Posted on: August 7, 2006

A few weeks ago, I brought you news that while Mike Luckovich was away on vacation, his paper – the Atlanta Journal-Constitution – held a contest called “Think you can do better?” in which they invited their readers to send an editorial cartoon.  The results have been posted (registration required) with the winner going to William Warren won with 541 votes (out of 3,158 cast online). Warren just happens to be this year’s John Locher award winnner from Forest Lake University.

Teletoon, Canada’s first and only 24 hour cartoon network has entered into an agreement to create an animated series based on Bob Unger’s Herman comic strip that is syndicated by United Media. The article did not specify a timeline.

King Features has launched it’s third feature of 2006 (Retail and Pajama Diaries being the first two).  The new feature is a Sunday only called Heaven’s Love Thrift Shop by Kevin Frank.  Heaven’s love focuses on the the characters (Wilson, Cassidy, and Dag) who run a charitable thrift shop which supports outreaches including a soup-kitchen and homeless shelter.

Aaron Taylor, editorial cartoonist for the Daily Herald in Provo Utah, is one of four cartoonist to join Cagle Cartoon Syndicate according to E&P.  The other three are Michael Kountouris of Athens, Greece,  Malcolm Evans of New Zealand, and Effat Muhammad of Egypt.  Aaron was the 1997 winner of the John Lochcer Award for best college editorial cartoonist.

From E&P comes news that Scott Adam’s Dilbert is coming out this October in its 28th book collection. The book is entitled “Try Rebooting Yourself: A Dilbert Collection”

Additionally, Glenn McCoy’s The Duplex will also be releasing a book collection in October called “Bad Habits: Duplex Collection”

Earlier this summer, I brought you news that Dean Young was going to open up a chain of sandwich shops called “Dagwood’s Sandwich Shoppe” named after the Dagwood character in Blondie.  The first store opened in June.

Leigh Rubin’s Rubes collection book “The Wild Life of Cats” has won  two humor awards according to E&P.  The first award is a merit prize from Midwest Book Awards and the other is a bronze award by ForeWord magazine’s Book of the Year.

In a development to watch to see if it affects the number of comics run in a newspaper, Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the U.S.  will be experimenting with a new paper size that is somewhere between tabloid and broadsheet according to this story in the BBC.  The first paper to make the leap will be the Indiana journal and Courier.

Back in June, I pointed out a comic book challenge that was being held in conjunction with the San Diego Comic-Con. The competition was open to anyone who wanted to submit a comic book idea, complete with sample art.  All the submissions would be whittled down to the top 50 by Platinum Studios creative and development staff.  Those 50 would then pitch their ideas to a celebrity panel (this part was televised) who picked the top three. Those then were presented to the public for a final winner.

In another “they stole my idea” moment, Gary Huck, a self-syndicated cartoonist, recently noticed one of his cartoon ideas used by Recycled Paper Greetings. According to E&P, he says they’re using his “concept” without permission.

Dave Astor of Editor and Publisher has written an excellent article (featured on the AAEC web site) on the changing work duties of some editorial cartoonists who have added animation and blogging to their work load.  The story features Walt Handelsman of Newsday, Mike Shelton of Orange County Register, Matt Davies of The Journal News, and Clay Jones of The Free Lance-Star.
Regarding the affect of animating cartoonis: