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Comic strips New Launches

King Features to launch My Cage on May 6th

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King Features is set to launch a new comic feature on May 6th called My Cage – a manga-influenced strip by Melissa DeJesus (artist) and Ed Power (writer).

From the press release:

The strip’s name is a parody of the monolithic “My Space” social networking site and is comprised of vignettes that explore the trials and tribulations of an inner circle of anthropomorphized animals, who are mostly in their twenties and thirties. The lead character of “My Cage” is Norman, a young 20-something platypus who wants to be a world-famous writer, but has found himself stuck in a less than fulfilling middle-management job that pays the bills but eats away a little more of his soul each day.

Norm always expected to have a creative job that gave him some type of fulfillment and is stunned to be surrounded by people who feel that a job is just a paycheck and are satisfied with that notion. This concept is alien to Norm, and thus alienates him from his co-workers a lot of the time. Norm’s saving graces are his sweet girlfriend Bridget, his lovable pet amoeba Squishy, and a few oddball co-workers, who amuse him through the tedium of each eight-hour work day.

So far the feature is launching in 30 newspapers including: Houston Chronicle, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Chicago Sun-Times, St. Paul Pioneer Press and Madison Capital Times. You can see more My Cage stuff over on My Space.

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Comments 15

  1. What????
    Have they lost their minds over at King Features??

  2. Congratulations, Melissa and Ed! 30 papers is a very respectable launch.

    Good luck to you both. I look forward to adding My Cage to my DailyINK page.

  3. Thanks Norm! Oh, and btw, we didn’t name the platypus after you. (Just once I bet you wish someone did name a platypus after you though, right?) And I love ‘Retail’ btw.

    And ROB:

    “What????
    Have they lost their minds over at King Features?? ”

    LMAO! That’s the best reaction! I nearly actually L’d my A off when I read it.

    Anyway, I hope everyone likes the strip! Go read the samples on our myspace blog! We’ll be posting more as we get closer to the launch.

  4. “And ROB:

    â??What????
    Have they lost their minds over at King Features?? �

    LMAO! Thatâ??s the best reaction! I nearly actually Lâ??d my A off when I read it.

    Anyway, I hope everyone likes the strip! Go read the samples on our myspace blog! Weâ??ll be posting more as we get closer to the launch.”

    What an excellent response! You seem to be a very positive, upbeat person, and it shows in your strip samples too.
    I look forward to reading more strips from you.
    Congratulations!

  5. Cindermain,

    Thanks! But, hey..what’s not to be positive about? I’M A SYNDICATED CARTOONIST!!!

    That’s been a dream of mine since my granfather used to read the Sunday funnies to me when I was a kid!

    Heck, even if ROB’s is the best comment this story gets, it’s been such a great pleasure working with the late great Jay Kennedy (who really the nicest guy ever), Brendan Burford (Not just of KFS fame, but also of ‘Syncopated Comics’ fame as well), Karen Moy (writer of Mary Worth) and, of course, meeting and working with my wonderful artist Melissa DeJesus (who may very well be the most talented person alive today [NOTE: If you haven’t read her ‘Sokora Refugees’, you should!]) that I’ve already had the greatest work experience of my life.

    Everything else is just icing. 😉

  6. I love the Brains Trust (have you ever read “The Numbskulls”? About characters who ran a guys brain. It was in a British comic and aimed at kids, so it is good to see something like it in an adult form.). And since Far Side stopped being written, there haven’t been enough amoebae on the funny pages.

    Go My Cage!

  7. Actually, Ed, you seem almost TOO positive. It’s kinda creepy.

    Kiddingly Yours,
    Scott
    TRIPLE TAKE

  9. “Actually, Ed, you seem almost TOO positive. Itâ??s kinda creepy.”

    Here’s something even creepier Scott…ROB is actually my evil self-loathing second personality, but let’s keep that on the d.l. ok?

    Lefitte,

    Hellz yeah the Sundays are beautiful! Melissa is one of those artists who blows the doors off any medium she works in!

  10. Looks cool. The Brain Trust is a brilliant idea.
    I’ll definitely check this one out.
    Ed, do you have any idea how many samples King Features will put on its website?

  11. Thanks Chris!

    Thanks for the kind words.

    As it says above, we debut May 6th. At that point they’ll begin running out strip on their site and on their subscription service DailyInk.com.

    I’m not sure how long they’ll run daily updates of it on their site. I thought it was only the first month, but their last strip (the Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee) is still running for free and that started in papers in November.

    So long answer made short: I don’t know.

    😀

  12. Hmmm…I don’t know why that cut off. Here’s the rest of my answer:

    But, eventually KFS will stop running the strip for free, showing only the first week of the previous month.

    After that, if we’re not in your local paper, you’ll be able to read us by subscribing to DailyInk.com, which allows you to read all KFS’s current strips (and archives) as well as archives of some of their classic strips, such as Krazy Kat and Flash Gordon. All for only $15 a year!

    That right for less than the price of a cup of coffee each day you can feed a starving cartoonist!

    Yeah…I tow the comapny line…so what? 😉

  13. Hey Ed, it was nice meeting you and Melissa in NY. Send me an e-mail when you get a minute.

    -Norm-

  14. What ever happened to Sokora Refugees?

  15. Dear Ed Power and Melissa De Jesus

    On Sunday, December 2nd, 2007, your comic had some line about the “meaning of life”. I forgot to copy it down, but wish I had. Can you send me a link to that particular strip?

    Thanks a lot!

    Carolyn
    caraga333@yahoo.com

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