Klonoa
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- Feb 5, 2004
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Watching the Garfield movie makes me want to talk about another big interest of mine. (yes, I do like to learn about other things besides video games): Newspaper comic strips. They've always fascinated me for some reason. Let's discuss our favorites!
Well, I have a lot of favorites, but I'll just list two of the oldest for now. Have you heard of them? The first really isn't a comic strip. Thomas Nast was a political cartoonist back in the post-Civil War days. This was back when, in order to print cartoon pictures, you had to make them out of a wood carving first. I don't know how that works, but Thomas Nast did some interesting stuff. A lot of pictures you see in history books of cartoons of "Carpetbaggers" and "Scalawags" come from Thomas Nast. Nast also had a large part in creating the donkey and elephant as the party symbols. I thought I also read somewhere that he did Uncle Sam, but I think I may be wrong on that last one.
But my favorite thing that Thomas Nast did was that he was probably the first to depict the modern conception of the American Santa Claus. Before that all we had was pictures from the Night Before Christmas poem, which had Santa as a small impish thing. A lot of people think it was Coca Cola that first depicted Santa the way we see him now, but it was actually Thomas Nast. His Santa pictures are very interesting to me.
Another favorite TRUE newspaper comic of mine came around the early 1900's. Little Nemo in Slumberland. No, it's not about a clownfish. In fact, I'm a tiny bit mad that Pixar used the name Nemo, because now people may not know what the other Nemo is. In the comic, Nemo was a boy who traveled to the land of dreams, and met colorful characters like Flip the Clown. The comic always ended with Nemo's parents waking Nemo from slumber in the last panel. The Little Nemo strip was WAY ahead of its time, and it has the BEST artwork of any comic (even today's) in my opinion. That may be because the creator of Little Nemo, Windsor McKay, also drew circus posters. Everyone always credits Walt Disney with pioneering anmation, but Windsor McKay was doing the same kinds of things in vaudville shows long before. You might have seen an old black and white cartoon with a dinosaur and a live person called Gertie the Dinosaur. That was McKay and his creation!
Going back to video games, back in the 8-bit Nintendo days, Capcom made an AWESOME NES game called Little Nemo: The Dream Master that came out around the same time as the animated movie. Both were pretty cool, I think. Try to pick up the NES game if you find it, it's great.
So what are some of your favorite newspaper comic strips?
--Klonoa
Well, I have a lot of favorites, but I'll just list two of the oldest for now. Have you heard of them? The first really isn't a comic strip. Thomas Nast was a political cartoonist back in the post-Civil War days. This was back when, in order to print cartoon pictures, you had to make them out of a wood carving first. I don't know how that works, but Thomas Nast did some interesting stuff. A lot of pictures you see in history books of cartoons of "Carpetbaggers" and "Scalawags" come from Thomas Nast. Nast also had a large part in creating the donkey and elephant as the party symbols. I thought I also read somewhere that he did Uncle Sam, but I think I may be wrong on that last one.
But my favorite thing that Thomas Nast did was that he was probably the first to depict the modern conception of the American Santa Claus. Before that all we had was pictures from the Night Before Christmas poem, which had Santa as a small impish thing. A lot of people think it was Coca Cola that first depicted Santa the way we see him now, but it was actually Thomas Nast. His Santa pictures are very interesting to me.
Another favorite TRUE newspaper comic of mine came around the early 1900's. Little Nemo in Slumberland. No, it's not about a clownfish. In fact, I'm a tiny bit mad that Pixar used the name Nemo, because now people may not know what the other Nemo is. In the comic, Nemo was a boy who traveled to the land of dreams, and met colorful characters like Flip the Clown. The comic always ended with Nemo's parents waking Nemo from slumber in the last panel. The Little Nemo strip was WAY ahead of its time, and it has the BEST artwork of any comic (even today's) in my opinion. That may be because the creator of Little Nemo, Windsor McKay, also drew circus posters. Everyone always credits Walt Disney with pioneering anmation, but Windsor McKay was doing the same kinds of things in vaudville shows long before. You might have seen an old black and white cartoon with a dinosaur and a live person called Gertie the Dinosaur. That was McKay and his creation!
Going back to video games, back in the 8-bit Nintendo days, Capcom made an AWESOME NES game called Little Nemo: The Dream Master that came out around the same time as the animated movie. Both were pretty cool, I think. Try to pick up the NES game if you find it, it's great.
So what are some of your favorite newspaper comic strips?
--Klonoa