early 20s when he drew these cartoons.

Best known today for his New Yorker covers, his depictions of Paris life are seminal. The New York Times, in its interview with him last year, called his work quintessentially French:

"His precise, elegant drawings are often set in a Paris that even Parisians dream of: a city of mansard roofs, high windows and wrought-iron balconies, where all the cars still look like Deux-Chevaux or 1950s Citroëns. Dwarfed by their surroundings, his figures - smallish men, balding, a little portly, with big noses and tidy little mustaches, their double-chinned, nicely coiffed wives in polka-dot frocks - are French Everymen, dignified and put upon at the same time. They nevertheless speak to the international human plight: the Thurberian power struggle between men and women, the daily need to keep up appearances, the unending cycle of tiny victories and middle-size defeats."

The composition, the rain, the look on the peoples' faces: all so well done, so seemingly effortless.


I like the look on her face.


Yeah, nude models really do get bored. And cold.


In the above gatefold, you can see his attention to a real sense of place.

"I showed her! I didn't touch a dish for two months!"


Above: clicking to enlarge will show you how good the composition is on this. At first glance, the squiggly, curly-cue line was, I thought, part of the store window -- but within a second, I discovered the gag.


A typical gag: a city scene with complex, busy ink work with a clear layout of who to watch to understand the gag.

Phaidon Press published a number of Sempé's works last year. Phaidon maintains a blog, The Nicholas Club, named for the title character in a series of children's books by Goscinny and Sempé.

Tom Spurgeon, he of the grand Comics Reporter site, posted a sumptuous preview of Phaidon's Sempé cartoon books here.


Again, the reason that so many cartoons are wordless is because you don't have to know French to "get" them. Selling cartoons is Europe is easier when no words are used. And that's pretty hard to do!


Above a lovely, dry gag line. At first, I didn't see him amongst the dancing natives!

More links:

Christopher Wheeler shares photos of Sempé memorabilia (which is where I took the above image).

Read Yourself Raw profile.

Mike Lynch Cartoons blog (Yes, you're soaking in it now!) has more on French cartoon books here.

Happy Birthday, Walter Berndt

Above: cool SMITTY sheet music from the Hogan's Alley site.

Happy Birthday to Walter Berndt -- the man who drew SMITTY for 50 years!

And don't forget about the Berndt Toast Gang -- the Long Island Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society!

"Berndt Toast?" What kinda name is that?!

Recently, Tim Lasiuta interviewed the one and only Lee Ames about the Berndt Toast Gang. Lee said:

When the Long Island group, Creig Flessel, Bill Ligante, Frank Springer, Al Micale, and I got together to work for Hanna Barbera [in the 1960s], we decided to have a Finnegan's (Bar) lunch every last Thursday of the month. During that period, Creig brought Walter Berndt to join us.

We fell in love with the cigar smoking old timer (look who's talking!), as he did with us. After a couple of years he passed away and left us grieving. Thereafter, whenever we convened on Thursdays, we'd raise a toast to Walter's memory. On one such, my big mouth opened and uttered, "Fellas, it's time for the Berndt toast!" I wasn't trying to be cute at the time but I'm not displeased that it stuck and we became the Berndt Toast Gang, one of the largest branches of the National Cartoonists Society.

More on the history of the Berndt Toast Gang here.

Big tip of the chapeau to Craig Yoe!!!!!

CUL DE SAC Review

No, not my review. It's Tom Spurgeon's, over at Comics Reporter, reviews Sunday's edition of the newspaper comic strip CUL DE SAC. Link to Sunday's strip here.

I can't add to Tom's excellent analysis -- he's one of the most articulate guys writing about comics today -- except to shine the Mike Lynch Cartoons Blog kleig light on his insightful writing. CUL DE SAC is the one to watch.

I would have run across this review, since I read Comics Reporter every day (as should one and all), but a big hat tip to Dirk Deppey's ever exhaustive Journalista! where I saw mention of it first.

Related linky: Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac Blog.