Dallas Morning News columnist Mike Peters writes a column that reads like an obit for Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks.Almost overnight, Mr. McGruder was a self-made social commentator, eager to shake our easy assumptions about race.”I don’t write The Boondocks for black people,” he told me in 2003….  I’m trying to make white people see and think about black people.”He did.

Glenn Foden, editorial cartoonist for Marylandâ??s Patuxent Publishing Co. and syndicated through Artizans has illustrated Politics & Pot Roast: An Unofficial, Unauthorized & Completely Unclassified Cookbook by Sarah Hood Salomon. The book came out in August.

I’m still trying to catch up from last weeks vacation and it’s not looking like I’m going to be able to give these stories the individual attention that they deserve, but I wanted to make sure they got some play on the blog.

Tribune Media Services has launched a new comic feature called Raising Hector. The strip has been around in self-syndication since 1996, according to this story in E&P, and is created by Peter Ramirez who is a former police officer – now stay at home dad (which is also the premise of the feature).

Next Saturday, the 14th, the Toy and Action Figure Museum (which also houses the Oklahoma Cartoonist’s collection) will be celebrating their first year in operation….  Three of the inductees are comic strippers – Chester Gould, who was born in Oklahoma and went on to create Dick Tracy; Bill Mauldin, whose first cartoons were published in the Daily Oklahoman; and Dick Locher who (and I think they’re stretching things here) is an Oklahoman by association because of his work on the Dick Tracy strip.Attending the celebration will be Alley Oop producers Jack and Carole Bender.For information on dates, locations, click the link above.

As reported ealier, Marshall Ramsey, editorial cartoonist for the The Clarion-Ledger, will be coming out with a new book this month to commemorate his 10 years with the paper. On his blog, he has posted the cover which depicts public officials that have been lampooned in the last 10 years throwing tomatoes at Marshall.

Marshall Ramsey, a prolific blogger/editorial cartoonist for the Clarion Ledger announced on his blog yesterday that he will begin podcasting next week….  Once Marshall begins podcasting, he will join Scott Stantis as the only professional cartoonist with a regular podcast.

Up for election are Lio, On a Claire Day, F-minus, Brevity, and Silo Roberts….  It is my opinion that if one is going to post an online survey, one ought to take the basic steps of preventing multiple voting (or at least try).

For a feature built upon tall-tales, the story line this week has been the truth. Hollis Brown and Wes Hargis’ have decided to end the strip.  Starting Monday, the strip has featured its characters talking about the impending end of the strip – even making fun of it’s attempt to reinvent it’s premise in June.  According to Rose M. McAllister, Marketing Manager at King Features, the two cartoonists have terminated the strip due to lack of subscribing newspapers.

Today the Daily Cartoonist turns 1 years old. Cake and ice cream over at my house tonight!

A new Peanuts animated special will be aired on ABC in late November. The feature called Heâ??s a Bully, Charlie Brown and was the last animated project Charles Schulz worked on before his death in 2000.  The special is being produced by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez (the same individuals who have a long history of working on Charlie Brown animated movies and shows).

From the Tina’s Groove web site comes news that Tina’s Groove creator, Rina Piccolo, and her husband Brendan Burford (an editor at King Features) will be the featured speakers at the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art on October 16th and will speak on the topic of comics and cartooning. For location and time, visit Rina’s web site.

Today marks 75 years since Dick Tracy appeared on the comics pages.  Several cartoonist are paying tribute. Here is a list of features that I’ve been able to find that mention, display or otherwise give homage to Chester Gould’s creation:

With news last week that Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks is on a permanent hiatus, it will be interesting to see how quickly the roughly 100 subscribing newspapers drop The Boondocks reruns and pick a new feature….  Perhaps a question of greater interest is how many papers will replace The Boondocks with another strip that features predominately African-American or minority characters such as Candorville, or Watch Your Head.

Within the press release of Aaron McGruder’s news that The Boondocks’ hiatus may be permanent, is a little tidbit that Universal Press will be launching a new feature called Maintaining in January.  Maintaining is by Nate Creekmore, who developed the feature during college.  Nate is a two-time recipient of the Charles M. Schulz College Cartoonist Award in 2003 and in 2004 as well as best college cartoonist by the Associated Collegiate Press.  The feature is about a bi-racial high school student named Marcus. 

From an article in the Tennessean, we learn that the feature has been under a development contract for the last year.

You can see samples of Nate’s work on his web site.