Bleeker, 20 Years of Recharging
Skip to comments
Twenty years ago, on July 27, 2006, Jonathan Mahood introduced Skip and us readers of Comics Sherpa to Bleeker: The Rechargeable Dog [as Hoover: the Rechargeable Dog (see comments and Wikipedia)].
From Rachel DeSchepper at the GoComics blog:
Twenty years ago on July 27, Jonathan Mahood launched “Bleeker: The Rechargeable Dog” on Comics Sherpa, GoComics’ old home for independent cartoonists. Within a few months, the comic caught the eye of an editor at Andrews McMeel Universal who moved it to GoComics proper.
Five years later Bleeker jumped the fence to another syndicate and print newspapers, at which point Bleeker and Mahood left GoComics.
My old notebook has the syndicated Bleeker running for five years from January 3, 2011 to January 2, 2016 though I can find no papers on newspapers.com running it past mid-2015 and the strip returned to GoComics on November 1, 2015.
And then:
In 2023, he sent Bleeker’s kid owner, Skip, to a new school [link added] (which retired Bleeker from his job as Skip’s personal robot), and turned a gag-a-day comic into a long-form adventure story now running on GoComics.
Today the adventures continue and Rachel interviews Jonathan about the comic’s past, present and future.
Where did the idea for the new “2023 version” come from, and how long had it been sitting in your head?
“Bleeker,” like so many other strips, finally fell prey to the decline in newspaper sales. Once the comic was no longer in print, I had to decide what the future was for Bleeks and the gang. I had an idea for a “Bleeker” graphic novel but wasn’t sure if it would work. I knew I didn’t want to stop drawing the characters, but I also wanted it to be something fun and totally different.
For inspiration, I looked to The Adventures Of Tintin, with its fast-paced action and ever-changing locations, the hilarious The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and the classic comic, “Little Nemo in Slumberland.” With those as guideposts, I decided to take a chance and change the comic from a gag-a-day format to a funny, long-form adventure story…
Comments 1