Collegiate Cartoons

To begin the new year have we got a real treat for you! Just two days ago, Georgia College released a book of cartoons by Flannery O'Connor when she was a student at the school in the 1940s. The aptly titled paperback, The Cartoons of Flannery O'Connor at Georgia College, is available in our gift shop for $16.99. Beginning in high school when she created a number of linoleum-cut prints for The Peabody Palladium, O'Connor was recognized as a talented cartoonist long before she was known as a writer. She went on from there to Georgia State College for Women where she provided illustrations for all the school's student publications - The Corinthian, The Spectrum, and The Collonade. Her highly original and humorous cartoons suggest that if O'Connor had decided to pursue a career as a cartoonist she might have become as famous as Hank Ketchum or Charles Schulz. Indeed, I believe that when she enrolled in the graduate school of journalism at the University of Iowa, she was hoping to one day draw a comic strip for a newspaper or magazine. American literature is certainly richer for her not taking this path, but one wonders what might have happened had she focused on developing her talent as a visual artist. In any case, we can be grateful to Georgia College for publishing this important volume.

- Mark