This Week's Sneak Peek

The saga continues:

The editorial cartoon is not a traditional outlet for long form story telling, but it's not unheard of. Bill Sanders, for example, devoted a week of cartoons to a continuing story about a couple of student protesters. Harold Talburt made a series of "Klampaigning" cartoons during the 1924 election, adding a new participant to a fanciful campaign parade each day.

The Pulitzer board would add "Doonesbury" and "Bloom County" as examples of serial editorial cartoons — and Sunday's episode of the former would lend credence to that categorization. By the same token, one could add "Pogo" to that list. (But not "Mallard Fillmore." If Bruce Tinsley ever incorporated a continuous story line in his strip, I missed it.)

Recurring series are more common. Tom Toles featured the Continuing Adventures of Ronnie Raygun from time to time. David Low created the character of Colonel Blimp to satirize British conservatism (especially the views of Lord Beaverbrook, owner of  London Evening Standard, Low's employer). My Graphical History Tours have visited Frederick Opper's running series such as Freeneasy Film Company and Sammy and His Pals.

But again, those series didn't tell a continuous story — not even Opper's, running on consecutive days for weeks and months at a time.

Since I'm committed to the Leo In Federal Detention story now, yes, the saga continues.

Sorry, Leo.

With Apologies to Garry Trudeau

 

Comic Caper, Holiday Edition

For this Swipeback Saturday wallow down memory lane, I need to explain that when these next episodes of "The Funny Paper Caper" appeared in December and January of 1983-1984, Garry Trudeau's "Doonesbury" was in the middle of a 22-month hiatus. At the time, it wasn't clear whether the comic strip, having been moved to the editorial page of some newspapers, was going to come back.

Fed up with drawing all those soundproofing dimples in the wall of the interrogation room, I switched to one of Trudeau's tricks and set the next episode outside the building its characters were in. It was the last episode of the year, and ran on a little longer than the previous thirteen had. If you're not in the habit yet, you'll definitely want to Click To Embiggen.

In the new year, it became increasingly clear that I would need to move the plot along in order to complete the story by the end of the school year. Kind of like Davos rushing to fetch Gendry from King's Landing so they could join Jon Snow's Magnificent Seven racing north from Dragonstone to the Wall while, presumably, Daenerys, Cersei and the Dothraki paused to get their hair done.

A purely technical note here: in the Ranger's Christmas gift exchange, news editor Bob Kiesling gave me a Koh-i-noor rapidograph set, which I began using for some of the drawing of this strip in the new year. The technical pens produce a steady, uniform line in india ink, but they clog up and become useless if you're not assiduous about cleaning them. I did find them superior to felt-tip pens for lettering; but sometimes a uniform line is not what you want, so I have never given up on hawk and crow tip pens.

On the topic of moving the plot along, I gotta post some of these midweek, or I'll have to cancel some retrospectives of other people's work I've had planned. Stay tuned.

Comic Caper, Chapter Drei

For this week's Sleuthback Saturday feature, I dredge up the November installments of a comic strip I drew for the UW-Parkside Ranger back in 1983-84. "The Funny Paper Caper" told the story of  the murder investigation of one Rufus T. Pornapple, who was also the victim of an unreported burglary, and romantically linked with more than one comic strip female. As we rejoin the story, the investigation turns to a little lady whose name was McGill, and who called herself Lil, but everyone knew her by another name.

One characteristic of "Nancy" in those days was that cartoonist Ernie Bushmiller avoided use of any and all punctuation, save for the occasional dash or unavoidable question mark. It may have been part of Bushmiller's minimalist approach to cartooning overall. He put nothing in the cartoon that wasn't essential to the gag du jour. I like Wally Wood's observation about the strip that "By the time you decided not to read it, you already had."

This tenth installment, however, requires considerably more commitment.

There's an inside joke in the first panel of strip #11. John Kovalic was a cartoonist colleague at the Ranger that year, drawing a comic strip which appeared just below mine every week. Carson the Muskrat in his current "Dork Tower" is a survivor of his earlier "Wild Life."

As promised earlier this week, Dick Tracy — er, Thelma — has entered the story line. After reading Tuesday's post here, Dave Brousseau reminded me that Dick Locher continued to script Dick Tracy's story line for two years after he stopped drawing the strip in 2009, which I did not explain on Tuesday. He also noted that there was talk on some message boards that perhaps Locher was still drawing some of the strip after 2009. I can't venture an opinion on that; there are signs of Parkinson's impairing his ability to draw in his late editorial cartoons, but comic strips such as Dick Tracy employ support staff (such as Locher himself, early in his career) to polish up, ink, and letter what may only be rudimentary sketches from the person whose name is attached to the cartoon.

You can compare, for example, the rough look of Doonesbury when Garry Trudeau was a student at Yale to its slick production values once the cartoon became a marketing juggernaut a few years later.

Kenosha Festival of Cartooning

A number of issues have made it difficult for me to attend this year's Kenosha Festival of Cartooning as much as I would like, but I was able to make it down to the University of Wisconsin at Parkside last night to see the editorial cartoonists' panel discussion.

Ann Telnaes (Washington Post), Wiley Miller ("Non Sequitur"), Jen Sorensen (The Nib, Fusion), and John Hambrock ("The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee") discussed the role of editorial cartooning in this election year, as well as the reactions some of their cartoons have provoked. (It shouldn't be necessary to say, but strangers phoning a cartoonist's mother is way, way out of bounds. How would you like it if we drew your mother?)

If you're in the area, you'll find the rest of the festival at the Kenosha Public Museum downtown. If you're lucky, the exhibit of editorial cartoons, with works of Garry Trudeau, Kevin Kalaugher, Steve Brodner, Mike Ramirez, and many more might still be up at UW-P's Rita Tallent Pickens Hall.