Bleeker: The Rechargeable Dog creator Jonathan Mahood is profiled on Wired.com about his feature that went into syndication in January.
GD: Where does your character(s) come from? Have you been doodling Bleeker sketches since childhood?
JM: I?ve been drawing comics since I was a kid but I created Bleeker and launched him online about 5 years ago. At the time I kind of joked that I had two constant, loyal companions?my dog and my iPod. Also around that time I was seeing news stories about parents using cell phones to keep track of their kids. I figured it would be funny to combine them into a super gadget/robot that did double duty as a traditional pet and as a parental monitoring device. Since I?m also a bit of a gadget junkie, I really wanted to tap into the world of consumer electronics, with all of the apps, accessories and constant upgrades. It?s impossible to run out of story ideas! Plus, who wouldn?t want to have a robot sidekick?
It’s a great strip and I hope all the new devices will give kids a way of seeing it, as the old device (newspaper) doesn’t.
How do kids discover comics now?