Alan Gardner

The Snoopy as the World War I Flying Ace exhibit is now featured in Shreveport LA. 

The Napa Valley Register has a really interesting write-up on Stephan Pastis and his journey to becoming a successful cartoonist. The story also delves into Stephan’s work process, his plundering of other comic characters and his run in with Charles Schulz.

Greg Evans was highlighted in the North County Times as he recently judged a cartoon (and coloring) contest as well as talked about his upcoming musical “Luann – Scenes From a Teen’s Life” that will hit the stage on September 15.

Mentioned over on Tom Spurgeon’s Comicsreporter.com – Mike Luckovich will be on hand on September 25th at the Decatur Library to discuss and sign his book “Four More Wars!”.  Mike’s appearance is scheduled for 7:15 pm. See the library’s web site for more information.

Classic Media will be releasing a four disk set of the original Dick Tracy TV series that ran between 1961 and 1964 on September 26th to celebrate Dick Tracy’s 75th anniversary. 

For the second time in a year, Scott Adams is using his blog to solicit material for a gag he’s working on. The first time was a request for a “realistic sounding sentence that Dilbert would utter that is mind-numbingly technical and still realistic.”  This round he’s asking for “the worst/funniest thing that you could be accused of doing in the office.”

Drawn! had a link a couple of days ago pointing visitors to  “Bill Watterson’s Rarest” – a site dedicated to chronicling artwork produced by Bill before and during the Calvin and Hobbes years. They also point to another site Calvin & Hobbes: Magic on Paper which is much of the same, perhaps even more detailed.  If you’re a Calvin and Hobbes fan, these are great sites to check out.

E&P has a great story on Clay Bennett’s year as president of the AAEC (whose term ends this tomorrow).  Some of the things I know he had to deal with was the number of cartoonists that lost their jobs or took buyouts: Michael Ramirez, Kevin ‘Kal’ Kallaugher, Stacy Curtis, Tim Menees, David Simpson, and Larry Wright each walked out the door of their respective newspapers – only Michael has regained a staff cartoonist position.

Tony Cochran, creator of Agnes will be the next guest cartoonist on the Washington Post’s Meet the Artist chat session.  Agnes is in a eight week tryout with the Post and that is the topic of the conversation. 

Glenn McCoy will be a featured speaker at the Missouri Press Association’s annual convention this September 15th.  He’ll talk about the art of editorial cartooning. Glenn produced editorial cartoons that are syndicated through Universal Press as well as the creator of The Duplex and co-creator of The Flying McCoys which he produces with his brother Gary.

Patrick McDonnell (Mutts) has been a big supporter of Animal rights. Not only has he been nominated for a third term on the board of directors of The Humane Society of the United States, but he’s championed programs to reunite lost animals with their owners after Hurricane Katrina.  Last year, he ran a six day series depicting the rescue of a dog stranded on a New Orleans rooftop.  That series has now been made available as unsigned collectible posters.