Happy 144th birthday, Richard F. Outcault!
Today in 1863, the very first Sunday comic artist was born.
Yes, we should all take pause today to acknowledge Richard Felton Outcault, who drew the world’s first color comic strip, "Origin of a New Species," in The New York World‘s Sunday edition.
His first regular strip was "Hogan’s Alley," but he later became known for Buster Brown and The Yellow Kid. Where would we be without your first brave steps, Mr. Outcault? I’m not sure I would want to live in a Peanuts-less world, even if I were (perish the thought) ignorant to their very existence. We must all thank Outcault for paving the way. He died in 1928 having made his mark. In color.
Our favorite role models, The Katzenjammer Kids, turned 110 years old yesterday. In case you weren’t aware, the newspapter strip is still being published each Sunday.
For nearly three decades, artist Lynn Johnston has entertained millions with her daily For Better Or For Worse comic strip. Now, she has taken the already innovative property in a totally new direction – and she tells ComicMix Radio just what’s ahead. Plus
Sustained flashback to 1940, and to an early stage of confidence and high promise for Al Capp’s long-running comic strip, Li’l Abner. Conventional wisdom, bolstered by accounts from Capp his ownself, holds that the name Yokum is a combination of “yokel” and “hokum.” That would be Yokum, as in Abner Yokum and his rural Southern lineage.
They are passionate about the industry, they meet in large numbers several times a year and they even have a ton of cool collectibles. There are a lot of similarities between NASCAR fans and comic fans and now two members of the ComicMix Family are helping to bridge the gap even more.
With two years of 
down now, it’s clear just how much the individual editor can influence the choice of comics. Last year, Harvey Pekar leaned towards autobiographical comics and towards long, complete works. For this second year, Chris Ware similarly goes where we’d expect him to go and picks a lot of formalist stories — but also a lot of autobiography, particularly the overly-serious type. It’s dangerous to compare annuals in any case, especially when they change editors, but I have to admit that I thought 2006 was a stronger book than 2007; this year’s edition contains a batch of “experimental” comics that I found pointless and a pure waste of space.
Here’s a comic book so big it makes those old tabloid editions (
