The character watch is simple enough to define … It’s simply nothing more, nor less, than a watch with a cartoon or other character on the dial, and although I can’t look at any character watch that doesn’t have moving character hands without feeling disappointed, the truth is that there are millions of character watches that have conventional watch hands. As a matter of fact, the very first documented character watch, which had the comic strip character Buster Brown on the dial, was such a watch –animated character watches, which have characters with moving character hands, didn’t show up until 1933, when the first Mickey Mouse watch came out.
Jack Forster, at Hodinkee, gives us a history of the character watch.
Comic strip author/creator Gene Weingarten is trending due to his other newspaper job.
The Washington Post column has since been criticized by celebrity chefs, top diplomats and people of Indian descent on Twitter, as they called out the author for his diminishing opinion[:]
In an August 22 Washington Post op-ed titled, “You can’t make me eat these foods,” Weingarten focused on various foods he refuses to eat and why.
However, when discussing his dislike for Indian food, he wrote: “the only ethnic cuisine in the world is insanely based entirely on one spice.
“If you think Indian curries taste like something that could knock a vulture off a meat wagon, you do not like Indian food. I don’t get it, as a culinary principle,” he added.
Israel Salas-Rodriguez, at The Sun, details the who, what, and why.
Whereas comic strip author/creator Hector Cantu is being feted.
For the first time, students at the University of Texas at Dallas can learn how to create a comic strip via a new Comics Workshop taught this semester by a Dallas-based syndicated cartoonist.
The class falls under the university’s Creative Writing program, along with classes like Poetry and Screenwriting, and is being taught by Hector Cantu, co-creator of Baldo, the first comic strip to feature a Latino family.
His class will cover the fundamentals of comics and graphic storytelling, shaping a story, developing a plot and script, working with an artist, preparing a proposal, and tips on how to get published. He’ll also cover graphic novels, which have become extremely popular in recent years.
Teresa Gubbins, at Culture Map-Dallas, covers the celebrity news.
In related comics and classroom news Brian Fies informs us,
I’m excited and proud to announce that Pop Culture Classroom has created a Teaching Guide for A Fire Story that I think is excellent.
The guide is a six-page (free!) PDF meant for teachers who want to teach the book to students. It sums up settings, characters and key themes, and suggests research, discussion questions and essay ideas for the students. The guide also connects A Fire Story to Common Core standards for grades 11 and 12, and finally provides a list of books, games, and online information related to the topic.
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Ginger Meggs stamps join Ginger Meggs coins as the centennial celebration nears.