Seems like the value of original cartoon art is rising. Heritage Auctions recently sold the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles illustration for $71,700. It was drawn by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle co-creator Kevin Eastman back in 1983. The winning bidder was anonymous. Profits of the auction go to The Hero Initiative, a non-profit he is active with that provides a financial safety net for comic artists and writers.

Four Iranian cartoonists were recipients of this year’s Cartooning for Peace award. The winners were Mana Neyestani, Kianoush, Firoozeh Mozaffari and Hassan Karimzadeh. The award is to honor cartoonists “whose talent, contribution and commitment to the values of tolerance, freedom and peace.” An international jury included three cartoonist: New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly, Swiss cartoonist Patrick Chappatte (this year’s winner of the Thomas Nast Award) and French cartoonist Jean Plantu.

An exhibit of their work will be on display for the public until June 3rd in Lake Geneva Switzerland.

Via: Mike Rhode

Glenn Fleishman writes about the uptick in recognition for Matt Bors who was honored this year as a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Herblock Award winner and the SPJ Sigma Delta Chi Award.

He’s scruffy, doesn’t own a suit, and lives in Portland. He expresses withering contempt at politicians, mainstream media, and what he views as hypocrisy. He’s never made more than $15,000 a year from his cartoons, and supplements that income with illustration, freelance editorial jobs, and, possibly, blood plasma—at least he did in college; he has the scar to prove it.

The 28-year-old Bors was thus a bit surprised this year, and occasionally nonplussed, when he won the Herblock Prize for “excellence in editorial cartooning,” was a finalist (with Oregonian newspaper staffer Jack Ohman) for the Pulitzer Prize, and received a Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award.

[expletive], Matt, when did you [expletive] sell out?

He didn’t. The establishment came to him after a stellar run of cartoons in 2011, in which he sent up the pope, climate deniers, Ariana Huffington, the death of newspapers, Mitt Romney, marriage inequality, and our Kenyan-born, American-citizen killing, war-loving, extrajudicial president (who we love dearly and are praying, to all our gods and Richard Dawkins, gets re-elected).

The first contest (single panel) starts Monday, June 11th and the comic strip starts on Monday August 27. The winners will be announced on November 5th – the day before the general presidential election.

Last month I mentioned that Jake Parker had launched a Kickstarter project to raise money to create a hard cover collection of some of his short stories. The estimated amount he’d need was $6,000. With one day left he’s raised over $77,000. If you haven’t checked out his work, I encourage you to do so. Throughout the process Jake has been adding a lot of extras to the project when the pledges hit certain milestones – which I think is pretty clever to keep donations flowing. Watching Jake’s project for the last month has taught me two things: set your pledge goal high enough to cover any of your actual costs if the project is funded but low enough that it is more likely to be funded.

It probably doesn’t hurt to have hordes of fans.

It is, I suppose, no surprise. After all, comic books, like movies, are built around the idea of long-form visual storytelling. Popular characters are often elevated to mythic proportions and the rapid pace and eye toward action make them natural film properties. Comic strips, on the other hand, are another story.

Although filmmakers have long striven to exploit the built-in audience newspaper comic strips enjoy, the results have, by and large, been uneven and forgettable.

My college newspaper advisor had saying, “Save now. Save Often.” It’s been my mantra ever since. That and having an external hard drive.

Via Scott Johnson

Michael Cavna reports that the Washington Post pulled a recent Zits because it was “mite too graphic and gruesome as breakfast-table fare“. Zits co-creator Jim Borgman wrote on the Zits blog, “sometimes we push the envelope on purpose, but we never saw this one coming.”

This Arctic Circle strip by Alex Hallatt was killed by her editor in the sketch stage because it was “too suggestive of male enhancement.” and editors might think Alex was “trying to sneak in something too ‘adult’ for their taste.”

Joe Frankenstein, a comic book by Graham Nolan (illustrator of Rex Morgan, M.D. and his own webcomic Sunshine State) and Chuck Dixon (comic book writer on Batman), has been picked up by IDW.

Great news Joe fans! We have found a publisher! The good folks over at IDW Publishing have agreed to help us bring our favorite monster to life! This is a great relief to Chuck and I because now we know we have a home. And what a home! IDW publishes some wonderful stuff and it’s always top quality!

As with most publishers, we won’t be receiving an advance to help us produce the product but that’s where you can help. We will be soliciting investors shortly through the Kickstarter program and offering some amazing incentives. We’ll keep you posted when we get our page up and running.