October 10, 2018

We have close to 20,000 books and zines that include graphic novels and gags, anthologies and mini comics, classic comics, daily/weekly comic collections, student work, manga, reference and more. Thanks for generous donations from publishers, artists, and collectors the world over, our collection is abundant and unique. From our selection of contemporary graphic novels, zines, student and faculty work, to our out-of-print and rare collections of gag cartoons and classic newspaper strips, The Schulz Library is a dream come true for the cartoonist bibliophile.

The Daily/Weekly Strips at The Schulz Library

Daily comics used to be a huge part of life, with newspapers being delivered to nearly every door. With the decline of newspapers, many of these daily comics have gone online, still thriving in their new locale. And with the advent of web comics, there is an explosion of daily comics. But in the newspapers, many kids, at least when I was growing up in the ‘80s, got their first comics experiences. All the adults had newspapers; you just had to wait for them to be done with the comics section.  Newspaper and web comics alike are cataloged in the Daily Comics section of The Schulz library, covering a massive breadth of genres, styles, and topics. Top of the pick at Schulz Library are:

1. Moomin by Tove Jansson, Swedish comic strip from 1945 to 1933
2. Macanudo by Liniers (past CCS fellow), Agentine newspaper comic strip since 2002
3. Bad Machinery by John Allison, British web comic since 2009
4. Night of the Crash-Test Dummies by Gary Larson, collection of The Far Side, which ran from 1980 to 1995
5. Nancy Dreams and Schemes (Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy #3), newspaper comic from 1922 to present with six artists

Here are some favorites from librarians past and present.

“As a kid, my favorite comic from this section would probably have been Zits [by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman]. It perfectly captures the suburban teen experience, and the mom looks just like my mom! My current favorite is the web comic Girls with Slingshots [by Danielle Corsetto], for its cast of uniquely flawed characters, and storylines that are closer to my current experience as a woman in her 20s.”

—Jess Johnson ‘18

“I never really read daily comics when I was a kid since we didn’t get the newspaper, but I really enjoy Pogo [by Walt Kelly] and Moomin as an adult.  It’s just really light, and the character designs are great.”

—Bridget Comeau ′15

“As a young kid, I (like many) read a lot of Calvin and Hobbes [by Bill Watterson]. At the time I didn’t understand it at any depth or appreciate how beautifully it was drawn, but I loved the scenes that showed Calvin’s adventurous imagination running wild. When I was in middle school I started reading a lot of Doonesbury [by Garry Trudeau]. I thought it was cool how it used a cast of archetypal characters to comment on current events, which I was interested in during the Bush Administration and the invasion of Iraq.

“Recently, I hadn’t been reading a lot of daily/weekly’s, but I came across Ben Katchor, who was a visiting artist here in Spring 2018. In Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer, Katchor uses the strip format to write brief poems about a fictionalized New York City in the late 50’s and early 60’s. Loosely drawn with pen and inkwash, these strips tell fascinating 8-9 panel stories that have a dreamy feel to them.

“We have a huge collection of daily/weekly comics, and I’m excited to dig into some of the classics like Krazy Kat [by George Herriman] and Gasoline Alley [by Frank King].”

—Dan Knott ‘18

As far as for myself, I read the newspaper comics by scrounging them out of the bin before they went in the fire every time I visited my grandparents. I was bummed if we visited too often because I would end up reading the same comics as last time. But I always hunted down Far Side. I went so far as to cut them out and save them, pasted to lined paper, in a three ring binder. These were comics I could read over and over again. I still have the three-ring binder somewhere.

And Penny Arcade ,a daily web comic, was my turning point as far as becoming a cartoonist. With that comic, I realized it was a thing regular people could do, not just fancy artists in the newspaper. My current favorite “daily”  comic (of the 75 or so I follow) is, unfortunately for me, Bad Machinery [by John Allison],  which came to a close early in 2018. The writing and character development are always killer, with fantastic humor. I adore the angular art style and John Allison’s use of color, sometimes ignoring his own inks where the details don’t matter.

Post by Angela Boyle ′16