It’s been a while since I last posted a story about some of the newspaper industry happenings, but I thought this story about McClatchy selling the Philadelphia Daily News and Inquirer to a local Philadelphia group was important for one reason: The new owners do not intend to lay off any staff at either paper. That means editorial cartoonists Signe Wilkinson and Tony Auth’s jobs are safe.
The Chicago Tribune has a story of a “Mr. Boffo” cartoon (created by Joe Martin) that depicted White Sox slugger Paul Konerko hitting a home run…. Joe was going to use Barry Bonds in the comic, but decided against it because he wasn’t sure if Barry would be in jail.
Dave Astor of Editor and Publisher has a great write up regarding the upcoming transition in leadership at Universal Press Syndicate when Lee Salem succeeds Bob Duffy as president of the company.
Earlier this month, Dave Coverly opened up the second “Speed Bump” caption contest with a window of less than two months to receive submissions. According to his web site, Dave has received nearly 4,000 entries!Originally the winner was to be announced on the 27th during the Reuben Awards weekend, but he has postponed the announcement until “mid-June” – presumably due to the large number of entries.
The new Garfield movie “A Tail of Two Kitties” opens up in theaters on June 16 and the first Garfield movie will be re-released on DVD as a collectors edition by Fox Home Entertainment. The collectors version will have several special features such as: games, 10 jigsaw puzzles, 17 deleted scenes, a Garfield documentary, story board and of course the ever popular feature often called “and a whole lot more.”If that wasn’t enough, two new Garfield books will be published next month according to E&P.
Yesterday I mentioned David Horsey had taken first place for editorial cartooning in the Western Washington SPJ, but he’s not the only cartoonist to go home with an award. Milt Priggee who draws for the Puget Sound Business Journal has also took first place in the category of “cartoons” (meaning local business editorial cartoons) and again in “illustrations.”