Ruben Bolling tells us that a comic strip he produces under a pseudonym has ended.
It is my sad duty to announce that The Comic Strip That Has a Finale Every Day has finally ended its eight-year run on gocomics.com on December 31, 2023. It has had its final Finale.
Ruben added:
Strangely, one installment was posted a couple of days ago, but it was a rerun.
The good news is that Bolling says the archive will remain available:
The comics are still available there, though, and I recommend hitting the “random” button for a trip through its history.
**********
Jeff Kinney‘s Diary of a Wimpy Kid #19 coming later this year.
From Publishers Weekly:
Author Jeff Kinney appeared on the Kelly Clarkson Show on January 29 to announce the latest news for his bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. The 19th installment of the series, Hot Mess, will be released on October 22 from Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams Children’s Books.
PW continues with some Wimpy Kids stats:
Author Jeff Kinney appeared on the Kelly Clarkson Show on January 29 to announce the latest news for his bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. The 19th installment of the series, Hot Mess, will be released on October 22 from Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams Children’s Books.
**********
The Matt cartoon nobody understands.
Scotland’s The National discusses a cartoon in England’s The Telegraph:
The Telegraph cartoonist Matt Pritchett, known as “Matt”, published his effort at lampooning the former first minister in the right-wing paper on Thursday, but he appears to have missed just about every mark there is.
Apparently trying to make a point about Sturgeon’s evidence at the Covid Inquiry, Matt drew a chippy in Aberdeen. The cartoon shop’s sign reads: “Aberdeen. The Chip Bar.”
What Aberdeen has to do with anything at all is unclear. It’s recognisably Scottish, which looks to have been enough for our Matt.
Read The National item for a look at the cartoon at full size and more, like:
Journalist Ross McCafferty wrote on social media: “650 grand a year you know. £650,000 each 12 month period. Six hundred and fifty thousand pounds over 52 weeks. Per annum, 650k.”
This is a reference to Pritchett’s astronomic paycheque, which was reported in Private Eye in 2018.
McCafferty went on: “He earns the equivalent of the UK median *annual* salary roughly every 18 days. For this? FOR THIS?!
**********
Italian draws The New Yorker cover.
The first 2024 cover of The New Yorker was designed by Italian illustrator Bianca Bagnarelli. Titled Deadline, it depicts the plight of those who find themselves having to work even during the holidays.
Born in 1988, Bagnarelli spent a year studying comics and illustration at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. Besides her ongoing collaboration with The New Yorker since 2016…
The article contains a Bianca Bagnarelli profile and interview.
You’re based in Italy but do a lot of work with the US. What do you think makes your work so appealing in the United States?
I’m not sure, but I’m very happy about it. Perhaps it’s because my illustrations are always very clear and narrative, making it easy to connect with the image.
**********
The Charles M. Schulz Museum nominated for 10 Best.
The Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, which celebrates the life of the creator of the “Peanuts” comic strip, and Rancho Obi-Wan, a collection of “Star Wars” memorabilia west of Petaluma, have been nominated in USA Today’s 10Best annual contest to name the nation’s best pop culture museum.
The Santa Rosa Press-Democrat carries the story.
The contest, which launched in mid-January, gives voters four weeks to vote for the candidate of their choice at 10best.usatoday.com/awards/travel/best-pop-culture-museum-2024/
This year’s deadline to vote is Feb. 12. The winners will be announced Feb. 23.
A person can vote once a day for the run of the contest. Votes are allowed from Europe.
**********
King Features 2023 Year in Review
KFS Makes Headlines Around the Globe Across Categories.
Mostly about their licensing (Popeye is very popular!) but they also touch on comic stripping.
**********
Cartoonist Patrick Owsley offers quality signed Underdog print
This would have been the front page of the newspaper in UNDERDOG! This 11×14 art print features that terribly terrific gangster, RIFF RAFF! SWEET POLLY PUREBRED and UNDERDOG are also featured on the paper’s front page. Beautifully printed on 100 lb. Lynx stock! Print will be dedicated and signed as directed.
More information and full image at Patrick Owsley’s Big Cartel.
Your email newsletter came into my SPAM folder this morning marked as ‘dangerous, do not click links’.
My personal opinion is that the news is not “good”: With all due respect to Mr. Bolling, his “Finale Every Day” feature was at best an existential experiment that should have been cancelled a long time ago. Not only does it show up far too often in the GoComics search results, it highlights the idiocy of the GoComics “Featured Comment“, which is a running invitation for immature “First!” claims and other Internet trolls. I’m not sorry at all to see the strip stop; I’d be even happier to see it removed from the archives, or at least if it were removed from the GoComics search index. (Since the only relevant part of that feature was its user commentary, and GoComics comments are not searchable, there is no reason to index the title, nor the dialog in the strip, which replayed the same artwork for 3287 consecutive days.)