Showing posts with label Ben Franklin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ben Franklin. Show all posts

Friday, May 09, 2008

America's first political cartoon appeared today

According to the Associated Press's Today in History, Ben Franklin's 1754 cartoon of the thirteen colonies as a cut-apart snake appeared with the caption "Join or Die" appeared today in his newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette. Why are mention it here? There's an original on display in Baltimore in Geppi's Entertainment Museum. It's tiny, but cool. If you don't live around here, an easy place to see it was in the intro credits to HBO's John Adams miniseries. Special update: Also Richard Thompson redrew it and posted it on his blog.

Speaking of Geppi's, curator Arnold Blumberg and Geppi both appeared in the Free Comic Book Day Jughead issue from Archie. The whole comic is set in the museum.