A Nashville entrepreneur is trying to launch a weekly 6-page comic page delivered via mail.
From the press release:
Seeking to preserve a uniquely American art form, Nashville based media entrepreneur Logan Sekulow announced the launch of Laugh-O-Gram?, a weekly, family friendly comic strip only newspaper delivered by mail. Acknowledging the importance of grassroots support, Sekulow chose Kickstarter to launch the paper.
Each issue of Laugh-O-Gram will feature six full-color pages of classic and original comics. The paper hopes to bring the funnies to a new generation, while retaining what made them appealing to the pre-2000s generation. The paper will be printed on newsprint and delivered directly to the mailboxes of subscribers.
Classic titles include Peanuts, Garfield, Family Circus, Beatle Bailey, Amazing Spiderman, Popeye, Dennis the Menace, Zits, Ziggy, Baby Blues, Hi and Lois, The Phantom, Dilbert, FoxTrot, Nancy and more. Along with the classics, Laugh-O-Gram is fostering a new generation of comics through original content by accomplished and aspiring cartoonists.
With traditional newspaper subscriptions in decline, Sekulow saw a need to save the ?funny pages.?
The paper will also include new titles such as:
- The Kid In Me by Noah – Celebrating the kid in each one of us. Some of us imagined being a doctor; others, an attorney.
- Px – The Life of a Punk Rock misfit with a love for music. Based on the original character the Pokinatcha Punk, the icon of the band MxPx.
- Middle C by Jon Schneck- The unintentionally hilarious life of a brilliant middle child.
- ArtMan – Art History Teacher by day, Superhero… kind of.
- Retails – The story of a nervous turtle named Jitter making his way in the hectic world of retail and relationships.
- Zaob – Guerrilla warfare takes place on a grand scale between two mischievous siblings and their homeschool parents.
Personally, I’d like to see more original content.
Kickstarter doesn’t do embedded video, so I can’t post the pitch video here, but if you’re interested in learning more or help funding this venture, head over to Kickstarter. They say they need $15k.
“Only ships to: United States”…. ARRGH!!!
Thanks for posting the press release. We plan to expand our original content , we just need to build the financial base to afford it. We can easily expand to 8-10 pages etc.
As for Canada – shipping is a beast. Want to run LOG Canada?
Hasn’t this been tried before? I seem remember somebody else doing this, but the whole project turned sour. (They ran a comics-only newspaper, too. It was mailed to subscribers, but I think it was mostly established strips and panels.)
Back in the 1970s, I subscribed to several years to two comics-only publications: The “Menomonee Falls Guardian” was a weekly tabloid printed on a nice, fairly thick newsprint. It featured about 35 humorous strips, the six dailies for the week printed together. If I remember correctly, it also featured the Sunday toon. Among the strips were Alley Oop, B.C., Beetle Bailey, Boon Dock, Broom Hilda, Conchy, Frank & Ernest, Gasoline Alley, Krazy Kat, Pogo, Popeye, Sam’s Strip, Tumbleweeds and others. The “Menomonee Falls Gazette” ran American and British continuity strips, including Batman, Buck Rogers, Buz Sawyer, Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, Garth, Little Orphan Annie, Mandrake the Magician, Modesty Blaise, Prince Valiant, The Spirit, Steve Canyon, Superman, Tarzan, and Terry and the Pirates. The publications lasted for several years. I was sorry when they closed shop.
There was a time when you could charge a little extra for foreign subscriptions and mail things pretty nearly anywhere.
I know this won’t apply to my strip, but are they accepting submissions?
This is fantastic! Absolute best of luck on this endeavor, Logan.
To answer some questions…
Has this been tried before – we had not heard of one, after we launched we found out about a few that are defunct. Most of them were released when the majority of people got their content from the newspaper. This is a unique situation, where we are trying to bring a specific experience to the customer.
Keith – Yes! We are taking submissions. Mainly this will be after our Kickstarter has a successful campaign, but email me at logan@laughogram.co
David – Thanks for the support and I hope you (and everyone else) considers backing our project.