Category: Newspaper comics

#856 Jim Keefe interview

Jim Keefe is a longtime comics creator who has worked on the Flash Gordon (art and story) and Sally Forth (art) newspaper strips as well as being King Features’ staff colorist. He has also done lettering and retouching for English editions of various manga, and more. This week he talks with Tim about all of this, as well as his time as a student at the Kubert School, dealing with technological change, and more.

The November 16, 2025, Sally Forth strip, with Jim’s color guides at the top. Note the appearance of Gregory and Janine from Abbot Elementary in the first panel!

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#369 “Krazy Kat”: Show me the bricks

Krazy Kat

One of the most highly-regarded English-language strips of all time is George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, featuring the odd love/hate triangle of Krazy, Ignatz, and Officer Pupp. Why was Krazy so gender-ambiguous? How did Herriman’s (somewhat mysterious) racial background influence the strip? Tim and Kumar discuss this and much more. (Originally published September 2, 2013.)

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#852 Dan Schkade and “Flash Gordon”

Flash Gordon

In 2023, King Features Syndicate decided to bring Flash Gordon, originally created by Alex Raymond and first published in 1934, back from rerun purgatory with new strips, written and drawn by Dan Schkade. Dan was also the artist on Dynamite Entertainment’s Will Eisner’s the Spirit Returns in 2016, and is also known for his original work Lavender Jack, which ran on Webtoon. This week, Tim talks with him about Flash Gordon and some of the trickier aspects of doing a newspaper strip, including refreshing readers’ memories and getting new readers on board while also moving the story forward a step every day. And, in 2025, how do you handle a great villain (Ming the Merciless) who’s also a terrible racial stereotype?

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#846 Pow! Crack! Breaking down comics sound effects

Art by Don Martin
Art by Don Martin

POW! ZAP! Comics may not be for kids anymore, but they still have sound effects! Our own Patrick Ijima-Washburn noticed that Japanese editions of American comics left the sound effects untranslated, and decided to put together a book on how common English sound effects should be translated. Life being what it is, it took well over a decade, but the book is finally out digitally, in both Japanese and English! This time Patrick joins Tim to talk about the genesis of the book, some sound effects trivia (what comic strip first used “ZZZZ” for snoring? Who originated adding “ker-“ to the beginning of a sound effect?), and take a quiz from Tim: if quoted a sound effect from an actual Marvel comic, can he guess what action it’s supposed to represent?

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#296 “Little Orphan Annie”

Little Orphan Annie

FLASHBACK! Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie debuted in 1924 and was a big success. FDR having not yet turned him against organized labor, Gray shows hardworking Annie going on strike in one of her many jobs. Tim and Kumar discuss the ’20s strips, their strengths and idiosyncrasies (one strip=one day?!), and how Gray’s outlook changed later. In observance of the strip’s 100th anniversary, we re-present this episode! (Originally published September 26, 2011.)

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#765 “The Re-Up” #2 and “Megillah Sunday Funnies”

The Re-Up 2 and Megillah Sunday Funnies

This podcast continues to be a booster of Chad Bilyeu (“Chad in Amsterdam“), and he’s been busy lately! In addition to releasing the second issue of The Re-Up, his recollection of that time when he was a pot dealer, he’s also curated an anthology, called Megillah Sunday Funnies, that is also a museum show (through May 26, 2023) and auction of the original work in the publication, by 35 different indy creators. This time, Tim and Kumar dig into both.

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#754 “Peanuts”: Schulz’s Silent Sundays 1957-1961

Charles Schulz’s Peanuts is a master class in how to do a comic strip. This week Kumar and Tim are focusing on a five-year period of Schulz’s career, 1957 to 1961, and 25 Sunday strips that demonstrate Schulz’s skill at dialog-free comics. You might want to read the strips before listening; see below!

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#708 Aaack! “Cathy” is still relevant!

Cathy

Cathy Guisewite‘s longrunning comic strip Cathy is still a topic of discussion, 11 years after it ended. While it may sometimes seem as if topics like sexual harassment and body image are new fields discovered in the last five or ten years, Cathy was bringing them up in the ’80s and ’90s.

Comedian Jamie Loftus wanted to dig in and have a discussion about this classic strip, so she started a podcast miniseries, Aack Cast, in which she talks with Cathy readers, other cartoonists, and even Guisewite herself about many of the issues raised in the strip. Emmet talks with Jamie in this episode.

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#707 Joe Dator and “Inked”

Joe Dator's Mrs. Robinson cartoonAfter fifteen years of cartooning for The New Yorker, Joe Dator has a deep catalog of published work – and a pretty deep catalog of UNpublished work as well (it’s a competitive business!). So in his new book Inked: Cartoons, Confessions, Rejected Ideas and Secret Sketches from the New Yorker’s Joe Dator, Joe includes not only some of his best New Yorker work, and why he seems to get stuck on certain topics (birds, anteaters, arguably nightmarish faces made of bacon and fruit on top of a pancake) but his favorites of the work that hasn’t seen print before. Joe returns to the podcast this week to chat with Tim about the book.

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Critiquing Comics #187: “Bear With Me”

A retro-style daily strip about a talking bear! This time Tim is joined by comics colorist Jeremy Kahn to discuss Bob Scott‘s strip Bear With Me.

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