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News Briefs for August 4, 2009

Comic Strips» The Aaugh Blog has an interesting post on who draws (and doesn’t draw) the Peanuts characters that appear in merchandising.» Who does this @#$@ think he is? Sure we all have lists of comics we don’t like, but comics favorites are so subjective, it’s hard for anyone to really argue who’s work is […]

Ruben Bolling raises $277 for product placement

About a month ago, I reported that Ruben Bolling was auctioning off space in his Tom The Dancing Bug for a product placement. The proceeds are to be donated to “The Committee To Protect Journalist.” He reports that the final bid was $277, but did not disclose the winner.The product will run in an “unobtrusively […]

Bloom County collection due in October

I mentioned this back in February, but it’s worth repeating. IDW Publishing will release the complete Bloom County collection – every strip daily and Sunday in chronological order. The book is entitled “The Bloom County Library” and is a five volume set due out in October. The feature by Berkeley Breathed ran from from 1980 […]

Hints that the webcomic model is maturing

I’ve always maintained that the webcomic business model will have successfully matured when it outgrows the do-it-yourself business stage that it’s currently in and support industries are able to move in and allow artists to do focus on being artists and businessmen take care of business. There are several such businesses that have cropped up, […]

Star-Ledger: 1,200 complaints for dropping comics

E&P reports that The Star-Ledger of Newark received about 1,200 complaints from readers after they dropped six comics and moved one page of comics to another location in the paper.Editor Jim Willse told E&P, “Virtually no one liked the change.” Big understatement. Two comics will return. The change saves the paper $300,000 a year.

A sexy Brevity strip they couldn’t print

I received an email from Guy and Rodd, creators of Brevity, alerting me that yesterday’s strip wasn’t their first swing at the joke. The first was nixed by editors. Here’s the one as it was originally drawn. They also note that the woman in the strip looks suspiciously like a character from For Better of […]

Mobile devices give second wind to manga

The New York Times reports that mobile devices is re-surging the popularity of Manga. For a variety of reasons, the mobile version has manga booming again. In the year ending in March, Japanese manga publishers raked in Â¥32.9 billion in revenue, up 43 percent from the previous year and from next to nothing in 2003, […]

Zits character, Jeremy to turn 16

The perpetual 15 year old, Jeremy of the comic strip Zits, will be allowed to turn 16 opening up a whole new landscape of comic material. When asked why they decided to tamper with the age of their strip’s star after 12 highly successful years in syndication, Scott and Borgman responded, “About the meanest thing […]

Personalize your iGoogle page with comic themes

Google’s personal homepage feature, “iGoogle,” now allows you to select from 50 comic themes which include several comic book characters, syndicated comics and webcomics. Among the syndicated features themes include, Peanuts, Dilbert, Pearls Before Swine, Nancy, Garfield, Ziggy, Mutts, Popeye and Krazy & Ignatz (Krazy Kat). To use the theme, you’ll need a google account […]

Paul Jon’s Fort Knox samples now online

Last June I told you that Washington Post Writers Group would be launching a new feature entitled Fort Knox on October 5. The new feature is by Paul Jon, a military brat whose taken his childhood experiences of constant moving and resettling and turned it into a strip featuring a military family (Major Joe Knox; […]

Cartoon about speeding tickets, sex causes stir

The San Jose Mercury News ran a cartoon depicting actual excuses people have given police officers after being pulled over for speeding. The cartoons seemed harmless to me, but the mention of sex, breasts brought out the prudish readers and a lively discussion ensued in print. A round up of letters have been published with […]

Tom Tomorrow creates Pearl Jam album cover

Tom Tomorrow has created the album-cover for the upcoming Pearl Jam new release in September. The band is doing a promotional game wherein fans can participate in an “internet Easter egg hunt” searching for all nine of Tom’s images, getting clues, and then using the clues to figure out where to download a free mp3 […]

New Herblock exhibit to mark 100th birthday

The Library of Congress has announced an exhibit to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of political cartoonist Herb Block, aka Herblock. Herblock’s career spanned 72 years beginning in 1929 through 2001. The exhibit will feature 82 original cartoons from his collection. It runs October 13 through May 1 of 2010. H/T: Mike Rhode

Movie animation round-up

I read a couple of animation news blogs everyday and report what I believe would be of most interest to you all. If you’re highly interested in animation, I recommend you follow The Animation Blog, and Animated News.Here’s a couple of stories I found interesting from the aforementioned sites:» “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” […]

Webcomic “Wide Awake” optioned for film rights

From the press release: Do-Over Productions has just announced that they have optioned the film rights to Wide Awake, the extraordinary webcomic written by Eric Trautmann and Brandon Jerwa, with art by Mirco Pierfederici and art direction by David Messina. As described in the press release from Do-Over, Wide Awake is the story of Amanda […]

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