Everybody loves Peanuts and their antics, like Charlie Brown repeatedly trying to kick a football that Lucy always moves at the last second. But something a bit deeper often lies behind the funny. McDaniel College's new Kings of the Pages: Comic Strips and Culture 1895-1950 exhibit not only displays the Sunday funny pages from the late 1890s to the 1950s, but also includes social commentary. The exhibition was designed by Corcoran College of Art and Design graduate students and curated by McDaniel's Robert Lemieux, an associate professor of communication and cinema, and features classics such as Buck Rogers (pictured), Krazy Kat, Blondie, Pogo, and Peanuts, both in newsprint and hand-drawn form, from the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University.
The show is presented in tandem with a speaker series where contemporary cartoonists will discuss their work with the audience. The cartoonists include Brian Walker, a cartoon historian and second generation creator of Hi and Lois as well as writer for Beetle Bailey (7:30 p.m. Oct. 19); New Yorker cartoonist and children's book illustrator Harry Bliss (7:30 p.m. Oct. 26); Cul de Sac creator Richard Thompson (7 p.m. Nov. 1 at the Corcoran in DC); and KAL aka Kevin Kallaugher, the former political cartoonist for The Baltimore Sun, now at The Economist (7:30 p.m. Nov. 8). (Natalie Copeland)
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