Filed under: Comic Strips

According to this story on ICv2.com, John Kovalic will produce a quarterly editorial cartoon commenting on the game industry for ICv2 Retailers Guide.

I received a heads up notice from a reader who says that Charles Boyce, creator of COMPU-TOON, is working with California Public Utilities Commission and AT&T to develop a cartoon character that will be used statewide in promoting training and education in the use of technological procedures.  At some point the character and the educational material will be available on a web site later this month.

The classic feature was started by Tom’s father, also Tom Wilson, as a greeting card character but has since grown into an internationally recognizable character and brand….  Ziggy is seen in 600 newspapers around the world and is a spokes-character for the National Foster Parent Association.

I’m late in getting in contact with the Garfield/20th Century Fox crowd to see if there is a prescreening of the new Garfield movie that is coming out this Friday, so I’ll try to be diligent in posting links to other reviews.First up we have a disappointed MSNBCDespite (Bill Murray) droll delivery and a couple of amusing lines here and there, Murray can?t wring many laughs out of the mostly lame script from returning writers Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow….  A sure sign of complete creative bankruptcy in any sequel, this time the action shifts overseas to England, where Garfield (voiced by Bill Murray) is given the opportunity to do the usual European vacation things, including a pit stop at Buckingham Palace where his dog pal Odie pees on the stoic royal guards.

For now, it is taking the place of ?Strange Brew? by John Deering.?Rubes? is drawn by Leigh Rubin of Nipomo, Calif., near San Luis Obispo….  Some might also recognize it from Rubin?s various books, including ?The Wild Life of Pets,? ?The Wild Life of Cows? and ?The Wild Life of Farm Animals.?Take a look on today?s comics page, A9.

Wes Hargis and Hollis Brown have renamed their “Franklin Fibbs” feature to “Little Fibbs” and changed the premise from one centered around an older senior citizen to one around a precocious child, Franklin…. Plus, the fact that they both find it fun to write and draw for a young character led them to make the change.”The change occurred last week on the 7th of May.The new description for the feature is:”Little Fibbs” is about a small boy with a big imagination.

Jim’s original work will be on display in the gallery at Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis from June 22 through July 30th.  Jim is a resident of Annapolis and the local paper, The Capital has a very in-depth story about him and his “Sherman’s Lagoon” feature.

Recently the Ventura County Star replaced “Doonesbury” (while Garry Trudeau was on vacation) with Carl Moore’s “State of the Union” and asked if it was a suitable replacement for Bruce Tinsley’s “Mallard Fillmore”.  By a margin of 3-1, “Mallard Fillmore” will keep his spot in the newspaper.

From a story out of Reuters comes news that Warner Home Video has negotiated a deal with Hearst Entertainment and King Features for worldwide distribution rights to all of Popeye’s theatrical shorts and television cartoons…. Warner also has licensed the exclusive rights to 220 Popeye made-for-TV animated shorts produced from 1960-62, 65 episodes of “The Continuing Adventures of Popeye,” produced from 1978-81 (and consisting of 161 animated shorts) and 26 “Popeye & Son” shorts produced in 1987.The Popeye theatrical slate includes 120 black-and-white shorts (106 of them produced by Fleischer Studios, the other 14 by Famous Studios) and 111 Technicolor cartoons (three produced by Fleischer Studios and 108 produced by Famous Studios).Warner will now have to begin preservation and restoration.

King Feature’s DailyINK has added five more comics to their list of features subscribers can subscribers to.  The new features are: Beetle Bailey, Bringing up Father, Buz Sawyer, Flash Gordon, and Rip Kirby.

This weekend is New York City comics art festival.  Tom Spurgeon over at the Comics Reporter has a great overview of the events.

Like clockwork, every time a successful movie comes out, someone comes out of the woodwork claiming that the movie idea was based on their earlier work and that the creators are plagiarists who are raking in money off of someone else’s idea.According to Minnesota public radio, Moira Manion is a cartoonist from Minnesota who had a comic strip about a fox and a snake living on the edge of suburbia back in in the early 1990’s that was distributed through Argonaut Entertainment….  Despite the hand-written notes of encouragement in their margins, she decided to lay down Franky & Ralph temporarily to pursue other ideas.A few months later, with her suburban streetwise fox and naive rattlesnake still fresh in her head, Manion ran across a notice in a newspaper trade magazine.”It said that coming in October, United Feature Syndicate would be launching a new strip about a streetwise raccoon and a practical, naive turtle who lived in the suburbs because their woods had been destroyed by the suburbs,” Manion says.It was her first notice of a strip called Over the Hedge.

E&P has a little blurp about Jef Mallett’s “Frazz” book collection that will be out this August.  The book is titled “99% Perspiration.”

Universal Press has announced that “Pooch Café” will be featured on a series of post cards sent out to pet owners by local groomers and veterinarians prompting owners to regularly take their beloved pets to professional pet care service providers.Pooch Café, created by Paul Gilligan, is one of the latest Universal Press features to join in on the reminder card services.  Already “Adam@Home” and “Heart of the City” promote regular dentist visits while “For Better or For Worse” and “Garfield” cards promote pet care and appointments, according to the Universal press release.

According to the “For Better or For Worse” web site, Lynn Johnston will be attending the Book Expo Canada in Toronto this Sunday (June 11) at 1pm and again on Monday the 12th at noon.  See the Book Expo Canada web site for more information.