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.
In the Category of Best Artist Frank Cho has been nominated (for his work on the Shanna, “The She-Devil” comic book – not “Liberty Meadows”). In the Best cartoonist category we have John Kovalic with “Dork Tower”; in best Syndicated Strip of Panel we have Aaron McGruder for “The Boondocks” Keith Knight for “The K Chronicles,” Patrick McDonnell for “Mutts,” and lastly Stan Lee and Larry Leiber for “The Amazing Spider-Man.”The awards will be given out on September 9 during the Baltimore Comic-Con.
“Girls and Sports,” created by Andrew Feinstein and Justin Borus, are now available as greeting cards. The cards are printed though Card Cafe and G&S fans can pick from birthday cards, holiday cards, special occasion cards and sports condolence cards.
His professionalism and love of the art form will add a new chapter to one of America’s classic continuity strips. I know that the strip’s loyal readers will appreciate Eduardo’s work as much as I do,” says Judge Parker writer Woody Wilson.
Mike Jantze who now maintains his comic strip “The Norm” online has posted a notice to subscribers that he’s running repeats for the next couple of weeks while he recoups from a back injury. The Norm resumes on June 19.
Ohio State fans have also been speeding it along — much to the surprise of the creative team that’s been milking the same three jokes for 28 years.”The use of ‘wolverine’ in the Garfield comic strip was not in reference to the Michigan fans or the mascot,” says a comically sincere response to MSU zealot Bob Nelson of Lansing.Nelson already figured that out, “but it will be a long time,” he promises, “before the U-M Wolverines see the last of this particular cartoon.””Garfield” debuted in 1978 and appears in 2,600 newspapers worldwide, making it one of the most successful comic strips on Earth…. At which point Garfield thinks, “Loser.”Nelson, 55, oversees a club called SPAR10 PL8S and a Web site, www.CQQL.net/msu.htm, devoted to vanity license plates that praise the Green and White or pillory the Maize and Blue.He liked the juxtaposition of “wolverine” and “loser” so much that he dropped a thank-you note to Davis — who, for the record, went to Ball State.
On Brian Anderson’s web site, he alerting his fans that the Times-Union is voting whether to keep the “Dog Eat Doug” comic a part of their line up…. Fans can go to the link above and scroll down a bit and cast their vote.
The Post Dispatch has been trying out four new comics since January and they’ve declared that it now time to vote some comics off the island and choose a new permanent strip for their funny page. The choices are: “Brevity,” “Lucky Cow,” “BrewsterRockit” and “Candorville.”They are also running a new feature in the place of Boondocks called “The Meaning of Lila.”