Benjamin L Clark

Writer, Museum Curator, Bibliophile

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What's the comic t-shirt Sophie Marceau wears in La Boum?

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Before B. Kliban: John Rosol's Vintage Cat Cartoons from the 1930s and 1940s

I recently acquired a stash of magazine gag panel cartoon clippings that seem to be mostly from the late 1930s. It’s been fun to look through them and organize them by artist. There are quite a few I wasn’t familiar with. One is John Rosol, who drew these really cute and fun cat cartoons. Almost a predecessor of B. Kliban’s wonderful cat cartoons. There was even a book collecting Rosol’s cat…

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More Eek & Meek by Howie Schneider: Adding Three More 1968 Newspaper Clippings

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What's for dinner, Hagar?

Hagar the Horrible by Dik Browne, 9/19/1979 I was organizing some old newspaper comic strip clippings, and there was this lone daily Hagar the Horrible by Dik Browne, originally published on Wednesday, September 19, 1979. I’m a fan of Hagar, but I don’t have any newspaper clippings, just a couple of the old mass market paperbacks. I don’t even have the recent 50th Anniversary collection, but…

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I recently acquired some comic strip clippings for my collection, and it came with a bonus batch of clippings for a strip I don't collect, but I'm glad to have.

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Milt Gross: Banana Oil Masterpiece - A Source Revealed?

I’m *loving* Paul C. Tumey’s latest book, The Art of Milt Gross Volume 1: Mastering Cartoon Pantomime – Judge 1923-1924. I’ve become even more interested in this era, when the old comic weeklies are still going, and newspaper comics are just getting started. Gross is a great example, from drawing cartoons for the humor weeklies and moving into newspaper cartooning, an evolution that still has…

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A 1950s Labubu Comic Strip? A Look At Flook by Trog

Flook by Trog I have a forthcoming article about Tove Jansson, her Moomin newspaper comic strip, and the Moominvalley adventures. She originally published a strip of sorts in a very small leftist newspaper run by her friend and onetime romantic interest beginning in 1947. It was essentially a reinterpretation of one of her early books in a picture story format. When she was brought under the…

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Bookshop Memories: Country Basket, Sidney, Montana

This little paperback exchange was already closed when I moved to Sidney, Montana, in 2010. I relocated there to become the executive director of the local arts and historical organization and museum. The family that owned the small bookshop were avid readers and also ran a busy insurance agency at 204 2nd Ave NE. I believe they opened the bookshop mainly to satisfy their own insatiable reading…

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From Panels to Presents: The Comics History Book Gift Guide

The 2025 edition of something I’ve tried writing before, but never seemed to finish before February, so … we’ll try again. As gift-giving season approaches, I’m starting to be pestered by my loved ones about my Christmas wishlist. As I put a few ideas together, my list is pretty much the same every year: books, books, books, and expensive woolly socks. So many amazing books that have come out or…

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Advertisement for 1947, Moomin and the End of the World!

As seen in Ny Tid, September 30, 1947. As seen in Ny Tid, September 30, 1947. From the original Swedish, according to Google Translate:ChildrenNote! Note!1Terribly excitingSerialin adventure!Moominand the Endof the Earth!Coming Soon!2 At first, I thought Moomin was looking at a clock, but I realized it only has one hand, and the needle is shaking. The word on the dial seems to express great…

Advertisement for 1947, Moomin and the End of the World!

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Should You Join the Popeye Fan Club? I Did!

This summer, my friend Denis and another friend of his (that I don’t know named David) took a sojourn through the American Midwest, visiting sites connected to comics. From the photos and stories, it sounded like an amazing trip. They are both longtime comic geeks and have a great podcast about Superman called Supermansplaining – they have an episode about thier trip. The first appearance of…

Should You Join the Popeye Fan Club? I Did!

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A new post about a funny comic word and not only what it may mean, but where it comes from.

What is slumgullion? A drink? A soup? Something weird?

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Bookshop Memories – Books on Broadway, Williston, North Dakota

Chuck Wilder was an attorney when his wife Robin wanted to open a bookshop in a small town near the western border of North Dakota and Montana. And so, they did. They opened a great shop with a nice craft coffee counter and that independent vibe bibliophiles love in a bookshop. Sadly, Robin died early on in their venture, and Chuck decided to run the bookshop full-time. And that whole region of…

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The Best Bookends for Heavy Art Books

We have a lot of books. Not as many as we’ve had at other times in life when we enjoyed “midwestern” quantities of residential space, but even in California’s Wine Country, we have a lot of books. Before moving from my native Nebraska to Texas for grad school, I unloaded hundreds of books, mainly at Bluestem Books in Lincoln, Nebraska. Life in Texas, Oklahoma, Montana, and back to Nebraska saw…

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$6 million shopping spree, part 2 - Winsor McCay

In which I continue my $6M Comics Shopping Spree As you may recall, Action Comics #1 (DC, 1938) sold recently for $6M, breaking all previous records for a comic book sold at auction. The sale got me thinking, playing a fun “What if?” game in my head, like you do when you hear about big lottery winners. We all do that, right? Action Comics Number 1, sold for $6 million, image courtesy Heritage…

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Comics Art Against Project 2025

Hi. We’re a group of comic book writers & artists who are furious about Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s plan to consolidate power under authoritarian rule. So we made a bunch of comics to explain their agenda and move you to vote against it. stopproject2025comic.org

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Bernie Mireault's The Jam: A Superhero Story Rooted in Reality

My copy of The Jam in hand. Photo by author Comic writer and artist Bernie Mireault died this month. He was 63. I was not familiar with him or his work, but my friend and collaborator Nat Gertler,  wearing his About Comics publisher’s hat, worked with Mr. Mireault to get his much-lauded comic, The Jam, back into print. In the remembrances that followed Mireault’s passing, his work was praised…

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