Category: Cartooning

Cranking out the years

With my ‘interesting’ eyes, I can relate to Friday’s Crankshaft.

Crankshaft is one of my favorite comic strips, but when there are flashbacks — tinted brown and framed as if in an old photo album — I have to ignore the “timeline disconnect” in the continuity. Ed Crankshaft is supposed to be a WWII vet who had played ball for the Toledo Mud Hens. For that to be possible he would be somewhere between 85 and 90 years old — too old to make it up the stairs to his apartment over the garage, let alone drive a school bus. His daughter and son-in-law witnessed the Kent State killings of students by the National Guard in 1970, so they have to be at least 60 or 62, and yet the family is portrayed as if Pam and Jeff are 50-55.

‘Toon Treasures

It’s a beautiful late summer Sunday, and before I get motivated to do my stretching routine and put some miles on my running shoes I’m enjoying a book I picked up last week at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. It’s the TOON Treasury of Classic Children’s Comic Books. The book came out a few years ago, and I was interested in it then, but now it’s a must-get item at a giveaway price of only $16. The audio player has a review by NPR’s Milo Miles, who provides some excellent background on the material.

[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2012/08/ToonTreasury.mp3|titles=Review: Toon Treasury]

Richard Thompson closes his ‘Cul de Sac’

Cartoonist Richard Thompson has announced that he is ending his celebrated comic strip, Cul de Sac. A few years ago, Thompson announced that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. The young-onset variety, like Michael J. Fox has. A couple of months ago, Thompson’s friend and ally Chris Sparks raised money for the Fox Foundation with Team Cul de Sac: Cartoonists Draw the Line at Parkinson’s. I’m so glad that Thompson was able to delay his announcement until after the release of the book. In the heyday of newsprint Cul de Sac would have appeared in 1000 papers. It’s been one of the reasons why I’ve kept home delivery of The Boston Globe, and I will miss it.

Outsourcing

I haven’t been feeling the blogging bug lately. Too much else going on, my mind on other things, etc. Some of the material I was going to post has been donated to better homes — favorite sites that are devoted to single subjects.

Rob Steibel runs the excellent Kirby Dynamics blog for the Jack Kirby Museum. I sent Rob scans from two magazines with articles about Stan Lee that were published ten years apart — Castle of Frankenstein (1968), and Circus (1978).

I am a devoted follower of the tipper-topper mostest bestest Beatles photo blogger, The Gilly on Tumblr. A long time ago I said I would post Ringo’s Photo Album from 1964, but after scanning the magazine I decided that The Gilly would do a superior job of presenting it, and I was right. The scans are at this link.