In its obituary for Harry Hargreaves (1922-2004), The Independent wrote, "Although he also worked as an illustrator, animator, advertising artist, toy designer and writer, Harry Hargreaves will probably be best remembered as one of the most successful animal cartoonists of his day -- in particular for his creation of the widely syndicated 'The Bird' and 'Hayseeds' features - and as a regular contributor to Punch for 17 years."

Here's almost the start of Hayseeds, which ran from 1968 to 1980. I say "almost the start," because what I have starts with Strip #2. Sigh. (By the way, there were two book collections of the strip.)

It occurred to me to try to track down online images of (Clive creators) McGill and Poelsma -- and I had no luck. Since that annoyed me, I thought I'd post this photo, which appeared on the back cover of Augusta the Great, copyright 1977 Beaverbrook Newspapers. I'm guessing the one on the left is McGill.

The Clive strip (see earlier posting), while successful, soon evolved to pay more attention to his little sister, Augusta -- and eventually changed its name to acknowledge the fact. (The "horrible cat" shown here, by the way, was named Crippen [with reference to Hawley Harvey Crippen, put on trial in a media frenzy, accused of [and convicted of and hanged for] murdering his wife]. Don and I named one of our cats Crippen with reference to Clive's Crippen.)

Another British strip of which I'm enormously fond is the British daily Clive, written by Angus McGill and drawn by Dominic Poelsma. Despite the fact that there were a few book collections, I can't find out much about either, though I think McGill was an essayist and Poelsma illustrated some humorous books. Judging from the copyright date (1977) and the cover copy of Augusta the Great ("first appeared in the London Evening Standard nine years ago"), the strip began in 1968. And here are the first strips:

Oh, that Scott McCloud! Canny folks who want to inform their friends about comics as an art form introduce them to Scott's assortment of incredible guides in that art form. We know that.

He's helped countless hordes of would-be creators through the minefield of comics creation and, in the process, has simultaneously led them into the computer age. His own tools have evolved from ink on paper to mouse and CPU.

Now, he's helping Google to introduce hesitant users to its new Internet browser: Chrome. Using text from Google's "Chrome team," he's created an introductory 38-page brochure in comic-book form. Check it out!

As I embarked on the project of posting samplings of a variety of strips from days gone by, my primary scanning computer at home decided it belonged primarily to days gone by, as well.

I have a few faint hopes of being able to salvage the thing, but I also have a tendency to try to remain undeterred -- so I'm returning to a Photoshop Elements program with which I am unfamiliar and, so, am even more likely to mess things up. I liked the full Photoshop on the other computer, aged as both the software and hardware were. What I've used today won't let me scan to as fine a level as I was able to scan with my primary computer. Whine, whine, whine.

OK, that said, Boner's Ark by "Addison" began with what you see here. "Addison" is Mort Walker's first name, and he created the strip -- which ran until 2000 (at which point, you'll be glad to learn, it reached shore in safety).

Sorry for my general lack of posting. One post for the entire month of August is a new low (though I clearly didn't do particularly well in May, either). Nevertheless, I'm often torn between posting on the more general CBGXtra website (where I think people check more often), posting here (where I think people check less often), and posting on my own website, www.maggiethompson.com (though I try to limit that to non-comics conversations). In any case, my personal website is down while it's being dragged to a new server, so ... On the other hand, that has meant I've been thinking less of blogging in general, which translates to less blogging here, too.

In the meantime, though, I'm still out and about and have actually been spending considerable time: trying to get original art framed and hung; watching DVDs I'm about to review; reading books I'm about to review; shoveling random piles of clutter into carefully sorted piles of clutter; and getting into the routine of daily exercise (regarding which, it's about time).

I thought, though, that I'd quickly pass on a gambit my brother has recently employed. Given (1) that he wanted a friend to read Watchmen but (2) that Watchmen can be something of an indigestible lump when taken as one big novel: He's razored apart the paperback and is giving it to the friend one segment (i.e., one of the original "issues") at a time. We frequently find these days that it's more fun to read a story arc as one collected volume. But I think he's right that Watchmen was so crafted as to be best appreciated with a "thinking time" between installments.

What do you think?