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December 16, 2004


Bernard Lansky, 1924-2004

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The San Diego Union Tribune has a nice, long piece remembering Bernard Lansky, its longtime editorial cartoonist and before that a popular syndicated newspaper cartoonist of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

Lansky had an almost prototypical 1950s art style, a much looser variation on the thin think lines and lanky figures of Mort Walker and Hank Ketchum. He did the panel Seventeen for 20 years beginning in 1955. The strip about funny teenagers -- you could kind of see it as a prototype for the current strip Zits -- enjoyed book collections and a client list numbering in the hundreds. He also did two other, less successful panels: Kippy, in collaboration with his brother Jordan (1960), and Lansky's Look (1973). He briefly worked for Al Capp in New York before returning to southern California and striking out on his own professionally. Lansky was a well-known regional cartoonist, and frequent attendee of what is now Comic-Con International in San Diego, where he received an Inkpot in 1978.

You can find out much more about Lansky at this very complete web site, including lots of samples of his work and a notice from the family directing any possible donations in the cartoonist's memory. The one thing you have to check out is a photo gallery of a Lansky cartoon exhibit that I can't link to directly; I've never seen that kind of cartoons-on-the-wall show before 1990 or so.

Art from the web site. The Lansky family seems admirably very protective of Bernard Lansky's work, and I'll be happy to take this down if they suggest it.
 
posted 8:18 am PST | Permalink
 

 
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