ZED Hits 25 – Years and Newspapers

ZED is walking, talking dryer lint.

ZED by Duane Abel has been around for 25 years (last Fall)
and has now gained its 25th newspaper in eastern Montana:

Now the 41-year old artist has added Montana to his list of two dozen small town weekly newspapers, from as far as away California, to New York and even to Alabama [The Lamar Democrat and Sulligent News].

“I target small town newspapers because I live in a small town in Ohio. I started in a small Ohio weekly newspaper and I love small towns. I love small town newspapers,” he said.

Truthfully, as 2020 goes, I had one of my best years as a cartoonist because I was able to tap into some other avenues that I had not done previously,” he explained.

“I have been selling more gag cartoons to national magazines. I just wrote and illustrated a children’s book that is going to be out this June,” he said.

Since he is not traveling as much, Abel has been able to reach out to more newspapers. “Maybe, it will make your readers just laugh. I know most weekly newspapers do not run comic strips.

“To me, a newspaper is not complete unless it has a comic strip,” he said, explaining that he can have a corner on the market by targeting the small town weekly newspapers.  “I love that aspect of it.

“In the world of small potatoes, I am a Tater Tot. I have no problem with that,” Abel said.


© Duane M. Abel

Abel said that he started young. “I began selling cartoons to small magazines when I was 12 years old and began drawing ZED for my hometown newspaper when I was 15 years old. By the time I graduated college ZED had already put out of business two newspaper syndicates and one book publisher…but he still says that it was not his fault,” the cartoonist said.

Read The Fallon County Times introduction of ZED to its readers.

2 thoughts on “ZED Hits 25 – Years and Newspapers

  1. Thank you for the shout out! I never expected to see ZED or myself on Daily Cartoonist when I began my day, it is a wonderful surprise!

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