When I founded Scrappyland, I never thought it would soon inspire an actual live event in Hollywood, produced with some help from Columbia and featuring restored Scrappy cartoons–including some shorts that nobody’s seen since the 1930s. But thanks to Jerry Beck and ASIFA-Hollywood, it’s happening, and the whole thing will take place in a little [...]

Princess Grace (nee Grace Kelly) and Walt Kelly were both born in Philadelphia. Were they kin to each other?

Probably not, but it’s an entertaining notion…

Many obituaries of Dale Messick have mentioned that Brenda Starr, her long-lived creation, was one of twenty classic strip characters who appeared on postage stamps in 1995. (In these overcommercialized days when even the cotton-pickin’ Lion King has his own stamp, it’s easy to forget how big a deal those stamps were at the time–it [...]

This should probably remain my little secret, but for years, one of the top three search terms that has led visitors to this site from Google and other search engines has been “Chilly Willy.” (It points people to this image in my gallery of home-movie boxes.) In a typical month, hundreds of Netizens arrive at [...]

Voom–the high-definition TV satellite service–is shutting down as of April 30th. It has only 40,000 customers, and has been on the verge of death for at least a couple of months now. But even with this news, Cablevision, the service’s parent company, says that it’s going to try to convince other TV systems to provide [...]

Snohomish, Washington–a little town I visited yesterday–is home to maybe the best selection of antique shops I’ve ever seen. And its largest store is home to an astonishing array of old cartoon-related toys. With a lot of this stuff, it feels like the manufacturer just wasn’t trying to depict the characters in question in anything [...]

Isn’t this just the best neon sign ever? Every time I visit Seattle, I’m moved to photograph it. (I took this picture at 4:30am this morning,)

…for those who wonder what Porky’s been up to lately. (The restaurant name translates, I believe, to read “The Contented Little Pig.”)

I took this photo in Fresno, California on Saturday.