Comic Strip

Back on the 'Far Side': New installments of the cult comic strip "The Far Side" will return to newspapers across America on New Year's Day, following a 14-month hiatus. Cartoonist Gary Larson took a break on Oct. 30, 1988, from one of the most successful panels in comic-strip history. During that time, newspapers ran reprints of earlier "classic" cartoons. The only thing Larson drew on his sabbatical was an album cover for jazz guitarist Herb Ellis--in exchange for guitar lessons.

Jeff Millar, the wordsmith behind the long-running comic strip "Tank McNamara," which evolved into a biting satire of the sports world, died Nov. 30. He was 70. The Texas native, who also was a longtime film critic and columnist for the Houston Chronicle, died at his Houston-area home after an almost four-year battle with bile-duct cancer, said his wife, Peg. The daily, syndicated comic strip - with a hefty-jawed protagonist who matured from...

Jeff Millar, the wordsmith behind the long-running comic strip "Tank McNamara," which evolved into a biting satire of the sports world, died Nov. 30. He was 70. The Texas native, who also was a longtime film critic and columnist for the Houston Chronicle, died at his Houston-area home after an almost four-year battle with bile-duct cancer, said his wife, Peg. The daily, syndicated comic strip - with a hefty-jawed protagonist who matured from...

I first encountered Julia Wertz with her 2010 graphic memoir “Drinking at the Movies,” a relentless and, at times, lacerating self-portrait of the artist as a young woman wrestling with alcohol. “Drinking at the Movies” was not Wertz's first autobiographical comic - her earlier work is gathered in two collections, “The Fart Party Vol. 1” and “The Fart Party Vol. 2” - but it represents a bridge between the narrow form of the comic strip (many of its chapters are a single page)

Berkeley Breathed is pulling the plug on his comic "Opus" after Nov. 2 and on his career as a comic strip artist. The 5-year-old Sunday comic with a political bent, starring the penguin from Breathed's classic comic "Bloom County," is ending just before the presidential election. In an e-mail to The Times, Breathed, 51, wrote Monday: "30 years of cartooning to end. I'm destroying the village to save it. Opus would inevitably become a ranting mouthpiece in the coming wicked days, and I respect the other parts of him too much to see that happen.

Re "Comic Strip Characters Have Needs Too" (March 3): For the first time in about 25 years, I have found myself eagerly turning to the comic strip "Rex Morgan, M.D." to find out what is happening. It seems he and nurse June Gale have actually fallen in love and are engaged to be married. How fortunate they have not grown fat, flabby, gray or wrinkled like so many of the rest of us. It is truly amazing. GWYNN BOYER Altadena

Bert Whitman, 82, editorial cartoonist for the Phoenix Gazette who transformed the radio serial "The Green Hornet" into a comic strip. The Brooklyn-born Whitman taught himself to draw, and in 1924, at age 16, began working for the Los Angeles Times. He went on to a succession of newspapers, and created a steady stream of political cartoons, comic strips and comic books. He drew the "Hornet" in the early 1940s.

Bill Hoest, whose award-winning comic strip "The Lockhorns," has had Leroy and Loretta Lockhorn at odds for two decades, has died at age 62. Hoest, of Lloyd Neck, died Monday of lymphoma at New York Medical Center. "The Lockhorns," which celebrated its 20th anniversary in September, is syndicated to more than 500 newspapers worldwide. Hoest also produced the comic strips "What a Guy!"

Zeke Zekley watched quietly as people bid thousands of dollars for the kinds of comic strip panels he was paid $50 a week to draw in the 1930s. "I never had any idea that these drawings would become as popular as they are today," said the 78-year-old retired cartoonist, looking around at almost 300 original comic strip panels being auctioned off Sunday at the Burbank Airport Hilton's convention center. One of Zekley's "Bringing Up Father" strips that ran in newspapers across the nation on Aug.

The creator of "L.A. Cucaracha" is going national with "La Cucaracha," a rare Latino-themed syndicated daily comic strip, which promises more fodder from the Spanglish, warped world of its main character. Creator Lalo Alcaraz, 38, of Los Angeles signed a 10-year contract with Universal Press Syndicate, which also syndicates "Doonesbury" and "The Boondocks," to begin his biting and satirical strip on Nov. 25.

Maybe most recognizable for sharp, crudely drawn comics explaining dog behavior or the music industry , Web comic strip the Oatmeal has moved into the fundraising arena with a recent campaign in support of a Nikola Tesla museum in Shoreham, N.Y. The comic's creator Matthew Inman called Tesla, the Serbian American inventor of alternating current,  "the greatest geek who ever lived" in a recent strip (which, be forewarned, features the...

Tony Millionaire spends his nights in the garage. That's where you'll find him, in a space built just wide enough for a Model T, bent over his drawing table until 4 a.m., a beer never far from his fingertips. The wife and kids can hear him in there, listening to talk radio or laughing and shouting, with the occasional crash when things are not going well. He is happy this way, a cartoonist left to his own whims and solitude at his 1926 home in Pasadena, drawing his weekly "Maakies" comic strip about a hard-drinking, suicidal crow or his ongoing series of portraits of the famous and infamous for publications such as the Believer and New York Magazine.

If there's a common thread among bestselling books for elementary school boys, it's the merry mischief maker traipsing through a comics-laden landscape. It is now a common literary trajectory that boys begin their independent reading lives following Dav Pilkey's prankster duo in the "Captain Underpants" series before moving on to Jeff Kinney's "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books and the more recent phenom, "Big Nate," from author and illustrator Lincoln Peirce. Peirce isn't as well known as Pilkey or Kinney, though all three authors are in their 40s. Peirce has racked up 4 million sales since his first book was published in 2009, but that pales next to Pilkey (with more than 50 million copies in print)

Every presidential campaign turns out to be a quadrennial godsend for editorial cartoonists, but for Lalo Alcaraz, 2012 is a jubilee year. Herman Cain, chowing down at a Miami restaurant, asks, “How do you say 'delicious' in Cuban?” Newt Gingrich uses “bilingual education” and “language of living in a ghetto” in the same sentence. And then there's Mitt Romney, son of a Mexican-born Mormon who also ran for president of the United States. Or the “United Estates,” according to Romney's mysterious alter-Tweeter, @MexicanMitt , who's muy simpatico with his staunch “supporter” Alcaraz.

Director Steven Spielberg's "The Adventures of Tintin" starts innocently enough - with Tintin, it always does - at a flea market, where the dauntless boy reporter finds an old model boat. But blistering barnacles! - as his buddy Capt. Haddock would say - there's a secret inside about a long-lost pirate treasure. So Tintin sets out to find it, undeterred by goons with guns, crashes, explosions, cracks on the skull from behind. Hold it. Rewind. That flea market? I think I've seen it before.

Bil Keane, a cartoonist who chronicled the lighter moments of family life for more than 50 years through the gentle, heartfelt humor of the "Family Circus" comic strip, has died. He was 89. Keane died Tuesday of congestive heart failure at his longtime home in Paradise Valley, Ariz., according to King Features Syndicate, which distributes the daily comic. The first cartoon appeared in 19 newspapers on Feb. 29, 1960. It is a drawing of a census taker who inquires of a puzzled woman surrounded by a roomful of toys: "Any children?"

Gustavo Arriola, a cartoonist who created "Gordo," a pioneering comic strip that celebrated Latino culture and traditions, has died. He was 90. Arriola died Saturday of complications from cancer and Parkinson's disease at his home in Carmel, said his wife Mary Frances. Known as "Gus," Arriola launched his cartoon in 1941 featuring Gordo Lopez, a Mexican bean farmer, as the main character.

Warren Beatty has scored a legal victory in his fight with Tribune Co. over the television and movie rights to square-jawed comic-strip crime stopper Dick Tracy. Both sides had requested summary judgments in the long-running dispute in U.S. District Court. Judge Dean D. Pregerson of the Central District of California on Thursday granted Beatty's motion and rejected Tribune Co.'s request. Tribune owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and other media properties. Beatty, who acquired rights to the character from Tribune Co.'s Tribune Media Services in 1985 and made the 1990 movie "Dick Tracy," starring himself and Madonna, filed suit in federal court in Los Angeles in 2008 after Tribune Media Services said those rights had reverted back to it. "At the present time we are reviewing the judge's opinion and evaluating our options," a Tribune Co. spokesman said in response to the ruling.

It was during the peak of another punishing cold and flu season of years past ? this one in January 1929 ? when one of the most recognizable heroes in comics was born in a Santa Monica artist's studio. The flash of inspiration responsible for this American pop icon almost perished in the epidemic. As the artist's assistant would later tell it, cartoonist E.C. Segar was suffering a bad cold that day and considered staying in bed. Impelled by an austere work ethic that had served him well in life, Segar instead drove to his office at 4th and Broadway (the building is long gone)