Not Another Cartoonist!

Only eight days after Johnny Hart's death, Brant Parker, the cartoonist behind 'The Wizard of Id' passed away last Sunday. The two were co-creators of the strip and longtime friends. Parker also collaborated with cartoonists Bill Rechin and Don Wilder on their comic strips, Out of Bounds and Crock. Let's hope their days are not numbered now.

Brant Parker started The Wizard of Id in 1964 with the help of Hart (as a co-writer) who was drawing the successful B.C. comic strip. Parker drew the strip until 1997 when he passed the pen to his son, Jeff Parker, who draws today's strips.

Here are two 'Wizzard' strips, the first being an early strip drawn by Brant. I could not read the date on this one. The second is a modern one drawn by Jeff. I like how these two compare. It's good to see a certain level of consistency across artists and decades.




-- Click them to enlarge.




One more thing, will you cartoonists stop dying! We don't want to have to make this a memorial blog. In the next post, I promise to bring you a thriving strip by a living cartoonist.