From the desk
Journal
Notes on the work, the household, and the thinking that leaked into the funny pages — rewritten from the Blogger archive so they can actually be read. New posts from thsmithstrip.com land here as essays.
Theology · 2026-08-17
The domestic sphere as laboratory
Fromm, Tillich, and a two-and-a-half-year-old who understood the New Being better than the theologians.
Legacy · 2026-08-09
More than ink and paper
Documentarians of the track meet — and a reminder the unvarnished house is where the spirit lifts.
White Salmon · 2026-08-10
A refusal to join the sane society
Fromm in the funny pages — and a house miles from the nearest paved road.
Virginia · 2026-06-30
Virginia Mary Quinlan
July 20, 1919 — June 30, 2006. Not merely the inspiration. Editor and co-writer.
Beginnings · 2026-08-07
Two dollars a cartoon
From the back of a Brooklyn ambulance to the Saturday Evening Post — then New Guinea, then the funny pages.
The record · 2026-06-29
More than twelve thousand strips
One of the longest-running family humor features of the American century.
The archive · 2026-07-05
Save the Smiths
Despite a forty-four-year run, the strip existed in no public archive. This project is that archive.
Beginnings · 2026-04-26
Under the Brooklyn Bridge
The boy wonder of cartoondom, in his own words — skinny, six feet, forty roughs a week.
The road west · 2026-04-19
The house on Taylor Street
1967: a nationally syndicated cartoonist moves seven children into a 1912 house in Mt. Angel, Oregon.