Great Historic Cartoon Sites

I wanted to list some good links to cartoons and cartoonists on the Web. I wrote a partial list last month. Here's a revised list of links-- some you may know about, some you may not have heard of. Please let me know if there are others. Thanks!


Some links for those who have not seen them:

Drawing from Life, "Selections of Caricatures and Cartoons from The American Art/Portrait Gallery Library Collection" via the Smithsonian, has samples of rare published art by Clare Briggs, Bud Fisher, Gibson, Kemble, Opper, William Hogarth, Keppler, Art Young and others. A great find if you like the really old cartoonists! The Smithsonian Institution Digital Library Main Page is here.

Above art: from Art Young's book HELL UP TO DATE circa 1893:

"The demon cartoonist first makes a caricature of his victim; then the victim is pulled and twisted, rolled and kneeded, until his resembles in every way the demon's fanciful conception."


The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Project Blog has reams of material: in depth selections of comic strips, magazine cartoons and comic book images; a selection of Eldon Dedini Playboy cartoons with a video interview of Mr. Dedini; and you will see links to Sokol, Kurtzman, Elder and others.

Above: a cartoon by Virgil Partch from this ASIFA blog entry.


The Comics in Canada, an exciting gallery of video and audio from the CBC, highlights the history of the form in popular media. There is a lot here. One of my faves: a real early, lengthy "Up Close and Personal" video interview with Lynn Johnston.

I discovered George Feyer here. He used to cartoon live on Canadian TV in the 1950s and 60s. Now that would be great regular programming! It's so fun to watch a cartoonist cartoon. He tells the story of how he came to Canada in this video. Feyer lived through the Nazis and Stalin. He emigrated to bucolic Canada, but his life was still troubled. Christopher Butcher writes about him here, and shows more of Feyer's work.

Above: a cartoon by Feyer that I took from this page from the ACEC.

Above: George McManus looks like he's channeling McCay in his NIBSY strip.

If you like old newspaper comics, here are a few sites of interest:

Coconino World is a huge site, in French and English, that celebrates a lot of classic cartoonists. If you go to this page, you can start looking at Swinnerton, McManus, etc.

Shane Glines' Cartoon Retro (subscription only), celebrates classic cartoon illustrators. Lots of stuff here. Join up for a month. I did.

Andy's Early Comics Archive is an incredible collection of cartoons through the centuries with tremendously large scan for much oohing and aahing. I love the page of photos and caricatures of cartoonists here.

Craig Yoe's Arf Lover's Blog is a wonderful collection of cool stuff. I always wind up spending time looking at old gag cartoons, old comics and other items of delight that Craig has.

Stripper's Guide by Allan Holtz is not as racy as it sounds. Lots of great old comic strips here.

Barnacle Press is a trove of old features from the comics pages.

Arnold Wagner's Cartoonology always has the insider stories about cartooning and comics.

Leif Peng's Today's Inspiration blog tends to be more about post-war illustration, but the site is such an interesting place to visit and it's full of vintage material, that it's worth a looksee.