The AAEC convention concluded this weekend and a few stories are still trickling in. From the prolific Editor and Publisher editor Dave Astor we have several stories: Editorial Cartoonists Group Seeks Funds Beyond Herb Block Grant:DENVER The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists has used a lot of the $150,000 Herb Block Foundation grant it received in 2004 to improve its EditorialCartoonists.com site….  The first three are Pulitzer Prize winners from 2005, 2002, and 2004, respectively, while Sack has been a Pulitzer finalist.Cartoonists’ Award Sparks Protest:The Cartoonists Rights Network (CRN) has given its Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award to the 11 Danish artists who drew the Prophet Muhammad.Cartoonists from Cuba and Algeria at U.S. Confab:The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) has two interesting guests at its convention here — a cartoonist from Algeria and another who recently defected from Cuba.Cartoonists from Cuba and Algeria at U.S. Confab:National Public Radio host Scott Simon discussed Judith Miller, Ann Coulter, Stephen Colbert, and the Danish cartoon controversy during keynote remarks at the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) convention here Saturday night.And from the Denver Post comes this report: ‘toon townJust what state are editorial cartoonists in?Editorial cartoonists see the world through a much different lens than the rest of us (read: bent).

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.

Several stories are pouring in about this year’s annual Association of American Editorial Cartoonist who are holding their convention in Denver this year.From a Rocky Mountain News comes an editorial contrasting the difference between the way the America deal with cartoons that offend a religious group versus how Europe is shrinking free speech.Dave Astor, from Editor and Publisher, has filed a related story in E&P about the heated debate regarding the roll of cartooning in free speech when it comes to topics of religions.Dave has also filed a story about former U.S. Senator Gary Hart a speaker at the convention who spoke mostly of the Iraq war and how the media isn’t telling more of the impact of the war on the individuals who served in it.

Dave Astor has a story (page 58) about the growing number of blogs that cover the cartooning industry.  Highlighted in the story are Tom Spurgeon’s Comics Reporter, The Daily Cartoonist, The Comics Curmudgeon’s Joshua Fruhlinger, and Daryl Cagle’s blog.

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.

Steve was in San Diego when Katrina hit and continue to lives there sending in his cartoons via Kinkos.The video segment of the interview is now available on Google Video.  The whole segment is 25 minutes long – Steve gets the last 10 minutes (skip ahead to 16:50 to avoid the discussion of the problems of urbanites moving to the rural areas and then complaining about the odor of the farms and ranches).

If you were to judge Ed Hall solely by the cartoons in his latest book “Diversions,” you’d quickly group him into the hate-mongering-anti-Bush crowd. What perhaps does not come through in the book is that Ed is a registered Republican and was a “W” voting resident of Florida – the state that put President George […]

For those who subscribe to the Daily Cartoonist’s RSS feeds and perhaps don’t visit the actual site, I’d like to direct your attention to the latest In Focus article….� This latest installment features editorial cartoonist Ed Hall, who I had the privilege of getting to know recently.His book is called “Diversions” and was self published back in March, and I hope you’ll take the time to read about it here on the Daily Cartoonist.