Comics Changes in the Tampa Bay Times and the Aberdeen American News
Want even more evidence that people care about comics?
Nearly 10,000 readers completed our survey to help find a replacement for Non Sequitur. That’s more than the number of people who cast ballots for the runner-up in the Tampa mayoral election.
And the big winner of our comics survey is … Sherman’s Lagoon with 42 percent of the vote.
Rubes came in second with 28 percent. Candorville finished a distant third at 13 percent. And Nancy landed in last place.
Poor Nancy. Our temporary Non Sequitur replacement actually trailed the category “No Favorite/Can’t Decide” which earned 841 votes, slightly more than 8 percent of the total. Nancy got 803 votes.
And so the people have spoken.
Sherman’s Lagoon, which we have featured for the past three years in the Sunday paper, will begin running seven days a week starting March 31 —
In the Aberdeen, South Dakota, American News:
I can sense how much many of you love the Macanudo comic strip!
OK, that’s sarcasm. After a couple letters to the editor from people who don’t appreciate Macanudo, I have had a series of calls, notes and messages from other folks who agree.
Understood. It’s never going to be the favorite comic in the newspaper.
That said, it’s not going anywhere, at least in the near future. However, there is some good news. We are adding some comic strips starting today. Nothing is being lost, but four new comics are being added.
This change includes the return of Beetle Bailey. The other new comics are Dennis the Menace, Crankshaft and Dustin.
Letter to the Editor about Macanudo:
Ditto from me to all five of the letters to the editor printed March 24 regarding the cancellation of “Non Sequitur.”
And you are replacing it with “Macanudo”? The one line of text in last Sunday’s strip – “I’m hallucivaping” – is what you want to promote? Drug culture?
Whoever is making these decisions needs their head examined!
Meanwhile in the Santa Fe New Mexican:
Macanudo, the popular comic strip from Argentinian artist Liniers, is making its daily debut this week on The New Mexican’s comics page.
The New Mexican is trying out several comics over the next few months. Macanudo, which is also running in the paper’s Sunday comics section, replaces Nancy.
above: the two Fantastic Four covers to be featured as Mutts tribute strips (images via GCD)
Mutts and Joe Sinnott
Mutts creator Patrick McDonnell from a March 22 missive:
On Sunday, March 24, the MUTTS comic strip will pay tribute to the Marvel comic series Fantastic Four and the series’ creators Jack Kirby and Stan Lee.
This Sunday’s strip, along with a second tribute strip scheduled to be published next month, will be inked by legendary Marvel comics artist Joe Sinnott, whose work on the series began in 1961 with Fantastic Four #44 and continued through the 1980s. Sinnott, who retired on March 17 at age 92, is also revered for inking Thor, the Avengers, and the Amazing Spider-Man comic strip, among others.
“I have always been a fan of Jack Kirby and his inker Joe Sinnott,” says MUTTS creator Patrick McDonnell. “To have this legendary artist ink a MUTTS strip is something I could never have imagined.”
“I’ve always been a fan of the MUTTS strip and read it daily in my local newspaper. When I received the pencil art pages to ink, I was so thrilled to see them done as recreations of two of my favorite Fantastic Four covers that I had the pleasure to ink: #51: This Man This Monster, and #67: The Power Of HIM,” Sinnott said.
“I want to thank Patrick for letting me team up with him on these two strips, and to be a small part of the MUTTS family.”
George Booth: The New Yorker’s Funniest Cartoonist
Fifty years after selling his first cartoon to The New Yorker, George Booth still finds great joy in putting pen to paper in varying projects in an effort to make people laugh. He has slowed down, but has not stopped. “Cartooning brings me pleasure more so than ever,” he states. “I see more than I ever did; I hear more than I ever did. It’s like being a fine painter. I believe the more you paint, the more do you it, the more you love it. And that’s the way it should be.”
Don Vaughan profiles George Booth for Print.
The New Yorker’s God
We can’t say much for certain about God, but we definitely know about Cartoon God: He’s an old guy with flowing white hair and a beard, He wears a white robe, and He lives in the clouds. True, it’s a theologically simplistic vision of the Almighty, not to mention paternalistic and sexist. But Cartoon God is immediately recognizable, and immediacy is central to most cartoons.
You DO know that Bob Mankoff’s Cartoon Collections has a regular column about its cartoons, right?
This week it is about Cartoon God.
Are cartoons about God potentially less offensive than cartoons about Jesus? Probably. Maybe it’s because Jesus was a real person, with four biographers to boot, and his earthly existence did not end well. Making light of a such a figure is a tall order for cartoonists. God, on the other hand, exists as much as a thought as a corporeal being. Maybe He exists, in some form, somewhere, perhaps male, perhaps female, or perhaps both or neither, but in any case is someone—we can only hope—with a sense of humor.
above: selected from a Mike Lynch/Dick Buchanan post
If you would like to thank Gahan Wilson for decades of laughs,
consider donating to Help Gahan Wilson Fund.
below: selected from a Monster Brains post
