Friday Fishwrap – Comic Strip Newsy Stuff

From Reed Brennan:

Attention ZITS Clients:

Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman are taking a two-week vacation.

The dailies for the weeks of September 13-18 and September 20-25, 2021, and the Sundays for September 26 and October 3, 2021, are reader favorites that have been personally selected by Jerry and Jim.

Thank you, King Features Editorial

  
Zits © Zits Partnership

Jerry may be on vacation, but Jim’s exercising his caricature skills with a book cover.

 

Still in Ohio but now with Jenny Robb.

As the curator of Ohio State University’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, Jenny Robb’s “co-workers” on a given day might include a beagle named Snoopy, an imaginary tiger called Hobbes and any number of other pen-and-ink creations.

What was your interest in comics growing up?
We got The Cincinnati Enquirer every morning at my house. I loved the newspaper comic strips. I used to read all of them, in order of the ones I liked the least to those that I liked the best. I would save the best for last. I remember Peanuts and Blondie and Family Circus.

The Billy Ireland curator is interviewed.

 

Bring back Mother Goose and Grimm comic strip.
Our joy has gone out of reading the newspaper.

 
© Grimmy Inc.

The Everett (Wash) Herald recently dropped Mother Goose and Grimm, Zits, Dilbert, and Baby Blues replacing them with Tundra, B.C., Wizard of Id, and Garfield. Naturally some readers are not happy.

 

The companies in the Bertelsmann Content Alliance are accompanying the publication on October 21 of ‘Asterix and the Griffin,’ the latest ‘Asterix’ volume, with specials including … a weekly comic series …

Starting today, Thursday, G+J´s ‘Stern’ magazine will publish weekly comic strips telling a six-part serialized story entitled ‘Asterix and the Great Journey.’ On October 21, the last part of the series will be published in a big ‘Asterix’ special issue of ‘Stern.’

We need an American edition of Stern.

 

Be like Dagwood.

Do you find yourself wishing for guidance, for good examples to get you through tough times?

  
© King Features Syndicate

Take a strategic nap: Science tells us that proper rest – whatever the time of day – refreshes us and makes us better able to cope with life…

Absolutely most important – be good to your family: Dagwood always has had time for son Alexander and daughter Cookie, and he dearly loves Daisy the family dog…

With a half dozen examples Tom Mooney shows Dagwood is a shining example.

 

Vertical Comics – Yea or Nay?

   
Dog Eat Doug © Brian Anderson; Batman © DC Comics

With the growing worldwide popularity of Webtoon, Multiversity conducted a poll.

… we asked what our readers thought of the new trend of vertical scroll comics.

38.1% of those polled felt indifferent about the reading experience, not having a strong preference over the scroll vs guided view debate. 33.3% felt that the scroll provides a better overall experience, while 28.6% prefer the guided view to the scroll.

 

Walker (for the Ghost Who Walks) Generations Poster

This picture of the Phantom 21 Generations all together has been one of the most popular images ever since phan Simon Treschow posted it online. That image has been viewed 23,000 odd times as it was shared all through out the Phantom world.


© King Features Syndicate

From The Sunday Phantom artist Jeff Weigel:

Tony DePaul wrote the currently-running Sunday Phantom storyline concerning the newly-constructed “Hall of Costumes” in Skull Cave. The Hall displays all the Phantom costumes from previous generations…

So I designed some historically-aligned variations in the few costumes Phantom references in the story. I thought the variations were a minor detour in the legend for the purposes of one story...

Details at The Chronicle Chamber.

 

Cartooning Artificial Intelligence.

 
© Scott Adams

Inevitably, AI has become a ripe subject for cartoons and comic strips. Cartoons are sometimes used to teach new concepts or present difficult material, as a way to ease into it. Cartoon comics designed to make people laugh often tap into fears that AI will be taking over for humans, rendering humans useless. No one wants to be useless.

Here is a review of some AI cartoons.

 

Wednesday Comics, the faux Sunday Funnies as a comic book.


© DC Comics

People just don’t talk enough about Wednesday Comics, DC’s 2009 experimental anthology that attempted to replicate the Sunday funnies experience with a miniseries that included stories told in 12 weekly parts, printed as a broadsheet on newspaper stock.

Naturally, you had the foundational Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, but there were also strips that starred offbeat characters like Metamorpho, Deadman and Kamandi.

The 13th Dimension reviews the Kamandi “Sunday strips.”

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