Pearls Before Swine creator Stephan Pastis was interviewed by the Duluth News Tribune who picked up his strip along with Blondie (see my post on Dean Young and Blondie). The interviewer takes Stephan into a line of questioning about the passing a comic strip on to a younger generation to produce. It’s a strongly worded […]

The Duluth News Tribune picked up Blondie and talked to Dean Young who now produces the comic his father created. Here’s the interesting tidbit: DNT: How about yourself growing up? What impact did the strip have on you? DY: I wanted to be something else. I wanted to own an ad agency. I can?t believe […]

Last Sunday Tom Richmond gave attendees of the Success in Comics seminar a sneak peek at art he created for an upcoming MAD Magazine where he was asked to blend caricatures of Honey Boo Boo with the art and style of Bil Keane’s Family Circus. From his website: I have occasionally added cartoon characters in […]

Kickstarter can solve any problem.In a universe in which the word “any” means “a rather specific type of.”I don’t think, for instance, “being stranded on a desert island” is the sort of problem Kickstarter can solve, despite today’s Non Sequitur.But I do think Wiley’s sarcasm is well-placed, and it’s not often that such a shall-we-say-familiar […]

Brian Duffy wins points today simply for not doing a cartoon of a stranded cruise ship labeled “Congress,” which is sort of like winning a tournament because none of the other teams showed up. But aside from not climbing onto that tiresome and utterly foreseeable bandwagon, and even among cartoonists who have addressed the Olympic committee’s […]

“Freshly Squeezed” brings back a memory of the kickoff to my second bachelorhood. Not a good memory or a bad memory but a “scratch your head” memory. Entering second bachelorhood is a moment of re-orientation, so I suppose it varies considerably, depending on your first bachelorhood and what you learned in the interim, as well […]

The third Success in Comics seminar is over. It was the first time it was held on the East Coast. The previous two seminars were held in Las Vegas. For those not familiar with the Success in Comics seminar, it’s organized by Tundra creator Chad Carpenter and his marketing/sales guy Bill Kellogg and it focuses […]

Chad Carpenter started his comic panel Tundra 21 years ago as a local comic in Alaska and it has since become the largest self-syndicated comic strip in the US boasting a client list of over 500 papers.Notes: Chad’s from Wasilla, Alaska and has been doing Tundra for 21 years. He was the most well known […]

Bill Kellogg is the marketing/sales person for the Tundra operation. He hooked up with Chad in 2005 to sell Tundra outside of Alaska. Tundra has since become the largest self-syndicated comic in the US.Notes: My job is to sell to newspapers To get into papers you must have a packet typically with 24 b/w strips; […]

Amy Lago is the comics editor at Washington Post News Service (previously Washington Post Writers Group). She’s one of the best in the business. She walked through the stuff you can’t put in your comics if you’re publishing in newspapers.Notes Presentation title: How to succeed in comics without really trying Newspapers have a lot of […]

Tom Gammill is a comedy writer. He’s worked on Seinfeld, David Letterman, Saturday Night Live and currently a writer on The Simpsons.Notes: Tom Gammill reviews how he got into writing and attributes it to his early attempts to write comics “You need to be nice to everyone” Tom showed us his early cartoons from his […]

Mark Simon is a cartoonist, illustrator and animation producer. He gives a presentation called How to get millions of dollar with free advertising. Notes: How to get millions of dollar with free advertising Promotion is advertising What is promotion? Any coverage in media that you don’t pay for Promotion always tells a story; you give […]

Mark Anderson is a single panel gag cartoonists who’s sold cartoons to some of the best known magazines. He also has developed one of the best pay-per-use comic sites on the web.Notes: Presentation Title: Finding your Path Mark grew up in Iowa and loved cartoons; Bill Hoest was a big influence in determining to go […]

Tom Richmond is a MAD Magazine cartoonist, freelance illustrator and current president of the National Cartoonist Society.Notes: Presentation: How to be a successful freelance illustrator Went to school in Wisconsin. Didn’t learn a thing about cartooning. It wasn’t very a positive environment Started drawing caricatures during the summer job in Chicago He wanted to be […]

Stephen Silver is an caricaturist, illustrator, character designer and I dare say and after listening to him, I’d add motivational speaker for those in the arts.Notes: Nothing just happens. Effort determines the outcome Find what your passion is, make it your career Stephen grew up in England but family migrated to US Stephen would loiter […]