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Happy Holidays from LOAC, Dogpatch-Style!

Ho-Ho-Ho from Us to You!

Screwball Sunday: George Swanson on Screwball Cartooning, Part 1

In the fall of 1930, George “Swan” Swanson wrote and illustrated an illuminating essay on comic exaggeration in cartoons. His pointers succinctly outline his methods and provide insight into the art of over-the-top screwball cartooning. His lessons work as well today as they did 90 years ago. Chapter 12 in LOAC’s Screwball! The Cartoonists Who […]

Screwball Sunday: A Crazy Cat in George Herriman’s 1903 Jolly Jackies Farce

“Kitty! Kitty!” by George Herriman, September 6, 1903 Freshly hired as a staff cartoonist at the New York World, George Herriman scored an early success with his January-to-November 1903 Sunday series, Two Jolly Jackies, about the misadventures of two sailors on shore leave. “Jacky” was a popular term for a sailor, coming from “Jack Tar,” […]

Screwball Sunday: The Subversive Fool in Frederick Opper’s “King Jake”

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 […]

LOAC at Comic-Con@Home

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 […]

Screwball Sunday: Reflections and Shadows in Gene Ahern’s “The Squirrel Cage”

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 […]