Cartoon County: My Father and His Friends in the Golden Age of Make-believe

In Cartoon County: My Father and His Friends in the Golden Age of Make-believe, Cullen Murphy blends memoir and history to illuminate the world of mid-century cartoonists who shaped American comic strips. Published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in 2017, this single-issue comic draws on Murphy’s personal recollections of his father, the artist John Cullen Murphy, and the tight-knit community of illustrators and gag writers working in the Golden Age of newspaper comics. It offers an intimate, behind-the-scenes portrait of a creative era that defined a beloved form of storytelling.