Tagged: strip

‘Gill’ Latest Webcomic, Debuting Today

‘Gill’ Latest Webcomic, Debuting Today

  • News
  • November 10, 2008

Norm Feuti, creator of Retail, has begun a second strip which will be a webcomic beginning today.  Gill launched this morning and is described as “a humorous look at the life of an 8-year-old boy who lives under less than ideal circumstances. Gill is overweight. His parents are divorced. His mother struggles to maintain their meager existence. His estranged father floats in and out of his life to offer crude and confusing advice. Gill is an exploration of childhood and the imperfect American family in all its dysfunctional glory.”

The strip will appear Monday through Thursday in black and white, with the Friday strip larger and in color, like the traditional Sunday strip.

He told Daily Cartoonist, “About a year ago, I decided to make an attempt at getting a second strip syndicated. Gill is an idea I’ve had for some time, and in July of 2008 I pitched it to all the major syndicate. Unfortunately it was passed on by all of them.

“My initial plan was to abandon the idea if it was rejected and move on to another, but after posting the sample strips on my website, I started having second thoughts. I got overwhelmingly positive comments about the material on my blog as well as The Daily Cartoonist, and received about a dozen private emails from various professional cartoonists (both syndicated and web) complementing the strip. Many urged me to give it a go as a webcomic … and after a lot of thought I decided to do just that.”

Feuti launched Retail two years ago and continues to produce the strip about life at a box box retailer.
 

‘Doonesbury’ says Obama Won

‘Doonesbury’ says Obama Won

  • News
  • November 3, 2008

Doonesbury was the first media source to call tomorrow’s election for Barack Obama.  Garry Trudeau delivered strips via the Universal Press Syndicate last Wednesday including one for Wednesday where soldiers in Iraq are seen watching a television where the announcer calls the election for the Illinois Senator.

Newspaper editors around the country have been put in a difficult position considering the pages that normally run the strip tend to close long before the polls. There’s concern of looking silly should Arizona Senator John McCain be declared the victor.

When queried by the Los Angeles Times about this, the comic strip’s creator Garry Trudeau replied, “polling data gives McCain a 3.7% chance of victory. There’s a greater risk that their presses will break down on Election Day. So I’ve been encouraging editors to choose hope over fear. And reminding them that if I’m wrong, it’ll be my face that’ll be covered with egg, not theirs.

I’d be a lot more worried about the country than the strip. One reporter has already suggested I just carry on with an alternative universe in which Obama wins. It’s not a crazy idea . . . "

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds told the paper, "We hope the strip proves to be as predictive as it is consistently lame."

Nervous newspaper editors were offered repeats of August comic strips to run the remainder of the week.  Ther’s no knowing howmany of the 1400 clients will carry the strip or cave in and go with the repeat. Opinion among editors nationwide has been diverse although not as divisive as the opponents have been.

"I thought it was funny," said Michael Weinstein, features editor for the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina. "But it’s an accuracy issue. We won’t know the outcome of the election until Wednesday.

"It’s just a matter of humor. Is the strip funny if McCain wins? Satire humor is a real difficult subject."

The Chicago Tribune’s Tim Bannon said, "we are reserving the option of running the strip on Wednesday, but we of course would not typeset until we confirmed the result of the election." The Cleveland Plain-Dealer is running the strip as is. "If he’s wrong, he’s wrong," said Debbie Van Tassel, assistant managing editor/features.

Editor John Robinson agrees and wrote at the News and Record of Greensboro NC’s blog, “Risky? Reckless? Not for a cartoonist, but there’s some discussion on the journalism listservs that suggests that this assumed outcome of Tuesday’s election is a limb too far for newspapers.”

"I don’t understand that concern, given Trudeau’s cartooning history," he adds. "I’m thinking that if McCain wins, the embarrassment is Trudeau’s, not ours. Isn’t there anyone who doesn’t think he’s liberal? Besides, if McCain does win, just imagine how much fun it will be to watch how Trudeau handles the turnabout.”

The Los Angeles Times announced they were hedging their bets, not running the strip Wednesday but Thursday if Obama wins. Should McCain win, they will opt for the repeat strips through Friday.
 

Webcomics You Should Be Reading: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

  • News
  • October 29, 2008

I recommended this comic to a friend of mine. She wrote back that her office’s content filter blocked it as "tasteless and offensive."

This is an entirely accurate statement about Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. What they fail to mention, however, is that it’s also hilarious.

SMBC is a daily single-panel comic, in the vein of an R-rated The Far Side. The humor is primarily based on taking the punchline in a completely different direction than expected. It’s not suitable for kids. (Or adults who want any claim to maturity, for that matter.) It’s also not suitable for people who are sensitive about sex, death, religion, fetishes, cheesecake, herpes, dolphins, politics, or your mom.

There’s a SMBC store, though it’s currently closed for renovations and expected to reopen in November.

Notable moments:

Drama: Nope. Black comedy, maybe. Not the slightest hint of drama.

Humor: Imagine Gary Larson’s sense of humor melded with Kevin Smith’s potty mouth and you’ll pretty much have Zach Weiner. As noted, what lesser cartoonists would use as the entire joke, he uses as a set-up to something unexpected and much more disturbing.

Continuity: None. There’s a "random" strip button on the site, and it’s one of the few comics where that’s actually a worthwhile idea.

Art: Reasonable; it gets the job done. All the people look pretty much alike, and Weiner probably won’t be winning any awards, but he’s conscious enough of his own skill that you never find yourself missing a joke because you can’t figure out what that blue thing is.

Archive: Six years, about 1325 single-panel or two-panel strips. (Don’t let that scare you, though: There is absolutely no need for an archive trawl. You can read as many or as few strips as you want.)

Updates: Daily, consistently.

Risk/Reward: Reading too many of these in a row may make you realize you’re a horrible person. (There’s no ongoing storyline, so there’s no risk should the comic suddenly cut off.)
 

Buck Rogers to Visit ‘Sin City’

Buck Rogers to Visit ‘Sin City’

  • News
  • October 24, 2008

It’s pretty amazing what people accidentally will say on the red carpet at awards shows.  The most recent example happened over the weekend when The Spirit producer Deborah Del Prete referred to her next project with director Frank Miller was an old sci-fi hero.  This virtually confirmed the rumor that began over the summer that Miller would tackle the first SF comic strip character.

When the rumor first surfaced over at IGN, Nu Image/Millennium Films quickly told him “that no deal is set yet for the rights or Miller, and that they are still mulling over director contenders.”

IESB’s Robert Sanchez could not get Del Prete to confirm if she was referring to Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers, both of whom have been optioned for film this year.  The site did some additional digging and report, “sources very close to the Miller camp…confirmed the sci-fi hero that Del Prete made a reference to was indeed Buck Rogers.”

Nu Image/Millennium Films has not confirmed the report for IESB but Del Prete insisted Miller will have an announcement shortly.

Buck Rogers was based on a 1928 novella, Armageddon 2419 AD by Philip Francis Nowlan which appeared in Amazing Stories. It quickly spawned a sequel and the stories caught the imagination of John F. Dille, president of the National Newspaper Service syndicate. He brought the feature to the newspapers as a comic strip in 1929, coming to own the property. America’s first SF comic strip, it was written by Nowlan with art by Dick Calkins. Through the years, the strip was graced with terrific art from the likes of Murphy Anderson and George Tuska, until it ended in 1967. The strip was revived in 1979 by artist Gray Morrow and writers Jim Lawrence and Cary Bates lasting until the strip’s ending in 1983.

Buck Rogers has appeared in comic books (with stunning Frank Frazetta art), serials (with Buster Crabbe), a four-times-a-week radio serial from 1932 through 1947; a 1950 half-hour television series and the 1979 NBC series (the horrible adaptation with Gil Gerard).

The Dille Trust under Flint Dille has repeatedly attempted to revive the character for modern audiences through Role Playing games, comics and media. All the attempts have yet to capture the fancy of today’s audiences.

Webcomics You Should Have Read: Minus

Webcomics You Should Have Read: Minus

  • News
  • October 22, 2008

One of the most endearing features of Calvin and Hobbes was Calvin’s overactive imagination, which created amazing scenarios of space battles, time travel, and talking tigers. What if it wasn’t all in his imagination, though?

Ryan Armand gives us a brief look at childlike innocence and imagination brought to life in the world of Minus.

Minus is a little girl who apparently can do anything she can imagine — she flies, creates worlds, travels in time, talks to spirits and grants wishes. And though this leads to the occasional retribution against bullies or mean adults, unlike Calvin, she also shares her gifts with her friends. Minus will offer someone a flying unicorn as easily as another little girl might offer a lick of her ice-cream cone.

Armand’s site also includes a serial comic called Socks and a collection of older stand-alone comics. He doesn’t have a storefront, though archived newsposts note that he used to do prints of Minus comics; he might be willing to start up again if requested.

Notable moments:

Drama: There’s always some drama when you’re tugging at heartstrings, but Minus’ world is not a world of adult problems and relationships; it’s a child’s world, where everyone eventually gets a happy ending, even if they’re occasionally bittersweet.

Humor: While many of the comics earn a chuckle, the focus is more on evoking a sense of childlike wonder. And it succeeds.

Continuity: Low to Moderate. Some strip string together in sequence, but knowledge of previous ones isn’t terribly necessary to enjoy later strips.

Art: Each minus strip is painted with watercolors on a 15×20" piece of Illustration board. The style implies an enterprising painter more than a traditional comic artist.

Archive: About 130 strips. Two years of weekly Sunday newspaper-sized comics, though many are several "strips" long.

Updates: "It’ll be updating every Thursday until I suddenly stop!" Armand stopped updating the strip in March 2008 and started updating Socks in monthly chunks.

Risk/Reward: Some comics are ongoing, telling complicated stories, the ongoing events in characters’ lives, or just a joke every day. Some comics say what they want to say and end. Minus ends on an up-note, keeping tone to the very end. It’s worth your time.
 

Review: Two ‘Garfield’ Collections (Including One Without Garfield)

Review: Two ‘Garfield’ Collections (Including One Without Garfield)

My brother was a huge Garfield fan when he was young, and my own two sons (currently ages ten and seven) have followed in his footsteps. They’re certainly not alone: as Dan Walsh writes in his foreword to [[[Garfield Minus Garfield]]], “I wanted to be just like [[[Garfield]]] – lazy, sarcastic, lasagna loving, Monday hating, cynical but under it all, a darn good guy.” There’s something about Garfield that appeal to the slob in all of us – particularly those of us who are pre-teen boys.

But most of us, I think, grow out of Garfield in time. (I could be wrong, of course – the strip runs in something like 2500 papers worldwide, so he clearly has a lot of adults reading about him every day.) We realize that there are only five or six real jokes in the strip (Garfield likes to eat, Garfield likes to sleep, Garfield hates to do just about anything else), and move on to something with a bit more depth.

Maybe I am just speaking for the coastal intellectual elite when I say that, though. And I hadn’t seriously thought about Garfield in years – if ever – so I was happy to devote some time to these two very different Garfield books when they came my way recently.

Garfield: 30 Years of Laughter & Lasagna: The Life and Times of a Fat, Furry Legend
By Jim Davis
Ballantine, October 2008, $35.00

The first book was the obvious one: a volume celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the strip (which debuted June 19, 1978) with a selection of strips from every one of those thirty years and some commentary from Garfield’s creator and cartoonist, Jim Davis. It’s a fairly superficial book, without any deep insights or thoughts – but that does suit Garfield, which has never trafficked in intellectual depth.

As always, I like looking at the early, crude form of a comic that became more sleek and streamlined later on. The scruffy, more obviously fat Garfield of the first year is simply more interesting to the eye than the sleeker, more designed creature he became later – but it was much harder, clearly, to keep that first Garfield on-model. Davis mentions that he started Garfield because there were a number of “dog” strips, but none about cats – what he doesn’t mention are B. Kliban’s cat cartoons, which look to have been a strong influence on Davis’s early drawing style. He also doesn’t mention the general explosion of cat-stuff in the market after Kliban’s massively popular book [[[Cats]]] appeared in 1975; at this point Davis obviously wants Garfield to look like the beginning of the cat boom, and not merely another offshoot of it. (Kliban is safely dead these days, and won’t be raising any fuss.) Davis does allude to the possible competition, though, when he mentions, on p.72, that the original plan was to “develop him for about a year and get a good backlog of strips. …[W]e felt a certain urgency as far as the cat idea was concerned. It would have hurt if someone else came out with a cat feature before Garfield.”

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Webcomics You Should Be Reading: Order of the Stick

Webcomics You Should Be Reading: Order of the Stick

  • Uncategorized
  • October 14, 2008

Roleplaying games are a rich forum for comic material, whether you’re riffing on the setting or the game system itself. Typically, this involves have “players” and the characters they play, and either cutting between them or having the players semi-narrate the action.

Rich Burlew presents the Order of the Stick, a group of PCs whose players remain unseen, but retain full knowledge of the game system that defines their world.

The aforementioned Order is an archetypal adventuring party, including Roy, the noble (and put-upon) leader; Durkon, the Scottish-accent sporting dwarven cleric; Haley, the leather-wearing kleptomaniac thief; Vaarsuvius, the haughty and verbose elven wizard; Belkar, the bloodthirsty halfling ranger/barbarian; and Elan, the clueless, excitable bard. Their overarching quest pits them against the lich-sorcerer Xykon, but along the way they fight dragons, giants, goblin ninjas, their evil opposites (the Linear Guild) and the legal system of Azure City.

Currently, there are three books collecting the online material, two with entirely-original flashback stories (the origins of the heroes and the villains, respectively), and a board game available at the Giant in the Playground Shop. (Plus t-shirts, buttons and the like, of course.) The Giant in the Playground forums also deserve a special mention as the most impressive collection of D&D geeks outside of the Wizards of the Coast forums—there is no D&D question they can’t answer and then debate for 30 pages.

Notable moments:

The relative intelligence of the party members.
The introduction of the Linear Guild
Who remembers the old Hostess Twinkie ads in comics?
The Order’s first battle with Xykon begins!
Dramatic confrontation with the shadowy pursuer!
The harsh light of dawn.
The prophecies that will drive the next 200+ strips.
 
Drama: Moderate. While there’s definitely some angst and some agonizing moments, Burlew also likes to skewer various tropes of adventure games and action movies. A pair of red-shirt characters manage to survive mortal wounds by revealing that they have names and possibly backstories.

Humor: A solid half of the jokes rely on basic knowledge of Dungeons & Dragons, particularly 3.5 and 4th Edition. There are also plenty of random pop culture references and obvious anachronisms in the fantasy world (like in any good rpg campaign), but this comic probably isn’t for you if you don’t recognize the phrase “Attack of Opportunity”.

Continuity: High. Start from the beginning. The first dozen strips are loosely-connected D&D gags, but the plot picks up early on and gets into full-on continuity lockout by the later strips.

Art: Burlew draws the strip using vector-based illustration software, in an enhanced stick-figure style. The art has improved over the years, and though the changes are nice, they’re nowhere near the radical changes many hand-drawn comics see. Flashback comics are done in a crayon-like scribble style.

Archive: Five years of page-sized strips (including some double-pagers and infinite-canvas strips), about 600 strips.

Updates: Erratically. It averages three strips a week, but they might be spread out M-W-F, or you might get two on Sunday and one on Monday.

Risk/Reward: There’s a full-blown epic story and Burlew has noted that he knows how it ends; hopefully he won’t disappoint the fans by not getting there. The storyline has yet to hit a comfortable “stopping point” of any kind, which means getting into this strip may get you hooked for several years.
 

‘Mutts’ Pushes for Prop 2

‘Mutts’ Pushes for Prop 2

  • News
  • October 14, 2008

This week’s Mutts storyline takes a political tone as creator Patrick McDonnell campaigns in favor of California’s Proposition 2, which is aimed at curbing factory farm abuses. Mutts,  found in 700+ newspapers in 20 countries, is read by four million Californians no doubt distracted more by presidential politics than the proposition.

Michael Markarian spoke with McDonnell at the Huffington Post about this unusual activism for the one page of the newspaper that usually eschews offending anyone.

“In Mutts I try to see the world through the eyes of animals,” he told the site. “This has made me more conscious of how tough many of them have it on this planet. In 2000 I was asked to join the Board of Directors of The Humane Society of the United States, and became even more aware and involved. I felt that my strip could address (hopefully, for the most part, in an entertaining way) some of these issues and help give the animals a voice.

“Prop 2 is just too important to not tackle. Even though the reform will be modest, it puts a stake into the ground that the way we treat farm animals matters…20 million animals will be directly impacted, suffering less, if this measure passes. It will also send a clear message to the factory farm conglomerates that, once people are made aware, they will not tolerate the way most animals raised for food are treated in this country.”

Review: ‘The Flash Gordon Serials, 1936-1940: A Heavily Illustrated Guide’

Review: ‘The Flash Gordon Serials, 1936-1940: A Heavily Illustrated Guide’

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The Flash Gordon Serials, 1936-1940: A Heavily Illustrated Guide
By Roy Kinnard, Tony Crnkovich, and R.J. Vitone
McFarland & Co. Publishers, August 2008, $55

Growing up in New York during the 1960s meant that Sunday morning we were treated to two choices: Sonny Fox on Channel 5’s [[[Wonderama]]] or the zany Chuck McCann who hosted a show that seemed to be a little bit of this and that.  Included among them were the old movie serials from the 1930s.  Among the most aired and best remembered were the ones starring Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon. Imagine being 6 or 10 years old, and being introduced to these breathless adventures taking place on other worlds in digestible chunks that made you anxiously await the following Sunday.  It was merely a taste of what an earlier generation experienced in actual movie theaters.

Those serials,[[[Flash Gordon]]], [[[Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars]]], and [[[Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe]]], have remained memorable not only to me but to other generations of adventure fans.  Finally, we have a book that looks into how these were made and who made them. The writing triumvirate of Roy Kinnard, Tony Crnkovich, and R.J. Vitone bring their expertise and affection to the McFarland book which was just published.

The authors detail how Universal came to option Alex Raymond’s lushly illustrated comic strip and what happened as regimes changed and budgets tightened.  While among the best serials ever made, Universal soon left the field to Republic and Columbia which is a shame. The storylines, sets, miniatures and acting were all a cut above.

 

 

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Puddles Begins ‘Search for Santa’

Puddles Begins ‘Search for Santa’

  • News
  • October 10, 2008

Client newspapers of Newspaper Enterprise Association will be treated to a special 16-strip, The Search for Santa.  According to Daily Cartoonist, the strip is effectively a spin-off from Luann by Greg Evans.

NEA has been producing annual Christmas strips for their papers since 1937 and this year’s is a reprise to one Evans created previously.  Told from the point of view of Puddles, Luann’s dog, it triers to resolve the eternal question of why St. Nick does bring gifts to dogs.

 “The nagging question leads Puddles on a long journey, during which he finally finds Santa – and the spirit of the season,” Evans said.

Papers will carry the strip from December 8 through Christmas Day.
 

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