“Puck’s Life of Garfield”by Frederick Opper (Puck, September 8, 1880) Politics can certainly be pretty screwball. In fact, one of the primary antecedents to screwball comics is the political cartoon. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the comics Frederick Opper created for the Puck weekly. In today’s Screwball Sunday comic, I’ve selected a wonderful […]
"Cap" Stubbs & Tippie, Blondie, Bringing Up Father, General News, Little Orphan Annie
Cartoon Canines in the Dog Days (or, “If You Love Me ‘Arf!’ as Much as I Love You …”)
04
Aug
Aug
Hope we aren’t barking up the wrong tree …
02
Aug
Aug
Below: Dis-continued Stories/Needlenose Noonan by Gus Mager – December 9, 1934 There’s a lot of guff to lamp in this four-color fish wrapper, to briefly speak in the breezy, slangy style of Walter Hoban’s inept lawman. Hoban created Needlenose Noonan at the end of his career. With about a quarter of a century of experience […]
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Jul
Jul
Main Street by Gus Mager – July 22, 1923 Why did Gus Mager create a syndicated Sunday comic page that looks so much like George McManus’s Bringing Up Father? Although no record has been found of Gus Mager stating that Main Street was ever meant to emulate—and at times lampoon—the flagship strip of King Features […]
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Jul
Jul
King Jake by Frederick Opper – January 5, 1908 King Jake is a comic strip about the nature of humor. Specifically how what can be a real knee-slapper to one person is infuriating to another. And we, as the reader, get to observe both the jokester and his victims entwined in a series of causes […]
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Jul
Jul
Comic-Con 2020 maybe be canceled in the physical sense, but they have prepared an incredible line up of over 350 panels for people all over the world to stream and enjoy from their homes for free! Dean Mullaney will be representing the Library of American Comics on Saturday, July 25. Here are the details: Fantagraphics […]
Bringing Up Father, General News, Polly and Her Pals
The Iron of the “Iron Gate” Order (Fifth in a Series)
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Jul
Jul
Another half-dozen “Iron Gate” pieces, devoted to frolics at Manhattan’s “21” Club hot-spot
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Jul
Above: The Squirrel Cage by Gene Ahern – December 13, 1936 You can’t outrace yourself but you can sure try hard. This is shown in today’s Screwball Sunday, an eructation-producing episode of The Squirrel Cage by that irrepressible devotee of ridiculous folly: Gene Ahern. Running as a topper to Ahern’s Room and Board from 1936 […]
09
Jul
Jul
Flash Gordon throughout the 1930s, as part of pop culture and as a foundational aspect of SF’s eventual breakthrough acceptance.
Screwball
Screwball Sunday: It’s Summertime and the Combs are Exploding—W.R. Bradford’s Jingling Johnson and Dr. Domehead (1916)
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Jul
Below: Bradford’s Funny Folks, Philadelphia North American (August 20, 1916) Here’s a rare screwball treat: a never-before-reprinted Sunday page from the intrepidly idiosyncratic cartoonist, Walter R. Bradford. The topic of this page is sweltering summer heat, which is something many of us can relate to these daze. When this strip appeared in August 1916, temperatures […]