It’s been a while since I’ve reported on any newspaper industry trends. This article out of the Clickz Network reports that newspapers in September attracted more than 58 million unique readers according to a  Nielsen/NetRatings report.  That is the highest number for newspapers ever.  The increase is attributed to an increase number of video and podcasts produced by newspapers.

He’s tried Botox injections that helped relieve the spasms and allowed some of his normal speech, but that solution was affecting his professional speaking, so he discontinued the Not giving up, he’s tried hard to find patterns in contexts of when he could speak clearly and when he could not….  But for some reason the context is just different enough from normal speech that my brain handled it fine.Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.Jack jumped over the candlestick.I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty eventful around in Gardner home and when I get squeezed for time, I can’t highlight every story that lands in my inbox.  As an attempt to catch some of those things that would normally fall through the cracks, I’m starting a new feature called the Remaindered Links.

The Lake Oswego Review – the paper that Steve Moore worked for fresh out of college – has caught up with the In the Bleacher’s cartoonist to talk about his sports panel, the movie Open Season that he wrote and those first years working for the Review as their sports editor and editorial cartoonist.  If you’re a fan of Steve’s this is a good read.

I’ve mentioned the traveling Dr. Seuss exhibit before and now the exhibit has landed in Naperville (IL). The exhibit features his original and replicated artwork from his early days as an editorial cartoonist in the 1920s. The exhibit runs through November 13. Exhibit opens Saturday with a ribbon cutting. See the Naperville Sun for more details on times and locations.

Miami Herald Pulitzer Prize editorial cartoonist Jim Morin has a new exhibit called The Incomparable Jim Morin which features his paintings. The exhibit opens this Sunday with an opening reception and then runs through December 3rd at the Alper Jewish Community Center. 

When contacted by the Boston Globe about her cameo in Stan Lee’s comic she’s reported to have responded: Lopez said she wouldn’t be caught dead being a reporter, even in a comic strip….  Why don’t you live your own?”If you read the segment, the character Maria Lopez doesn’t even look at all like the TV judge.

The South East Chapter of the National Cartooning Society will be converging on Gainsville (GA) on November 4th for their annual convention (tentative schedule posted on their web site). A selection of artwork by SECNCS members is now on exhibit at Gainsville State College through November 8th.

Jules Feiffer has been honored by the School of Visual Arts on Tuesday of this week.  The school held a reception and dinner in his honor to kick off a new exhibit called The Masters Series: Jules Feiffer.  The exhibit contains works of art that span his 50 year career of cartoons, illustrations and water colors.

In an effort to create buzz around the coming release of the first Girls & Sports book (Opening Lines, Pinky Probes, and L-Bombs: The Girls & Sports Dating and Relationship Playbook), Andrew Feinstein and Justin Borus have created the first Girls & Sports short animation and have posted it on YouTube.

Tom Spurgeon over at Comics Reporter points us to the Diesel Sweeties web site where Rich Stevens, the creator of the web comic Diesel Sweeties (that will be syndicated nationally beginning on January 8, 2007) has received a cease-and-desist letter from LucasFilm LTD regarding a variety of t-shirts that Rich sells on his web site.

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown will be celebrating its 40th anniversary on the air this Friday night. The Halloween special was created after the enormous success of A Charlie Brown Christmas.  Also airing tomorrow night is You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown – another special created in 1972 about Linus running for school president. The show has a Great Pumpkin subplot.

For the second week in a row, an editorial cartoonist has been given the proverbial pink slip.  This time Scott Nychay of the Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, Il) according the the AAEC. Scott has been with the paper for the last eight years and has won numerous awards for the paper and even helped raise $50,000 for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami victims through reprints of his cartoons.

The list comes out every year and Charles M. Schulz is typically second only to Elvis, but this year’s Forbes list of the Top-Earning Dead Celebrities, Sparky drops to number three as Kurt Cobain comes from out of no where to take the top honor.  Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love sold a 25% stake in Nirvana’s song catalog to a New York music publishing company for a reported $50 million – which put Cobain on the list – at the top.

Last May, Paul Combs announced that he was leaving his editorial cartooning position with the Tampa Tribune to return back to Ohio.  He hinted that there were cartoon related opportunities possibilities awaiting and now Editor & Publisher reports that Paul will be doing three cartoons a week with Tribune Media Services and will also be doing local cartoons for The Crescent-News in Defiance, Ohio.  He’ll continue to do firefighting (his occupation before he got into editorial cartooning).