Gil Kane’s Star Hawks, a daily comic strip published in 1977, after the pop culture defining hit of Star Wars.
People who only know the newspaper comic strip as just fuddy duddy jokes might want to look how cool and prestigious some of the old adventure and romance strips were.
Another example of a gorgeous, intricate foreground, ephemeral background, and delicate character linework by Al Williamson. My favorite part of this panel is how the moss overlaps with Luke’s speech bubble, which emphasizes the power of nature over the designs of man. My least favorite part is our boys’ apparent disregard for gun safety.
Star Wars Newspaper Comic Strip: “The Night Beast.” March 27, 1982. Writer: Archie Goodwin. Illustrator: Al Williamson.
Jim Davis’ Garfield the cat first appeared in animated form in The Fantastic Funnies (1980), a strange special hosted by Loni Anderson.
It was produced by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez who produced the Peanuts specials, and who did the first few Garfield specials afterward. Garfield was played by Scott Beach, who voiced “The Death Star plans are not in the main computer” in Star Wars, among other things.
The animation adapts a few early strips which had a fatter design for Garfield, and the thinner design here isn’t quite right. They’re still figuring out how to draw the cat. This follows a Tumbleweeds segment, which Jim Davis also worked on.
Anything you see drawn in this art style is by Gary Larsen, a guy who would have thrived on Tumblr. His comic strip is called The Far Side, and it’s excellent.
Þe AUDACITY of calling far side a boomer comic
Gary Larson is still making comics! They aren’t technically The Far Side because that was a specific thing and it’s over, but he got into digital art and he’s been posting the occasional piece! And they still have cows in them!
saved the best for last
also because of this comic the official name for the four-spiked tail on stagosaurine dinosaurs is “thagomizer”
