It’s been a long road for many cartoonists the past two and a half months since submissions opened for the Amazon Comic Strip Superstar Contest.  But today, Andrews McMeel Publishing and Amazon.com announced the winning comic strip, Girl, by Dana Simpson.  We send a big ZING out to Dana!

Girl gets a book publishing deal, a spot on gocomics.com, and a development contract with Universal Press Syndicate for a possible future in the newspapers.  From what I’ve seen of the examples, I think she’s got a great chance to take the strip far!

Not that success couldn’t be found on newsprint but I don’t think syndication is really where cartoonists want to head these days.  See our previous post about the launch of the Comic Strip Superstar contest.

From Germany’s top fifteen bloggers comes a declaration of the future of journalism dubbed “The Internet Manifesto – How journalism works today.”

As Zingerding takes shape, the subject of new media continues to be a driving force in building our platform.  Zingerding is about releasing the art form of comic strips from their ties to newspapers and reinventing not only the business model, but the culture surrounding them for the internet age.  Cartoonists are journalists whose pens don’t stop at the written word, but advance into the realm of the aesthetic.

The Internet Manifesto more or less covers Zingerding’s theories on journalism.  There are cartoonists on all sides of the fence, as are writers in the world of news reporting.  But as the Manifesto points out, it’s not a question of old media vs. new media (newspapers vs. bloggers, web cartoonists, etc.), it’s about journalism’s inevitable adaptation to the new.

Zingerding is that very adaptation, built specifically for the comic strip and its creators.

To say we live in uncertain times is an understatement:

• The U.S. economy is in a deep recession and the pillars of our economy, banks, are failing left and right.
• We’re in two wars and peace in the Middle East seems even further away than before.
• Global warming is making our weather wackier.

Even though we just inaugurated a new President who is calm, cool, and collected, it’s hard to chill out.  I think it’s human nature to worry, to see all the potential pitfalls when things are looking a little glum.  It doesn’t seem to matter that we’ve been through things like this before.  It always feels different and it’s human nature to expect the worst.

Comic strips, especially funny ones, have always been a great daily escape.  I got through the early 1990s  reading the daily funnies.   My enthusiasm of graduating from college was being severely tempered by a recession, a war in Iraq, and a Bush in the White House (sounds familiar, huh).  My daily read of the paper started with the funny pages: Far Side, Calvin & Hobbes, and the newly started Dilbert got my day going right.

But what about today?  Newspapers are shedding comic strips left and right. Most strips online are difficult to read en masse: you have to go to their individual websites to see them.  Where can we get the same experience as a daily strip read online?   Fortunately, there are a few options but they have some limitations:

• Comics Curmudgeon – This blog compiles many of the popular comic strips today into one easily scannable read.  Even better, Josh Fruhlinger, the author, provides great color commentary on the comics.  While it’s a great compilation, it isn’t necessarily your compilation.  What Josh likes may not be what you like (and vice versa).  Still, if you need a way to get your fix, this might be it.
• iGoogle – Google’s do-it-yourself portal has a way to add any gadget under the sun, including comic strip ones.  Many popular comic strips are available to be added as an iGoogle gadget.  While this is definitely cool, you tend to be very limited with what strips can be added.  Most of the major syndicates have iGoogle gadgets so those are covered, but independent strips tend to not be there.  So, while you can get your fix, you still may be craving the strip you want.
• Zingerding (coming soon) -  Our goal is provide fans with some of the best tools to consume their comics online.  Also, all of our content will be completely independent and unique.  It’s comics the way you want them.   Sign up now to learn more.

Google Chrome is a new browser created by those whizzes at Google. It’s a pretty slick browser that replaces the address bar with search. So, instead of typing the URL, you just type the keywords of your search. It’s pretty slick and represents another evolution in how we interact with the Internet.

So, what does this have to do with comics or comic strips?

Well, the instruction manual for the application was written as a Comic Strip by Scott McCloud, author of the great tome Understanding Comics. Scott McCloud has a gift of using pictures and words to provide amazing clarity on complicated subjects. Understanding Comics is a brilliant book in that it uses the medium of comics to explain the art of comics. It’s not only a great read, it’s a great demonstration of design.

The printed version of the book is so coveted that it is being auctioned for charity on eBay.

It’s obvious that comics have come a long way from being just escapism for teenage boys.

Who Wrote the Peanuts Comic Strip? is a common question these days since it has been a long time since a new Peanuts strip was published (although Classic Peanuts are still published in many newspapers today).

Charles M. Schultz was the only author and illustrator of the Peanuts comic strip from its inception 1950 until his death in 2000. Not only is it remarkable that a 77 year old man dying of colon cancer could continue to work prolificly, but how is it possible for someone to sustain the same narrative for nearly 18,000 strips? So, it’s kind of a silly to ask the question Who Wrote the Peanuts Comic Strip? because the answer is so simple.

That being said, on another level, Who Wrote the Peanuts Comic Strip? could have a different, albeit, trite answer: You (or really the American public). What made Peanuts so sustaining was that Charles M. Schultz constantly evolved his characters and the narrative. While at the surface, the escapades of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and friends is really just a story about a kid who never seems to get his way. But, if you look a little deeper, there is a ton of social commentary embedded in the narrative:

• He commented about the Vietnam War by getting Snoopy caught up in a demonstration against the enlistment of dogs and tear-gassed with the rest of the crowd.
• He made Peppermint Patty’s independence and Franklin’s (the one African American character) integration with the rest of the “gang” non-issues
• The fact that we never see an adult’s face (and make them incomprehensible in the TV cartoons) demonstrate how adults just don’t “get” kids

At the end of the day, the answer to Who Wrote the Peanuts Comic Strip really only has one answer Charles M. Schultz. And the world (especially the comic strip world) has been somewhat silent without him.

Do you remember when you read the comics every day? I do and I miss it a ton.

I remember tearing open the paper to read the latest Far Side, something that was more important to me than the news itself.

In thinking back to those days, I had this very intimate connection with Gary Larson and the Far side: it was as if it was its own community. Gary, like me and many of my friends who loved the strip, was a math/science geek (I cried during the Calculus epic Stand and Deliver – need I say more?). His humor had a special appeal for those of us who found humor in the absurd which, after all, is what being a geek is about. At a time when geekiness was the butt of most jokes, it was vinidcating to have one of own out there in black and white (and color on Sundays) for the world to see.

(I still laugh with my friends when we talk about classic Far Sides like the one where the wife amoeba yells at her husband “Stimulus, Response! Stimulus, Response! Don’t you ever think?”)

I laughed and knew that others laughed with me. Really, The Far Side was a community gathered around the daily newspapers of the world.

But I don’t do that anymore. Why? Partially time (I’m a Dad now and have little time for anything), partially habits (I don’t read newspapers anymore), but also because I just haven’t found my strip. I haven’t found my new Far Side.

Where has it gone?

Only eight days after Johnny Hart’s death, Brant Parker, the cartoonist behind ‘The Wizard of Id’ passed away last Sunday. The two were co-creators of the strip and longtime friends. Parker also collaborated with cartoonists Bill Rechin and Don Wilder on their comic strips, Out of Bounds and Crock. Let’s hope their days are not numbered now.

Brant Parker started The Wizard of Id in 1964 with the help of Hart (as a co-writer) who was drawing the successful B.C. comic strip. Parker drew the strip until 1997 when he passed the pen to his son, Jeff Parker, who draws today’s strips.

Here are two ‘Wizzard’ strips, the first being an early strip drawn by Brant. I could not read the date on this one. The second is a modern one drawn by Jeff. I like how these two compare. It’s good to see a certain level of consistency across artists and decades.

– Click them to enlarge.

One more thing, will you cartoonists stop dying! We don’t want to have to make this a memorial blog. In the next post, I promise to bring you a thriving strip by a living cartoonist.

Here’s a Mutt and Jeff comic strip from 1913 drawn by the original creator, Bud Fisher who drew it from 1907 to 1932, which at that time it was taken over by cartoonist Al Smith. Here we have Mutt (Jeff is not in this one) applying for a job as a motorcycle cop. What I like about it is that he shows up decked out in his modern 1913 motorcycle gear, goggles and all. What’s he got wrapped around his legs?

Check out the ‘double-take’ that the cop makes. Visual devices like this are common to cartoon language these days but that’s pretty innovative stuff for 1913. The dotted line from the cop indicates his gaze (or is it Mutt’s) and then the question mark indicates his confoundedness. It kind of looks like Mutt shot a question mark out of his eyes and it bounced off of the cop’s head. Hehe. And those are some serious motion lines in the last panel.

– Click to enlarge.

This comic strip from 1929 is called ‘Merely Margy’ by illustrator, John Held Jr., well-known for capturing and defining the “roaring 20s”. His flappers became synonymous with the times and ‘Merely Margy’ is no exception. She embodied the care-free attitude of the era, lounging around teasing her numerous, mindless suitors.

The strip first appeared in 1927 and lasted into the early-1930s when he replaced it with a strip called ‘Rah Rah Rosalie’. I imagine Rosalie wasn’t that different than Margy. As the Great Depression took hold of America, the whimsy and lifestyle captured in ‘Margy’ lost its steam as did much of Held’s work, not just the comic strip.

From this example, it appears to be a pretty shallow comic strip, the characters simply playing out a gag – and a long, dragged-out gag at that. Margy herself is fairly transparent, her motives being to get as much male attention as possible from the team. The joy of the strip is Held’s artwork. His famous Art Deco style is a treat to enjoy in comic strip form. Just check out the football tackle scene, it’s delicious! And Margy is rendered so beautifully, both elegant and awkward in her high-fashion flapper style.

A few other things to note. I like the names of the football players: Arab, Noisy, Mr. Phwhen and Bull. It is funny how the skinny medics aren’t even attempting to carry Bull to the ambulance. And typical of Held’s work is the sophistication of the women while the men appear foolish.

I hope you like this treasure of a strip. Go Endgate!

– Click to enlarge and get ready to scroll.

In comic strip news, Johnny Hart, creator of B.C. and co-creator of The Wizard of Id passed away a few days ago on the 7th. He was drawing in his studio when he suffered a stroke. Hart was an old-time player in the industry, having started B.C. in 1958. He also was one of the rare cartoonists who single-handedly wrote and drew every single strip throughout the decades.

– Click to enlarge.

As usual, the syndicate is in fear of losing revenue if they allow the strip to end. So B.C. will continue forth. Apparently, Hart’s family have been helping with the strip for a few years by pulling drawings from a computer database. So the new comic strips will be digitally cut-and-pasted from old art. Hmm, it sounds like a laborious process compared to just drawing the characters. And I have no idea who’s going to write the strips.

Comic strips are such a personal expression of the cartoonist, that sometimes the predecessor inadvertently kills the strip. We’ll just have to see how B.C. fares in the coming years. Even if it plummets, that’s no guarantee the newspapers will do anything but keep printing them.

But here’s to Johnny Hart and his decades of contribution! Thanks for drawing funny cavemen leaning on rocks!