EXCLUSIVE: We hear that Nickelodeon has won the rights in a competitive situation to Dana Simpson’s comic strip Phoebe and Her Unicorn, a property that the Viacom studio is eyeing as a multi-platform franchise across an TV animated series, movies and more. The final deal points are being hammered out at this moment, we hear.
The daily comic strip initially launched on Universal Uclick’s GoComics website in 2012 before it launched in 100 newspapers in 2015. Phoebe and her Unicorn follows 9-year-old Phoebe Howell, a girl in the fourth grade, who deals with childhood challenges alongside her unicorn Marigold, friend Max and enemy Dakota.
Dana Simpson has found cartooning success with the Phoebe and Her Unicorn comic strip (more so before group newspapers started unifying their funny pages). The comic strip is regularly issued in a successful line of book compilations. And now it seems they will be expanding beyond the printed page.
Fred Nelson and Matt Sheppo will oversee Phoebe and Her Unicorn for Andrews McMeel Entertainment (AME), the entertainment unit of Andrews McMeel Universal. Based in Kansas City, Andrews McMeel Universal is currently co-producing Big Nate, also at Nickelodeon, as well as financing an independent animated Marmaduke feature in production now.
APA reps Andrews McMeel Entertainment and producer Bridget McMeel, and brokered the IP deal on behalf of AME & Dana Simpson. Andrews McMeel Entertainment and producer Bridget McMeel are also represented by Leslie Abell. Dana Simpson is repped by Stuart Rees. Vertigo was repped in the deal by Aron Baumel & Rick Genow of Goodman Genow Schenkman Smelkinson & Christopher LLP, and CAA.
Update:
As noted in the comments the above is old news from 2020.
Also old news this from two and a half years after the initial announcement was that the deal had failed.
Simpson has revealed in a damning social media post that Nickelodeon has decided to not move ahead with the project, citing network concerns that the series wouldn’t cater enough to a male audience. Simpson’s post can be found below.
Simpson has revealed in a damning social media post that Nickelodeon has decided to not move ahead with the project, citing network concerns that the series wouldn’t cater enough to a male audience. Simpson’s post can be found below.
I worried transphobia would screw me over. Turns out, no. Garden variety sexism.
Read the December 2022 NickALive report and Dana’s full statement.
Apologies to Dana for opening old wounds.
That’s great news. I was a big fan of Simpson’s earlier webcomics “Ozy and Millie” and “I Drew This.” Glad to see she is achieving this level of success. (Probably changing the name of the strip from “Heavenly Nostrils” to “Phoebe and Her Unicorn” was a good move).
This news is old from 4 years ago. The link from Deadline is from 2020.
To quote Charlie Brown, “Rats!” I caught the Aaron McGruder making new strips for The Boondocks from five years ago. This got past me. Don’t know why old news is showing up in my feed.
I’m sure that Dana Simpson has reasons to regret the lost income opportunities, but I highly doubt that the Nickelodeon developers would have even attempted to capture the true spirit of the comic strip. If you look at what happened to “Big Nate”, or even the later “Peanuts” specials (and especially the atrocious “Peanuts Movie”), the lesson to be learned is that Watterson probably had the right idea.