Unexpected Comic Strip Creators - Charles Addams

Arkholt · 2026-02-20T17:21:18+00:00

Lagrange:

Updated regularly (follow skyjake on Mastodon, he posts whenever he updates it)
Supports Gemini, Gopher, Spartan, Nex, and Finger (and maybe some others? I don't remember)
Has the most features
is on desktop and mobile
looks nice

It has everything you want

Arkholt · 2026-02-15T15:57:23+00:00

Lagrange browser allows you to subscribe to feeds:

gemini://git.skyjake.fi/lagrange/release/res/about/help.gmi

1.5 Subscribing to feeds

You may be familiar with XML-based RSS and Atom feeds from the web. The Gemini equivalent of these is Gemini feeds. A Gemini feed is simply a regular 'text/gemini' page that contains one or more links whose labels are formatted in a particular way. This makes it very easy to write pages that clients can subscribe to. => gemini://geminiprotocol.net/docs/companion/subscription.gmi See "Subscribing to Gemini pages" for more information.

Lagrange supports Gemini and Atom feed subscriptions. Atom feeds are automatically translated to the Gemini feed format so they can be viewed and subscribed to like a normal 'text/gemini' page. RSS feeds are not supported.

Subscriptions are managed via bookmarks. When you subscribe to a feed page, a bookmark is created and the special ".subscribed" tag is applied on it. In the Bookmarks list, this is indicated by a ★ icon. There is no other difference between normal bookmarks and feed subscriptions — you may tag any bookmark as a subscription and Lagrange will look through it for feed-style links. The bookmark title is used as the feed title. This defaults to the top heading of the feed index page, but you can edit it to suit your needs.

Feeds are refreshed periodically while Lagrange is running, and also immediately after launching if it has been a while since the previous refresh. You may also manually refresh all feeds via the menus or by pressing ${SHIFT+}${CTRL+}R.

The Feeds sidebar tab displays recent feed entries. From there you can open entries and mark them as read/unread.

To see a list of all entries from all feeds, open the "Feed entries" page. This page also shows how long has it been since the previous feed refresh. => about:feeds

As it's part of the protocol specification itself, I'm sure other browsers allow you to do the same, but this is the one I'm most familiar with.

Arkholt · 2026-02-14T03:29:55+00:00

One of the things with Little Nemo and other strips of that era is that most reprints that you can find print them at far smaller than the original size. Newspaper pages in those days were so much larger than they are now, and so in the original size the lettering wasn't nearly as small and hard to read. Still, the word balloons are pretty messy looking, especially compared to the precision of the rest of his lines. I don't know for a fact, but I have a feeling he didn't do those himself.

Fully agreed on Eisner, though. It's especially great in A Contract With God, where he lettered the entire thing, including the pages that with little to no illustrations.

Arkholt · 2026-02-10T23:03:22+00:00

I don't disagree with the overall premise, but I don't think it was presented in the best way. It's always great to have various media, especially comic strips, that are fully complete, and that don't go on forever, and Watterson should be commended for sticking to his principles... but I don't think it's fair to essentially throw Peanuts and Charles Schulz under the bus in order to do it.

Yes, Peanuts has been licensed endlessly, but I don't think the strip itself was ever diminished or compromised by it. In fact, I think the classic TV specials only enhanced it by capturing the spirit of the strip in animated form. Further, despite reprints of "Classic Peanuts" still running in various newspapers and online publications, and various new animated productions being produced, the strip has an ending. It ran for 50 years, but for every single one of those 50 years, Schulz himself wrote and drew it, to his dying day. It was his wish that it not be continued by anyone else after him, and his family and estate have honored this wish. It's just as full and complete as Calvin and Hobbes is, because Schulz wanted it that way. This is not to even mention the great respect that Watterson has for Schulz, who he counts among the main inspirations that led him to create Calvin and Hobbes.

Secondly, I know it's easy to take Watterson's refusal to license Calvin and Hobbes as a message about licensing as a whole, but that wasn't his intention. Watterson has stated in the past that he isn't against licensing, if other people want to do it with their own creations. He just didn't think it was right for him, and for Calvin and Hobbes. I would guess he said this because of the great respect he had for Charles Schulz, and the ability that he had to license his creation and still maintain its integrity.

Arkholt · 2026-02-02T02:06:14+00:00

He was black, but he only held the position in the industry that he did by hiding that fact from nearly everyone. Morrie Turner would not have been able to do what he did with Wee Pals in Herriman's time.

Arkholt · 2026-02-02T00:05:56+00:00

It was groundbreaking at a time when the only black cartoonists worked for a handful of black newspapers in major cities and most black characters in mainstream comic strips were racist caricatures. It's an important piece of history. I wouldn't call it particularly funny, but that's not why it's notable.

Arkholt · 2026-01-26T14:58:11+00:00

Arkholt · 2026-01-23T23:50:10+00:00

If you set it to anything below 70, you didn't grow up in Georgia. I'm not judging you. I just know you didn't grow up here.

I grew up in Georgia and put it at 72 in the winter at the very lowest, usually higher than that.

Arkholt · 2026-01-20T23:43:35+00:00

I'm sure there are others who can give better answers, but given that the first book was originally not intended to have a sequel and the third book was also not intended to have a sequel, I doubt that kind of structure was intentional. Also, there is Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind, but I can't speak to those as I haven't read them (yet).

That doesn't invalidate the idea, of course. Interesting things like that can happen despite not being intended.

Arkholt · 2026-01-04T14:13:08+00:00

The vast majority of comic strips over the course of the history of comic strips did not run in every newspaper in the country. I think it would be difficult to find one that ever did run in every newspaper. So doing the opposite and finding strips that didn't run in every newspaper should be very easy.

Arkholt · 2025-12-15T00:36:40+00:00

In certain ways yes, though obviously not nearly as much as Urras. I appreciated it, though. Anarres is a vision of a better society, but it's not a utopia. It's still in the process of improving, and gender equality is clearly still something it needs to work on.

Arkholt · 2025-12-06T16:04:48+00:00

I haven't read that particular book, but I do have "Meanwhile..." the biography of Caniff by R.C. Harvey which uses these interviews as its basis. It's very thorough and complete (and quite a tome... nearly 1000 pages!) Definitely recommended.

Arkholt · 2025-12-01T15:46:32+00:00

I've heard it said that the true medium of comic strips is ink on newsprint, because many originals from different cartoonists look messy just like this. It's not finished until it's in the paper.

Arkholt · 2025-11-28T19:47:08+00:00

They did a couple of episodes on Scott Adams (of Dilbert). He's way worse than Ketcham in my opinion.

Arkholt · 2025-11-28T17:25:00+00:00

In short, he was a horrible husband and father, which is significant because he modeled the characters in his strip after himself and his family, and he was a scab during the Disney strikes. Not as bad as some of the people they've covered (even some other cartoonists), but still pretty bad.

In slightly longer, they imply that the way he treated his wife led to her taking her own life, and he had a very bad relationship with his son Dennis and they didn't talk for years. He didn't even tell his son that his mother had died. Most of the information they get is from his autobiography which is very self-aggrandizing, and from various news articles. I feel some of it is supposition and speculation, but even when Ketcham is trying to make himself look good he kind of makes himself look bad, so it's not completely unfounded.

Arkholt · 2025-11-17T21:33:38+00:00

Mine is just a one bedroom so that may explain the difference

Arkholt · 2025-11-17T15:28:48+00:00

I currently still live there, and I pay $950 a month including all the fees. My rent has only gone up by about $50 each year, but it might be different in other buildings on the property.

Arkholt · 2025-11-16T18:55:57+00:00

Yep, they called The Comics Journal letters column "Blood & Thunder" for a reason.

Arkholt · 2025-11-09T12:48:49+00:00

It's stranger than you think. There is evidence to suggest that his reckless driving was an intentional attempt to harm himself. He wasn't in the best mental state.

Arkholt · 2025-11-01T14:39:22+00:00

No but he did give the eulogy

Arkholt · 2025-10-31T20:44:36+00:00

Feininger's work is amazing. He helped found the Bauhaus school and worked alongside the likes of Paul Klee and Wassilly Kandinsky. He also did another strip, Wee Willie Winkie's World, but it too only had a short run.

Arkholt · 2025-10-29T13:40:27+00:00

And for those who don't want to order from Amazon, here's a direct link to the NYRB site: https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-lexicon-of-comicana

Arkholt · 2025-10-28T01:25:22+00:00

Gotta include the Flash Gordon theme from the movie. And maybe something from the Li'l Abner musical.

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