Something as innocuous as Hillary and Duncan going to a school dance together in the Sally Forth comic strip seems to be riling up certain readers.
“…having Hillary going with a black kid to the prom was too much for me. I guess you are trying to make some kind of statement or something but again this is a Comic Strip. Please stop trying to teach life lessons and get back to something I can laugh about.”
And before this strip even came out…
“I hope you are not going to get Hillary into an interracial affair. If so then I will boycott your comic strip.”
Suffice it to say that comic strips aren’t “For Whites Only.” That this has to be even stated in 2018 seems surreal to me.
And yet it reminds me of the statement by historian Barbara Fields at the end of the Ken Burns documentary the Civil War.
“The Civil War is still going on. It’s still to be fought and regrettably it can still be lost.”
In honor of Mother’s Day, here’s a couple cameos done by my Mom
that have appeared in the funny papers…
This next strip is from June 1, 1997,
when I was writing and drawing Flash Gordon.
My Mom passed away just last year, but I’m very happy that
I had the opportunity to honor her in this small way with these strips.
She was my biggest supporter as far as this weird career path I took.
Ending with a glamour pic of her.
This is my Mom on her honeymoon on a cruise ship from Bermuda bound for New York where she and my Dad would see Yul Brynner in “The King and I” on Broadway. What’s classic about this picture is how much boats made her seasick.
Love you and miss you, Mom. You were one of a kind!
I’m using a copy of the recent Action Comics #1000 cover to pay tribute to the memory of real life Superman, Jim Gainey.
Jim died January 11, 2016 at the age of 34 of colorectal cancer. Jim was my cousin Maureen’s son. Here’s a pic of Jim with his wife Catherine and the kids, Shamus and Finn.
“I had an amazing life. I regret nothing because everything I did made me who I am. I’m proud of the family I came from. I’m proud of the people I call friends. I was lucky enough to meet my soulmate and have her family become my family. Most of all, I’m so proud of my boys and I love them more than air.”
Word on the street was that Ulysses Klaue was in Chicago April sixth through the eighth looking to fence a stash of stolen Vibranium. My Command Center for the weekend was at McCormick Place – concurrent to some convention called C2E2 (whatever that is).
As luck would have it I found an ally.
Enter – The Black Panther!
Unfortunately before we could pool our resources, Doctor Otto Octavius (street name Doctor Octopus) attacked! Thankfully Spider-Man happened on the scene and was able to subdue him before any injuries were incurred.
Derailed on my search for Klaue, I ran into a new formidable adversary… Killmonger!
I’ll add that he was NOT at all happy that I called him “Killraven” by mistake.
The look he gave me after the fact was to die for – literally.
But before Killmonger could wipe that smug look off my face, we were set upon by Galactus, devourer of worlds!
Thinking fast, I made it known to the all-powerful Galactus where the nearest McDonalds was (to satiate his endless hunger) and the threat was over.
But Killmonger had escaped!
I barely had time to catch my breath before running into none other than…
Killmonger…AGAIN!
And he had obviously bulked up since our last encounter (something about a heart-shaped herb he ingested – a plant native to Wakanda).
But before he could exact his revenge on me, I was saved by the combined forces of none other than Supergirl and Wonder Woman!
My mind reeling from the licensing and copyright issues of a DC/Warner Brothers & Marvel/Disney crossover, I commandeered the nearest vehicle and made my escape.
Bud Grace:‘The reason is because we tried a promotion here in the States, and we thought that by changing name we might pick up some papers. That didn’t work, so now I’m going to change my name to Bill Watterson.”
From that same Q&A, when asked if there was any Robert Crumb influence in his drawing style, Bud responded,
“I started drawing in an underground style, originally. While I can’t draw nearly as well as Robert Crumb, I’m not surprised you can see the influence. I was also influenced by underground cartoonist Kim Deitch.”
In 1989 Bud Grace received the the Adamson Award presented by the Swedish Academy of Comic Art as Best International Comic-Strip Cartoonist – and in 1993 he won the National Cartoonist Society’s Reuben Award for Best Newspaper Strip.
Bud Grace Fun Fact:
• Born in 1944, Bud Grace received a doctorate in physics from Florida State University before turning to cartooning.
From the National Cartoonist Society member album.
I was lucky enough to meet Bud Grace when I worked at King Features on staff as the colorist in the Comic Art Department. The cartoonists that didn’t come in regularly to drop stuff off (generally because they didn’t live near New York – we’re talkin’ pre-internet here) we’d get the chance to see if they stopped in before the annual King Features Christmas party.
Bud always reminded me of Groucho Marx when I’d see him at King. If you ever saw a Marx Brothers film, the energy would always pick up a notch when Groucho entered a scene. It was the same with Bud.
Bud Grace and fellow Comic Art department veteran Jerry Craft. December of 1992.
When you worked in the Comic Art department at King you got to see the originals before they saw print. Here’s an example of an Ernie strip circa 1995 pre-edit.
Bud of course knew that the above strip wouldn’t make it through editorial without a change to the language in the last panel. That he sent it in anyway was what made him a favorite in the Comic Art Department up at King.
Here’s another example from 1995 where editorial actually made Bud change the drawing.
And so with the final strip on February 3, 2018, we bid adieu to the Piranha Club.
Fortunately we don’t have to say adieu to Bud Grace. You can still check in on Bud at BudGrace.com.
And for those interested in book collections of Ernie/Piranha Club dailies, here’s a heads up from Bud’s website…
“All the daily cartoons that were published plus many that were not. The 88-89-9o book has about 230 pages of comics. The 2017 book (Which also has the month of January 2018) has about 100 pages. The other books contain about 160 pages. The books are 8.5 by 11 inches, black and white. The best price is direct from Lulu.“
Word on the street was that Ulysses Klaue was in Chicago April sixth through the eighth looking to fence a stash of stolen Vibranium. My Command Center for the weekend was at McCormick Place – concurrent to some convention called 
