Cartooning – Page 4 – Prattling Before the Pratfall

Green Light From Go Comics

CRANKSHAFT © 2026 Mediagraphics, Inc. Used By Permission of ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION. All Rights Reserved.

Yesterday’s Crankshaft comic strip is one to put a smile on Silver Age comic book fans. I’m always pleased to know there are comic strip artists who are comic book fans.

https://www.gocomics.com/crankshaft/2026/03/22

The comic book that’s referenced is Green Lantern #19, from 1963, with cover art by Gil Kane (pencil) and Murphy Anderson (ink).

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Green_Lantern_Vol_2_19

I was pleased to see the credit card expiration dates for licensing comics on GoComics have been updated. Previously, 2028 was the last year that was accepted, and the one credit card I have that worked is about to renew.

The copyright information wasn’t included along with the image, so I had to compose it, based on previously licensed strips.

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If you follow the link to the GoComics page, you will see that I didn’t change the strip but I did modify its presentation. Making it vertical was, I felt, essential for its viewing here.

The Mind of Lichtenstein

This week’s issue of The New Yorker has an ad from the Gagosian Gallery, promoting an exhibition of what appear to be abstract, rather than representational, paintings by Roy Lichtenstein.

https://gagosian.com/exhibitions/2026/roy-lichtenstein-painting-with-scattered-brushstrokes/

It’s interesting the works come from the Lichtenstein family collection. Have they never before been offered for sale? They’re nothing like the so-called Pop Art paintings that made Lichtenstein famous. Those were based on comic book panels he had selected, many of them from DC titles in the romance genre.

This is a good opportunity to watch the documentary Whaam! Blam! Roy Lichtenstein and the Art of Appropriation. It was based largely on the research of David Barsalou, who graduated from Westfield State a year ahead of me. Our art history instructor was Barbara Harris, who is now a friend of mine.