The Daily Cartoonist » Comic strips

Kenosha Festival of Cartooning down to wire in fundraising

Alan Gardner — Mon, 21 May 2012 13:26:42 +0000

The Kenosha Festival of Cartooning Kickstarter project is down to its last day and needs to raise another $3,693 – which seems like a lot, but with the National Cartoonist Society’s Foundation matching grant that’s only $1,846 – very doable. In addition to rewards of signed book collections, publicity posters, signed program booklets and even an autographed comic original depending on your donation level, Michael Jantze is offering signed sketches for all donations above $50 and Tom Richmond has donated original MAD Magazine art for donations of $400.

The festival this year will feature Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine), Greg Cravens (The Buckets), Michael Jantze (The Norm), Norm Feuti (Retail and Gil) and Dave Coverly (Speed Bump). The panel moderator will be the Tall Tale Radio comic podcaster Tom Racine.

Please head over and give Anne your support as she tries to establish a cartoon festival in the midwest. I originally donated $35 when the fundraiser started and yesterday kicked it up to $50. If you’ve already donated, please consider increasing your pledge. It will go a long way to fund this project.

Stephan Pastis steps into abortion issue

Alan Gardner — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:00:53 +0000

Felice Belman of the Concord Monitor notes that Stephan Pastis’ Pearls Before Swine touched on the abortion issue in last Saturday’s strip and while not rising to the level of Garry Trudeau’s compulsory sonograms cartoons that spurred nearly 75 papers to temporarily drop the strip, Stephan’s strip did cause a bit of reaction from readers.

The syndicate from which the Monitor buys “Pearls Before Swine” did offer us an alternative comic to run last Saturday, if the pro-life strip made us uncomfortable.

In the end, I heard from only a few readers who found it objectionable. Turns out, most of them aren’t big “Pearls” fans on any day of the week.

I’m not sure of Stephan’s position on this issue, but to me it seems he went for a gag.

Mike Peters commencement speech wows crowd

Alan Gardner — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:29:35 +0000

It was announced back in March that Pulitzer Prize editorial cartoonist and Mother Goose and Grimm cartoonist Mike Peters would be the commencement speaker at this Alma Mater Washington University in St. Louis. The campus paper also noted that some students were disappointed in the announcement – some not knowing who Mike was.

I’ve been following the reactions to Mike’s speech this morning on Twitter. I haven’t seen a negative comment and if this sample (below) is any reflection of the larger audience – Mike nailed it.

Here’s a photo courtesy of Washington University in St. Louis.

Comic books make great movies, comic strips not so much

Alan Gardner — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:00:18 +0000

Augusta Chronicle Columnist Steven Uhles looks at the recent success of comic books characters raking it in at the box office and how comic strip characters have struggled to translate on the big screen. He looks at some of the notable attempts with Dick Tracy, Popeye, Prince Valiant, Flash Gordon, and Annie.

It is, I suppose, no surprise. After all, comic books, like movies, are built around the idea of long-form visual storytelling. Popular characters are often elevated to mythic proportions and the rapid pace and eye toward action make them natural film properties. Comic strips, on the other hand, are another story.

Although filmmakers have long striven to exploit the built-in audience newspaper comic strips enjoy, the results have, by and large, been uneven and forgettable.

Two spiked comic strips you may not have seen

Alan Gardner — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:00:09 +0000

Michael Cavna reports that the Washington Post pulled a recent Zits because it was “mite too graphic and gruesome as breakfast-table fare“. Zits co-creator Jim Borgman wrote on the Zits blog, “sometimes we push the envelope on purpose, but we never saw this one coming.”

This Arctic Circle strip by Alex Hallatt was killed by her editor in the sketch stage because it was “too suggestive of male enhancement.” and editors might think Alex was “trying to sneak in something too ‘adult’ for their taste.”

Watch Matt Bors Herblock acceptance speech

Alan Gardner — Mon, 14 May 2012 18:45:52 +0000

The Herblock Award was last week in which Matt Bors was honored for his editorial cartooning. Below is his speech.

Michael Cavna attended and has posted a write-up.

How you can shade four cartoons in 7 minutes

Alan Gardner — Mon, 14 May 2012 07:00:57 +0000

I always enjoy Mark Anderson’s videos. This one is how he does shading with Prismacolor cool grey markers. Check out his blog too for a few more interesting tidbits on the paper he uses and the size that he draws (spoiler!: small).

Bill Rechin family to retire Crock

Alan Gardner — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:10:17 +0000

Kevin Rechin, son of Crock co-creator Bill Rechin, had decided to retire his father’s strip which he took over shortly before his father passed away of esophageal cancer last year.

A quote from Kevin in The Free Lance-Star:

“It’s very hard,” he said. “I still go back and forth. In my gut, I want to keep going. But it will always be him.

“The only one who could do it is my dad. Would I be honoring him by continuing? I think I honor him and the strip more by letting it be him.”

May 20 will be the last new Crock in the US. King Features will continue to syndicate Classic Crock to foreign markets for the next three years.

Crock hit the newspapers in 1975. Brent Parker (co-creator of Wizard of Id) was the co-creator and Don Wilder took on the writing a year later.

Happy birthday american editorial cartooning

Alan Gardner — Wed, 09 May 2012 12:00:32 +0000

Today marks the 258th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin’s “Join or Die” cartoon – often thought of as the first editorial cartoon in the Americas. It was published in the Pennsylvania Gazette as a rallying cry unity among the colonies.

May the profession continue for many more years and cartoons with labels many more years beyond that.

Interviewed: Jonathan Mahood and Bleeker: The Rechargeable Dog

Alan Gardner — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:00:40 +0000

Bob Andelman (AKA Mr. Media) interviews Bleeker: The Rechargeable Dog creator Jonathan Mahood:

Audio Excerpt:

JONATHAN MAHOOD: “With newspaper comics, it’s got to be easy for the reader to get on board. I got my first iPod and I was sitting outside with my dog. I was thinking about how these two things follow me around. I started working with Skip and a brother, but it didn’t work out. Then it was a dog that looked like a battery.”