Comic Strip Cartoonists in the News

June Brigman, former Brenda Starr and Power Pack cartoonist, is the current cartoonist of Mary Worth, and also, it seems, the current cartoonist of Power Pack:

Power Pack creators Louise Simonson and June Brigman are working together on a new limited series for the adolescent team at Marvel Comics.

Although not officially announced by Marvel, the as-yet-unnamed five-issue series will see Simonson and Brigman re-teaming with inker Roy Richardson, joined by colorist Nolan Woodard.

Newsarama/Games Radar carries the news.

 

Bianca Xunise, the Tuesday contributor to Six Chix, also has a book deal.

Bianca tweeted out “So it’s official! It’s been pretty difficult sitting on this secret, but the rumors are true ! I’M WRITING A BOOK! It’s been my lifelong dream to make a story about black and brown weird kids. Think “John Hughes” vibes but on the south side. My biggest joys is that there will be black and brown queer representation in gender & sexuality but these will simply remain facts and not the plot of the story. The plot will be punk rock. None of the diversity in the book will serve as a source of shame, they will simply exist.”

Punk Rock Karaoke, is a new YA graphic novel by cartoonist Bianca Xunise. And in an auction with bids from five publishing houses, it has been picked up by Aneeka Kalia at Viking for a six-figure sum for North American rights for the book and its sequel.

Punk Rock Karaoke will be published by Viking in the summer of 2023 and Bianca Xunise’s agent Linda Camacho at Gallt and Zacker Literary Agency brokered the deal.

Bleeding Cool has the details.

 

The Complete Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers collected (again).

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers was an underground comic book and comic strip by Gilbert Shelton, plans now call for it to be collected and published in four volumes.

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers are the most iconic and enduring underground comix characters ever created, having sold over 45 million comics in 16 languages. Fantagraphics is proud to announce that it is collecting all their drug-addled adventures in a new series of four volumes. Created in 1968 by Gilbert Shelton, widely recognized as one of the funniest cartoonists who ever lived, the Freak Brothers’ rollicking and hilariously self-destructive escapades are comedic masterpieces of farce and satire.

The above blurb comes from the Barnes and Noble solicitation.
SlashFilm (there’s a movie coming too) is where we learned of the new collection.

 

Editors get grief over Scott Adams pronoun dig.

Scott Adams seems to be inserting his political views more and more into the Dilbert cubicles. As he does Scott generates calls for newspapers to dump the strip. The latest objections come because of the July 21, 2021 installment.

A couple of unhappy readers wrote letters to The Washington Post:

The “Dilbert” comic strip has been junk for a long time, but the transphobic strip on July 21 hit a new low.

and

As a parent of a nonbinary young adult, I was greatly offended by the mean, malicious “Dilbert” comic of July 21.

But it is not just big coastal Democratic strongholds – from Montana’s The Missoulian:

Wednesday’s strips essentially called the practice of pronoun declaration a method to “destroy civilization.”

Dilbert remains one of the six comics my small town conservative local newspaper carries, and there is little chance they will drop it over Adams sneaking in his political opinions. Though they also carry the Sunday Doonesbury (including tomorrow’s):

 

Even the BIG NAME cartoonists get no respect, and it is not a recent occurrence. We went looking for a vintage Peanuts strip from 1967 and found a great reproduction of the fastest growing comic strip at that time.

That wasn’t a temporary glitch. Same paper from 1960:

They did correct the credit before the decade ended, though there was a stumble or two:

 

Last month Tom Heintjes informed us that the new Hogan’s Alley magazine was nearing its publication date. Now Previews has given us an estimated time of arrival.

In Shops: Oct 27, 2021

 

Get original art for your wall and help the kids.

Johnny Sampson gives us a preview.

SPY VS SPY turns 60 years old this year. To celebrate this and many other cartoon anniversaries (including Ren and Stimpy, the Boondocks, Fantastic Four to name but a few), the National Cartoonists Society asked its members to create an original piece of art for a charity auction to benefit St Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Heritage Auction House will host the event in the fall, exact date TBA.

from The National Cartoonists Society Facebook page

8 thoughts on “Comic Strip Cartoonists in the News

  1. Slipping in politics doesn’t bother me, but the idea that non-gendered pronouns are DESTROYING CIVILIZATION is some seriously paranoid nut-ballery,

    But after all these years of Dilbert, it turns out that Scott Adams considered the pointy-haired boss to be the hero. Who knew?

  2. Some of the funniest one-pagers ever will be found in the first volume of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Amazingly, though, Shelton kept the darn strip fresh for decades after that, teaming with Dave Sheridan and/or Paul Mavrides to great effect, playing up their strengths.

    An example of the almost scary creativity Shelton keeps coming up with is “The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers COME DOWN,” where the trio is so bored with their usual drugs that they decide to go without: “It’ll be like being high for free!”

    As they continue to sit at the kitchen table, the drawings get more realistic. “I never noticed what a dump this place is!” “Who let that filthy, diseased cat in here?” And they keep changing until the strip consists of photos (carefully retouched to get the noses right).

    Similarly, his greatest Wonder Wart-Hog work came in his artistic maturity as well, but that’s another story. (But I’ll mention that in 1984, a Houston fan nobody cared much for won an auction for one hour of Shelton’s time, and opted to use it having him paint a portrait of the Hog of Steel, and I have had wild respect for her ever since I found out about it.)

  3. If Dilbert can’t make jokes about and at liberals expense 1. Why can other cartoonists riff on the right? 2.How is calling for his cancellation not censorship?

    “They’re just jokes” -Ricky Gervais

  4. Mike, Doonesbury has been removed from many papers for political content. Walt Kelly was removed from papers for going after Joe McCarthy and Spiro Agnew. Just recently, Wiley lost a bunch of papers for placing a subliminal message in the comic attacking Trump which suggested but didn’t actually print the F word.

    This persecution complex on the right is absurd. You’re answerable to those who publish you. It’s their property. Sometimes we don’t like the results of that fact. But it’s not censorship. I don’t get to print MY opinions in a newspaper AT ALL. It’s not a right. If you get to do it, it’s a privilege.

  5. “Censorship” is when the government does it. When private businesses respond to customer complaints, it’s called “the free market.” We’re in favor of that, right?

  6. Pretty sure I understand private business and publications right to print or not print which is why I didn’t make that claim. I’m also pretty sure every liberal cartoon supported Trudeau Wiley etc but so did every right cartoonist I know. However the reverse is not true for reasons only liberals know meaning I was wrong to call it censorship. It’s hypocrisy.

  7. Are we pretending that no conservatives write to papers and demand cancellation of strips they don’t like? How did this turn into yet another “mean old liberals are canceling everybody, and conservatives never did a thing” fests?

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