Cartoon Museum gets £100k lottery funding

From Downthetubes Comic News.

We are delighted to report that The Cartoon Museum has been awarded a grant of £98,700 by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, to support the museum in combatting the severe financial threat resulting from the museum’s closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The power of the political cartoon

Neil Mackay in The Herald Scotland.

"Plumb-pudding in danger", James Gilray

The Guardian newspaper has decided that it won’t renew the contract of its top cartoonist Steve Bell, triggering a fresh round of controversy over cancel culture.

Writer at Large Neil Mackay looks at the power of the political cartoon and finds that for satire to work, it needs to offend and be brutal.

Tales from the Vault: 40 Years / 40 Stories

From the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.

(Top row, left to right)
1 – Rube Goldberg, Rube Goldberg Views the News for His Latest Invention, March 31, 1951.
2 – Richard F. Outcault, Around the World with the Yellow Kid: The Yellow Kid Invades Germany, 1897.
3 – Al Capp, Li’l Abner, October 21, 1946.
4 – Lyn Chevli and Joyce Farmer, Abortion Eve, 1973.
(Bottom row, left to right)
1 – Various artists, All-Negro Comics No. 1, June 1947.
2 – Lynn Johnston, For Better or For Worse, April 10, 1995.
3 – Victor F. Gillam, Phryne before the Chicago Tribunal, June 4, 1884.

The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum has launched a new digital exhibition based on our 2017 exhibit, Tales from the Vault: 40 Years / 40 Stories, which celebrated the 40th anniversary of our founding.

Jan Eliot’s comic strip Stone Soup comes to an end

Bob Keefer from The Eugene Weekly.

A gently humorous era comes to an end later this month when Eugene cartoonist Jan Eliot retires her popular family cartoon strip Stone Soup after 25 years of national syndication.

New Stuff from Gary Larson

From the Far Side website.

Welcome to TheFarSide.com, the first official online home of The Far Side! 

Created by Gary Larson, the single-panel cartoon ran daily in newspapers from 1980 to 1995. In those fifteen years, The Far Side went from garnering controversy to becoming one of the most beloved cartoons of its time. 

Until now, it has never been offered online. We encourage you to read Gary's Letter to find out why. (Yes, he is definitely still alive.)

Why does no one want to be a cartoonist any more?

Nick Newman in The Spectator.

‘Nightmare!’ is how The Spectator’s cartoon editor Michael Heath has been describing cartooning for at least 30 years, but it’s truer now than ever. 

Eighty years ago, cartoonists were so celebrated that waxworks of Low, Strube and Poy were displayed in Madame Tussauds. 

"LEWSER!: More Doonesbury in the Time of Trump"

From Simon & Shuster.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist whose acclaimed Yuge!: 30 Years of Doonesbury on Trump blew up the bestseller list, Gary Trudeau's third (and final?) collection of Doonesbury Trump cartoons takes readers through the dark heart of Trump's presidency and into 2020 election mania. 

Including two years' worth of original Doonesbury Sundays, full-color spreads, and 18 previously unpublished strips, the completion of Trudeau's Trump trilogy arrives just as the 2020 election is in full swing.