Apartment 3G by Nicholas Dallis and Alex Kotzy
The Boondocks by Aaron McGruder
Mary Worth by Karen Moy and June Brigman
Friday Foster by Jim Lawrence and Jose Longaron
These I remember fondly as comic strips to read.
Favourite cartoon strips/cartoonists Page 2
As a kid I loved The Perishers by Maurice Dodd and Dennis Collins in the Mirror. Not the same after Collins died and Dodd took over the artwork as well as the writing.
Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed an American strip which used to run in the Guardian is possibly my all time favourite.
I am current working my way through another American strip Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson. Not so brilliantly drawn as some but very well observed.
I was very fond of JB Handlesman's Freaky Fables in Punch. Other top cartoonists in Punch were Banx, Birkett, Trace and Honeysett.
I loved Calvin and Hobbes
I bought the complete collection which comes in 3 massive books and look at it from time to time. Still cracks me up
Quote: Facet @ 23rd August 2017, 2:53 PMI loved Calvin and Hobbes
Me too. But for me the King is Gary Larson and the Far Side. Because he was different, surreal.
I also loved the artwork of the Belgian cartoonist, like Lucky Luke by Morris.
I like Andy Capp because we're very similar. I'm also a lazy, work shy sod that would rather be on the sofa or in the snooker hall than the job club.
I read the Barry McKenzie books till they fell apart. Very inventive slang. Very funny.
http://timescolumns.typepad.com/stothard/2011/10/private-eye-at-the-va-and-in-the-tls.html
also: the Jesus and Mo cartoons
You wouldn't flamin read about it! I loved Barry McKenzie.
Well if we're getting political, Steve Bell and his daily strip If. I once met Mr Bell on business, he was the 5th highest paid cartoonist in the country, allegedly. He turned up on a bicycle. Loved his artwork, always arresting, sometimes disturbing.
Quote: Firkin @ 3rd September 2017, 5:51 PMWell if we're getting political, Steve Bell and his daily strip If. I once met Mr Bell on business, he was the 5th highest paid cartoonist in the country, allegedly. He turned up on a bicycle. Loved his artwork, always arresting, sometimes disturbing.
do you know which four were paid more than him? apart from Gerald Scarfe.
I'd take a guess at Michael Heath being one, always been very busy with great strips like The Regulars in Private Eye. Definitely one of my favourites from time I used to subscribe to PE and The Spectator both great mags for cartoon strips, or certainly used to be. Heath draws densely filled cartoon windows if that's the right term, beautifully drafted as if by an architect. Classy looking I always thought.
Quote: beaky @ 3rd September 2017, 11:48 PMdo you know which four were paid more than him? apart from Gerald Scarfe.
I've slept since then Beaky. It was the late eighties, but the figures were published, so they're probably out there somewhere. The list was based on the income of resident cartoonist, so the top slots were mostly tabloids, Sun and Mirror, so not my cup of tea. But if not for that, you're right, Gerald Scarfe would certainly have been up there. At the time there was a lot of affection for IF and Steve Bell was brining in a large percentage of his income from Annuals and merchandising. Ancillary income didn't feature in the figures.
From memory the number one slot had two strip cartoons and plenty of pocket-cartoon in one of the tabloids. He had a lose rapid style not unlike Matt Pritchett, ring any bells ?
Mind you the really exciting figures I saw came from America. They seemed to have a much bigger appetite for cartooning over there. Out of interest, what do you think of Kevin Woodcock's work ? He was a bit of a recluse from memory, but I always though he was undervalued, but I would appreciate your expert opinion. And I need an excuse to show this:
As Dilbert has not been mentioned in this thread yet, I much preferred the Barry McKenzie strips. But Dilbert was brilliant for its first decade before some uninspired staleness started to emerge.
Further to a point on a non-comics/cartoons thread, Dilbert creator Scott Adams had to make the jump from pen and ink to a tablet because he suffers from a sore-paw condition called focal dystonia. As he recounts in his succinctly titled book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life:
"By the early nineties, Dilbert was a modest success, but it was nowhere near the point where I was tempted to quit my day job at the phone company, Pacific Bell. I would wake at 4:00 A.M. to draw before my commute, then work all day in my cubicle prison and come home to draw all night. My time windows for drawing were always compressed, which put a lot of pressure on my drawing hand. The overuse took its toll, and my pinkie finger started to spasm whenever I touched pen to paper, making it nearly impossible to draw...
... I met with the doctor and he diagnosed me in minutes. I had something called a focal dystonia, common to people who do repetitive tasks with their hands, primarily musicians, draftsmen, and that sort of job. It wasn't carpal tunnel. This was different.
"What's the cure?" I asked.
"Change jobs," he said. "There's no known treatment."
I walked out of the doctor's office with my life demolished. My dream of being a cartoonist for the rest of my life was over unless I found a way to be the first person in the world to beat a focal dystonia.
What were the odds of that? ...
... I went back to drawing right-handed, paced myself, and didn't have a problem again for years. My hand doctor said I'm part of the literature on this topic now, although my name is not mentioned.
In 2004, after once again doing too much drawing in a compressed time, the dystonia returned. This time I tried a smarter work-around. I made an educated guess that somewhere in the world a company was probably making a computer tablet or screen on which I could draw my comic. My hypothesis was that drawing on a computer would feel different enough from pen on paper that the dystonia wouldn't trigger, even though I would be drawing with a stylus just as I would with a pen.
I did some Google searches and discovered that Wacom was making a special computer monitor for artists. I ordered it the same day. In a week it was up and running. As I'd hoped, drawing on the computer was different enough that the dystonia didn't trigger. And through my not reinforcing the trigger and the spasm, the dystonia faded away. I'm sure it would come back if I tried drawing or writing on paper for a long time, but since that will never happen, it's a nonissue in my life.
By the way, drawing on the Wacom product cut my total workday in half. The focal dystonia was a case of extraordinary bad luck for a cartoonist. But when I got done beating the dystonia problem to death and rifling through its pockets, I came out the other end a far more efficient cartoonist. The quality of my drawing improved dramatically on the Wacom because it's so easy to make small adjustments. On balance, I came out way ahead."
That was interesting Kenneth-
Love that people follow cartoonists, surprised too, I liked all cartoons except the frenetic violent hero stuff. I have come to it rather late. I like idiosyncratic draughtsmanship. Early Raymond Lowery was a fav. Having said that, there was a totally childish cartoonist in one of the tabloids that would crack me up.
I bought Private eye twice this week, they beginning to pile up on the loo windows sills as Im weeks behind reading them. Id buy viz too but only at a fraction if it was able to rip out the pages I didnt want.
Now there an idea: loose leaf magazines, pay what what you keep. How many times do you buy say a telly program mag stuffed full with inserts and tip them out quietly kicking them under the stand. An obvious place to put a bin but I imagine not popular with advertisers
Im doing anything rather than what I should be doing today
This is probably my favourite comic with best art to story match http://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Hunter-S-Thompson-s-Fear-and-Loathing-in-Las-Vegas/Issue-1?id=81610#1
Love the grandeur of this guy https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Sharaz-de&t=ipad&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Flambiek.net%2Fartists%2Fimage%2Ft%2Ftoppi_sergio%2Ftoppi_s_sharazde.jpg
Gary Larson is the funniest and most original cartoonist I've ever seen.