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Screwy Strip Search!
Here's this week's Screwy Tuesday cartoon. Read it and bleep! I welcome any and all cartoonists to join me in posting their own wacky...
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Alienation of Affection
This is another "Flip the script" comics collaboration. I penciled the strip first, and showed it to Jay Lender, who then wrote the...
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Surly Cinema: A Gilda Cage
Rita Hayworth's hair tossing intro in Gilda is one of the sexiest moments in Hollywood film. I love Gilda, but it isn't a film where one...
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Pep Talk #2: David Cairns
David Cairns is a writer, filmmaker and critic. Graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 1991, he made several short films,...
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Pep Talk #1: Chris Duffy
I've known Chris Duffy since his days at Nickelodeon Magazine. More recently we've worked together on the late, lamented, SpongeBob...
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Flip the Script: Pep Talk
The usual process in comics collaboration is writer first, artist second. A script is written, complete with dialog and a panel-by-panel...
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New Year's Grieve
As we face the new year we have many things to mourn, but the last year isn't among them. 2020 was the year from Hell. It was so toxic it...
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Turn On, Drive-In, Drop Out
It's slipshod and rotten, not keen Both scripting and plot are pre-teen But by golly gee! It's sci-fi 3-D! Folks flipped when stuff shot...
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A Quarantine Christmas
In this crazy year we're all isolated on our own little planets. Merry Christmas and happy holidays to each and every one, wherever you...
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It's Hammer Ti-- Um...I mean...it's Christmastime!
Some gunsel gets mad, there's foul play! A honey goes bad--like, astray! And >pant< is she stacked! Then Santa gets whacked! Oh, there's...
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Surly and Sticky
I'm developing a set of stickers that I'll eventually make available on this site. It will be a collection of monsters, aliens, weirdos...
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Jack Davis (December 2, 1924 – July 27, 2016)
Here are a few images by Jack Davis, drawn for EC Comics during the 1950s. I chose violent imagery because there is an inherent violence...
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Spontaneity is Hard Work
Drawings can have a life of their own. A composition can be a process of discovery. One of my first priorities is to keep life in a...
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Surly Cinema: Hayley's Comet
I recently watched the terrific British film Tiger Bay (1959). It's the story of a young girl who befriends a Polish sailor on the run...
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The Feast from 20,000 Fathoms
The perfect host never complains He's gracious when he entertains When company's starving He does all the carving And serves them up...
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Make Mine Marvel...Again
I've been doing this art thing for quite a while. I started in comics as an inker way back in the 1980s, and somehow got my first job at...
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Surly Hack Studio
"Hi! you've reached Surly Hack Studio. Leave a message and the Hack will call you back." That message has been on my answering machine...
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Depth Perception: Wallace Wood's 3-D Staging
One of my biggest influences is cartoonist Wallace Wood. Wood's art had an illusion of depth that was quite remarkable. On my Patreon...
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Welcome to the Hack Shack, home of all things Surly!
I’ve been in comic books for a long time. A freelancer who’s lived job to job. A hired ink-slinger on superhero books who eventually...
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