This week a U.S. District Court has found that Apple Computer “facilitated a conspiracy” to fix ebook prices when it rolled out its iPad in 2010. From Time.com:?The plaintiffs have shown that the publisher defendants conspired with each other to eliminate retail price competition in order to raise e-book prices, and that Apple played a […]
Columbia University Libraries has announced they have acquired the archives of famed MAD Magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee. The donation will include “artwork for Esquire and Playboy magazines, notebooks of ideas for Humbug and Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal, press clippings, tracings for cartoons in The Moshiach Times, fan mail, photocopies of strips never offered for […]
Rob Tornoe, writing for Editor & Publisher, has an interesting read about the current state of newspaper syndication. He confirms what most of us have observed in the last few years – new comic launches are few and far between. It’s a good read with a lot of information on the syndicates’ offerings both in […]
Tim Eagan points out the obvious in Deep Cover, and I don’t know why he bothers.I don’t know why I bother to pass it on.I’d say that Jesus spent half his ministry criticizing religious hypocrites who quote Scripture to explain why they don’t follow Scripture, but that wouldn’t be true.At least, I don’t think it’s […]
President Obama came to the rescue in Tuesday’s The Amazing Spider-Man after the famed web-slinger needed to board a plane but couldn’t get past TSA agents while wearing his mask. The TSA agents offered to escalate Spidey’s request to higher authorities. Apparently TSA agents have access to President Obama for such cases as masked super […]
David Horsey saved me from doing something I really didn’t want to.I was thinking about creating an empty box with “Sorry — No Cartoon Available” in the middle and running it as a comment on how cartoonists have missed the target with the Egyptian whatever-it-is. Coup. Restructuring. Revolution. Reformation.It’s been a little disorienting, in fact: […]
Here are yesterday and today’s episodes of “Gil.”When this strip first started, I had some serious reservations about the character of Gil’s father. As a divorced dad myself, I don’t take kindly to “deadbeat dad” portrayals, in part because it’s a stereotype and in part because it’s accurate enough to be an embarrassment to the […]
Over on Listverse.com, someone has posted their top 10 Greatest Syndicated Comic Strips In American History. Their picks: 10. Krazy Kat 9. Liberty Meadows 8. Garfield 7. Li’l Abner 6. Opus 5. Doonesbury 4. Peanuts 3. Pogo 2. The Far Side 1. Calvin and HobbesYou can head over and read the justifications for each of […]
Edison Lee coincidentally, and with his usual deadpan elan, provides an entry point for today’s sermonette with an homage to “Bloom County.” Or was that “Opus”?That is, it was Opus the Penguin who famously could not resist infomercials offering turnip twaddlers. But he did it in “Bloom County.” “Bloom County” was a landmark strip that ran […]
I took in Despicable Me 2 last Wednesday. So did a lot of other folks. The animated sequel was the top feature film for the five-day Fourth of July weekend taking in an estimated $142.1 million. As a comparison, Toy Story 3 took in $141 million its opening weekend. As far as my thoughts on […]
Chuck Asay retired from The Gazette back in 2007, but continued to draw his syndicated editorial cartoons. The Gazette announced yesterday that he is stepping away from the drawing board completely. Above was his last cartoon. From Wayne Laugesen, his editor: Chuck skewered the left and held nothing back. He wasn’t polite. He wasn’t safe. […]
Joel Pett on the mote in Africa’s eye and the beam in our own.It’s a challenging cartoon that brings up all sorts of arguments over history, over foreign policy, over shared humanity, over perspective.The other day, I touched on naming conventions and how various people tend to refer to themselves as “people” and then find […]
Some months ago I came across the Pogo Connect iPad stylus online. The device boasts that it is a unique pressure sensitive pen for the iPad. Since pressure sensitivity is one of the missing features of drawing on a tablet, I was curious if the pen lived up to its claims. At $79.95, it’s not […]
Francesco Marciuliano is so good at being a wiseass that it’s easy to overlook the depth required for true wiseassery, as opposed to knee-jerk, calculatedly-irreverent, frat-boy/morning zoo stuff. This is not the first time he’s taken off the jester’s hat at Sally Forth, but he’s rarely this straightforward, and that is a good reason why the strip […]
Jeff Koterba on the tempest-in-a-teacup over naming Pluto’s newest moons.Egypt isn’t the only place where asking people what they want can result in problems when what they want isn’t what they ought to want or what you wanted them to want or, at the very least, what you (in your wisdom) feel is best for […]