Khaled in Youngstown, Ohio, is designing an album cover for his band’s latest release and wants to use a grawlix, a string of symbols that stands in for profanity. Beetle Bailey cartoonist Mort Walker coined the term in his 1980 book The Lexicon of...
Researchers have found that stress is a leading cause of plewds — you know, those drops of sweat popping off the foreheads of nervous cartoon characters. That’s one of several cartooning terms coined by Mort Walker, creator of the Beetle...
What are those symbols cartoonists use in place of profanity? They’re called grawlixes — good to know for the next time you play a game we just invented called “Comic Strip Jargon or Pokemon?” This is part of a complete episode...
Solrads are those lines radiating from the sun or a lightbulb in a comic strip, while dites are the diagonal lines on a smooth mirror. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Solrads” There are a lot more of these Mort Walker...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski is a huge fan of comic books featuring superheroes like Superman and Spider-Man. Lo and behold, John claims he’s discovered a whole treasure trove of Heretofore Unnamed Superheroes, and invites us to guess their names...
A caller wonders if the acrobatic “alley-oop” in basketball is connected with the V.T. Hamlin comic strip, “Alley Oop.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “The French Acrobatics Origin of Alley-Oop in...

