Part of it may be the fact that writing a comic strip is a lonely job. Writing your peers into your strips is sort of their version of goofing off at the office water cooler or playing pranks on each other.”As I said to Darby before, it’s like we’re 6th-graders passing notes to each other, except we’re doing it in front of 25 million people,” Pastis says.
Michael Fry and T Lewis’ movie “Over the Hedge” was up against two other new movies this week end…. The third and last place honor went to “See No Evil” which earned $4.4 million over it’s initial weekend.Over the Hedge has three more weeks to be the top animated movie in the theater until Disney/Pixar’s movie “Cars” is released on June 9.All figures are according to IMDB.
Last night I caught a prescreening of T. Lewis and Michael Fry’s “Over the Hedge” movie.
Aaron McGruder, “Boondocks,” Darrin Bell, “Candorville,” and Keith Knight, “The K Chronicles” have been nominated for a Glyph award for Best Comic Strip by the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention. In addition to the Best Comics Strip nod, Aaron is also up for Best Writer and his character “Huey” is up for Best Male Character.The results will be announced tonight at the annual convention that runs today and tomorrow in Philadelphia, PA.Tim Jackson, editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Defender, Madison Times will be on one of the discussion panels.
Robb Armstrong Philadelphia Inquirer | 05/19/2006 | For these comics creators, not just funny business:East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention reception dinner at the African American Museum in Philadelphia.Armstrong will be honored with an outstanding-achievement award tonight, and he will join the panel discussion on African American images in the cartoon and comic industries tomorrow.
According to E&P, Doonesbury.com has totaled more than 152,000 votes in a poll asking readers where “Doonesbury character” Alex should go to college…. The options are .Rensselaer, Cornell or MIT.As posted earlier here, some of the Universities in question are taking this fictional character quite seriously.
According to Universal Press, “Baldo” creators Hector Cantu and Carlos Castellanos have invited Lela Lee who does a weekly feature called “Angry Little Girls” to do three of six Baldo daily strips beginning May 22…. “Angry Little Girls” features an asian character, Kim.From the news release: During the six-day series, Baldo character Gracie Bermudez (who Cantu and Castellanos describe as a ?little sister with a cause?) and Lee?s cast of Angry Little Girls will join forces to show Baldo readers what real girls are all about.
Subjects include the obligatory questions about how Mark got into cartooning; what Mark did for a living before cartooning became successful enough to support him financially; what make’s Lio different from other strips. When he decided he wanted to try his hand at a second strip, he wanted something significantly different from Heart of the City.”The thing I really wanted to do was something that is new,” he said.
While some Muslims do not make or show images of Mohammed because of the biblical laws against graven images, there is a long history of portraits of Muhammad in Islamic art. …… Perhaps because not talking about it gives them a convenient rationalization — religious tolerance — for not showing the offending Danish cartoons.
Chris Browne, cartoonist for “Hagar the Horrible” and creator of “Raising Duncan”, has called Sarasota Florida his home for the last 25 years but is moving because of the over development in the city.Sarasota used to be quaint, Browne said…. He could cruise over the bridge to Longboat Key, and the only thing he’d see was “The Purple Cow” — otherwise known as the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall.”Now,” he said, “it’s dwarfed by this skyline that looks like Atlanta or Tampa.”It breaks his heart.Chris and his wife will be moving to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Another notable change in the comics page line up this week – this time in the Houston Chronicle…. Mark Tatulli’s feature was officially launched yesterday to over 100 newspapers – the Chronicles now being one of them.
The Winston-Salem Journal has dropped three features: Mark Anderson’s “Spot the Frog,” “Peanuts,” and “Beakman & Jax” – a Sunday only educational strip.On the plus side: Michael Fry and T. Lewis’ “Over the Hedge” and Mark Tatulli’s “Lio” have taken up home on their comic page.
Michael Fry, “Over the Hedge” co-creator, along with film writer and producer Jim Cox have created an internet start-up called RingTales which focus on making animation shorts for mobile devises. The animations will be based on current comic strips.
A while back I mentioned that Doonesbury character Alex Doonesbury was selecting a college and that Rochester Institute of Technology and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute were colleges that were being considered. Cornell was also considered and the university actually courted Garry Trudeau in efforts to sway the decision – going as far as mailing admissions material and brochures about the dining halls.
Last week, I told you that Dean Young was opening a sandwich shop franchise…. Interestingly, did you notice Saturday’s strip talked about Dagwood opening up such a store?The sandwich shop now has a web site too.