John Read has sent me a copy of the cover of the upcoming first edition of his Stay Tooned! magazine that will hopefully launch before Christmas Day. The cover offers original art from Marcus Hamilton (Dennis the Menace), John Rose (Barney Google and Snuffy Smith), Rob Corley (BoyRobo), Scott Stantis (Prickly City), Steven Butler (Sonic the Hedgehog), and Greg Cravens (The Buckets). Greg designed the cover.
Was subscription information posted on TDC before? Did I miss it?
I haven’t seen anything. John’s a regular here – what can you tell us John?
Two of the six characters depicted are the creations of long-dead cartoonists. *
That tells nearly all you need to know about comic strips today.
(* And two others were created by Scott Stantis … Hmm.)
… And two of the other characters are from VIDEO GAMES (albeit, OLD ones!), but perhaps this too is a nice way to bridge the older and younger generations.
Garey: Regarding subscription info, Iâ??ve not had time to post it on the website (which is also a work in progress) but I can tell you the magazine, a quarterly, will have a cover price of $8, and Iâ??ll certainly be happy to add your name to the list of those whoâ??ve expressed interest, if youâ??ll e-mail me at johnread3@hotmail.com.
Jboy: How does the fact that the two characters you mention come from strips so popular theyâ??ve sustained their readership for over 50 and 75 years respectively, and theyâ??re being carried on by artists hand-picked by their predecessors, tell us â??all we need to know about comic strips today?â? And even if the cover does represent some comic strip statistic, isnâ??t a mix of four new to two old good? It doesnâ??t, by the way, since the characters shown arenâ??t all in comic strips. For the record, the reason I hand-picked those specific characters was because I had a particular cover design in mind almost from the get-go, and I just thought it would be cool to feature such a mix of cartoon characters together for the first time. Those fellas were chosen because, one, they all seem to be about the same â??age,â? and, two, because the six artists are part of a larger line-up of cartoonists (eleven at last count) profiled in this first issue.
Mike: Sonic is from a video game originally, but whoâ??s the second?
Sorry, John, but I thought it was a caricature of Capcom’s MegaMan …
http://pressthebuttons.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/megaman.jpg
Now that I’m blushing, who IS it?
That’s Boyrob, a creation of animator Rob Corley. So far, he’s only appeared on the funny pages website and in a comic book or two. Rob has much bigger plans for Boyrobo.
Editor’s note: The capitalization issues in this comment (referrenced in John’s next comment) have been corrected for better readability.
Sorry about the weird caps/lower case thing. I can’t read what I’m typing in the comment box for some reason.
Mike, no need to blush about the boo-boo – after seeing MegaMan on your link, BoyRobo does look like next-gen MegaMan!
Looks great John, I can’t wait!
John R. — What’re the plans for the interior content?
lefitte: I’m modeling the content after two magazines which ceased publication in 2005 – Cartoonist PROfiles and The Aspiring Cartoonist. Profiles of professional cartoonists will take up most of every issue, with the remainder being regular columns (Norm Feuti, Tom Richmond & R.C. Harvey so far), reviews, advice, instruction & information, recommendations, and news of interest to cartoonists & wannabe cartoonists. There will be plenty of art by a myriad of well-known and up-and-coming artists; color covers with B&W interior pages.
Also, I can now announce (since I’ve just gotten back from a meeting with my printer)that the cover price will be $9.00; subscription price TBA – will be determined by mailing costs. I’m planning on offering a discount to members of the NCS, the AAEC and the NCN.
Excited about the magazine. Hope this will go out great.
Do you think shipping to Canada will be possible, John? Or will there be an e-Format?
Mike: I’ll be finding out my exact mailing costs when I talk to my local postmaster this week, but I’m sure I’ll be ABLE to send it to Canada…I just don’t know how much extra it’ll cost.
Folks, I TRIED to talk John out of this madness, but he insists on putting out a magazine that sounds really great! You’ve got some fantastic participants in the first issue. (BTW, sending a copy to Canada will be just under four bucks a pop.) Best of luck–can’t wait to see it!