| Pickles | |
|---|---|
 The main cast of Pickles | |
| Author(s) | Brian Crane |
| Website | Pickles Comic |
| Current status/schedule | Running |
| Launch date | April 2, 1990 |
| Syndicate(s) | Andrews McMeel Syndication (July 1, 2022–present) The Washington Post Writers Group (Apr 1990–June 2022) |
| Publisher(s) | Baobab Press |
| Genre(s) | Humor |
Pickles is a daily and Sunday comic strip by Brian Crane focusing on a retired couple in their seventies, Earl and Opal Pickles. [1] [2] Pickles has been published since April 2, 1990. [3]
As of 2016, Pickles was syndicated in close to 1,000 newspapers worldwide. [4]
In 2022, Pickles moved syndicates from The Washington Post Writers Group (which had previously announced it was shutting down its comic strip business) to Andrews McMeel Syndication. [5]
Inspired by Crane's in-laws, [6] the strip describes their efforts to enjoy retirement, which instead proves quite imperfect for both. [7] Earl Pickles is bald and has a bushy white mustache; he also wears glasses and suspenders. He is described as "a couch potato, curmudgeon and all-around geezer-in-residence." [8] Opal Pickles also wears glasses and is often seen wearing purple polka-dotted dresses and white sneakers. She is "a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, Red Hat Lady and cat servant." [8] When sitting, she is usually seen with her pet cat, Muffin, in her lap (on some occasions, Muffin tends to lie on Earl's lap to his disdain). Both characters were drawn with their eye pupils visible through their glasses during the strip's early years, but their glasses were later whitened so that they are opaque to readers.
The cast includes their dog, Roscoe; their cat, Muffin; their 6-year-old grandson, [9] Nelson Wolfe; Nelson's parents—their daughter, Sylvia, and her husband, Dan, a wildlife photographer; [2] Clyde, Earl's friend; and Pearl, Opal's sister, who dated Earl many years ago. Roscoe and Muffin are depicted with thought balloons (like Snoopy or Garfield) to express their personal views whenever they observe the daily routines of their humans or other incidents.
In the foreword to one of Crane's Pickles books, Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic, stated, "I think it would be very comforting to have Earl and Opal for neighbors." [10]
The strips have been collected in book form in: [2]
A 25th anniversary retrospective, 25 Years of Pickles, was released by Baobab Press in 2015. [7]
William Boyd Watterson II is an American cartoonist who authored the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. The strip was syndicated from 1985 to 1995. Watterson concluded Calvin and Hobbes with a short statement to newspaper editors and his readers that he felt he had achieved all he could in the medium. Watterson is known for his negative views on comic syndication and licensing, his efforts to expand and elevate the newspaper comic as an art form, and his move back into private life after Calvin and Hobbes ended. Watterson was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. The suburban Midwestern United States setting of Ohio was part of the inspiration for Calvin and Hobbes.
Calvin and Hobbes is a daily American comic strip created by cartoonist Bill Watterson that was syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. Commonly cited as "the last great newspaper comic", Calvin and Hobbes has enjoyed broad and enduring popularity, influence, and academic and philosophical interest.
Ruben Bolling is a pseudonym for Ken Fisher, an American cartoonist, the author of Tom the Dancing Bug. His work started out apolitical, instead featuring absurdist humor, parodying comic strip conventions, or critiquing celebrity culture. He came to increasingly satirize conservative politics after the September 11 attacks and Iraq war in the early 2000s. This trend strengthened with the Donald Trump presidency and right-wing populism from 2017-2020, his critiques of which earned him several cartooning awards.
Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, political cartoons, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. The syndicates offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own and/or represent copyrights. Other terms for the service include a newspaper syndicate, a press syndicate, and a feature syndicate.
Rose Is Rose is a syndicated comic strip, written by Pat Brady since its launch on April 16, 1984, and drawn since March 2004 by Don Wimmer. The strip revolves around Rose and Jimbo Gumbo, their son Pasquale, and the family cat Peekaboo. Rose and Jimbo are deeply in love with each other, sometimes exchanging love notes or kissing under the stars, and they dote fondly on Pasquale.
Herman is a comic strip written and drawn by Jim Unger. While the daily ran as a single panel with a typeset caption, it expanded every Sunday as a full multi-panel strip with balloons.
Marmaduke is a newspaper comic strip revolving around the Winslow family and their Great Dane, Marmaduke, drawn by Brad Anderson from June 1954 to 2015.
Buz Sawyer is a comic strip created by Roy Crane. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it had a run from November 1, 1943, to October 7, 1989. The last strip signed by Crane was dated 21 April 1979.
The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) is an editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1902. The oldest syndicate still in operation, the NEA was originally a secondary news service to the Scripps Howard News Service; it later evolved into a general syndicate best known for syndicating the comic strips Alley Oop, Our Boarding House, Freckles and His Friends, The Born Loser, Frank and Ernest, and Captain Easy / Wash Tubbs; in addition to an annual Christmas comic strip. Along with United Feature Syndicate, the NEA was part of United Media from 1978 to 2011, and is now a division of Andrews McMeel Syndication. The NEA once selected college All-America teams, and presented awards in professional football and professional [NBA] basketball.
Universal Press Syndicate (UPS), a subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, was an independent press syndicate. It distributed lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and other content. Popular columns include Dear Abby, Ann Coulter, Roger Ebert and News of the Weird. Founded in 1970, it was merged in July 2009 with Uclick to form Universal Uclick.
Brian Crane is an American cartoonist who created Pickles, a comic strip featuring a retired couple, Earl and Opal Pickles, their family, and their family pets, Muffin (cat) and Roscoe (dog).
Michael Eugene Lester is an American conservative editorial cartoonist and artist who has worked as a children's book illustrator. He is also the creator of the syndicated comic strip Mike du Jour.
Richard Church Thompson was an American illustrator and cartoonist best known for his syndicated comic strip Cul de Sac and the illustrated poem "Make the Pie Higher". He was given the Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year for 2010.
Publishers-Hall Syndicate was a newspaper syndicate founded by Robert M. Hall in 1944. Hall served as the company's president and general manager. Over the course of its operations, the company was known as, sequentially, the Hall Syndicate (1944–1946), the New York Post Syndicate (1946–1949), the Post-Hall Syndicate (1949–1955), the Hall Syndicate (1955–1967), and Publishers-Hall Syndicate (1967–1975). The syndicate was acquired by Field Enterprises in 1967, and merged into Field Newspaper Syndicate in 1975. Some of the more notable strips syndicated by the company include Pogo, Dennis the Menace, Funky Winkerbean, Mark Trail, The Strange World of Mr. Mum, and Momma, as well as the cartoons of Jules Feiffer.
Loose Parts is a daily single-panel comic strip by Dave Blazek. It is similar in tone, content, and style to Gary Larson's The Far Side, involving Theatre of the Absurd-style themes and characters. Loose Parts is currently syndicated by Andrews McMeel Syndication and appears in newspapers across the country and overseas.
A comic strip syndicate functions as an agent for cartoonists and comic strip creators, placing the cartoons and strips in as many newspapers as possible on behalf of the artist. A syndicate can annually receive thousands of submissions, from which only two or three might be selected for representation. In some cases, the work will be owned by the syndicate as opposed to the creator. The Guinness World Record for the world's most syndicated strip belongs to Jim Davis' Garfield, which at that point (2002) appeared in 2,570 newspapers, with 263 million readers worldwide.
Hector Cantú is an American writer, editor, and newspaper comic strip creator, best known for the Latino-American strip Baldo.
Uclick LLC was an American corporation selling "digital entertainment content" for the desktop, the web and mobile phones. Uclick operated several consumer websites, including the comic strip and editorial cartoon site GoComics and the puzzle and casual game sites ThePuzzleSociety.com and UclickGames.com.
The Washington Post Writers Group (WPWG), a division of The Washington Post News Service & Syndicate, is a press syndication service distributing opinion columnists, breaking news, podcasts and video journalism, lifestyle content, and graphics and data visualizations. The service is operated by The Washington Post.
Andrews McMeel Syndication is an American content syndicate which provides syndication in print, online and on mobile devices for a number of lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and cartoons and various other content. Some of its best-known products include Dear Abby, Doonesbury, Ziggy, Garfield, Ann Coulter, Richard Roeper and News of the Weird. A subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, it is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. It was formed in 2009 and renamed in January 2017.
...joins Loose Parts and Pickles as stablemates since those two had moved from Washington Post Writers Group to Andrews McMeel earlier this year (June 1 and July 1 respectively).