Let’s start with some King Features funnies … oh, wait it’s been two days since the last time and I have to log in, again, and check off my favorites, again. So, again, I will plead for Comics Kingdom to put a “select all” box on their favorites page that would automatically check all the titles so I can dispatch the few (most Spanish versions) I don’t include on my list instead of having to check off most of the comics EVERY TWO DAYS!.
Mutts is in reruns for a couple more months but most of the world doesn’t know that. So Music Fest News hails Patrick McDonnell using the cover of a 1956 record album as the basis for today’s Mutts title panel, and then throws in a different album cover and Mutts title panel.
Of course people getting their Mutts amusement from Comics Kingdom wouldn’t know about the title panel. Just as they wouldn’t see Dan Piraro‘s wonderful self-portrait as today’s Bizarro title panel is not included at The Kingdom.
The Daily Cartoonist’s public service contribution:
Rosebuds makes its King Features/Comics Kingdom debut today:
The Comics Kingdom site and affiliated newspaper pages (The Oregonian, Seattle Times, etc) have gone kablooey as I am trying to write this entry.
Oh well let’s muddle through as best we can with USA Today’s comics site which, unfortunately hasn’t added Supr Dee‘s Rosebuds yet.
Comic characters cartooning.
While Curtis mopes, Uhura takes the initiative and creates in Herb and Jamaal.
Big Nate also puts pencil to paper but has trouble finding appreciation for his artistry.
Victor Van Acker brings back memories of anyone who read comic books back in the day.
Franny at Dumplings spent last week waiting and then receiving her mail order Sea Monkeys.
Only to be disappointed.
Fun with Sea Monkeys continues into the coming week.
Post Script: I was today years old when I learned the Sea Monkey ad was drawn by Joe Orlando.
Hey, Comics Kingdom is back up. Here is today’s King Features debut Rosebuds Sunday strip reintroducing the main stars Rosa, Maria, and Maricela.
While we’re at it here is a link for Dumplings at Comics Kingdom.
Thomas Yeates‘ original art pages for Prince Valiant are drawn in a tabloid format and, with a little tightening up of the bottom two panels, that is how they are posted on Comics Kingdom.
But today’s Prince Valiant episode looks, to my eyes, better in the horizontal layout than the vertical approach.
I like the way third panel Witgar is looking up at Baedwulf in both the third and fourth panels in the half page format. And while the Mark Shultz‘s script placement in the tab version is great running at the top and the bottom separated by the art, the placement in the horizontal, with lettering at the top and then running down the “sidebar” and separating those panels, is just as good.
Bob Weber, Jr. goes back 90+ years to celebrate a Sunday bonus feature that King Features comics used to carry in his Slylock Fox today. Sunday comic strips in the 1930s and beyond carried “toppers,” another comic added to the feature comic. Then King Features wanted their cartoonists to add another attraction, something I call companion panels.
Bob credits Paul Fung for the concept of Play Money/Lucky Bucks.
Others, notably KFS Archivist Mark Johnson, has credited Jimmy Murphy.
Further research required.
Every day, my comics are in a different order, and I can longer choose the order. I have to sign in every day, and half the time, it won’t let me. Or I sign in and it tells me I have no comics selected. Or some of my vintage comics aren’t there at all, but appear again tomorrow.
Of course it started when they “upgraded” for no apparent reason and then obviously didn’t test it before making it live.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this level of sheer incompetence from any other website.
I started to say, “I’m glad I’m not the only one having problems with my King Comics subscription,” but that sounds as if I’m wishing it on others. I still have strips missing from my emails. The vintage dailies advance a day on Sundays but are missing from the Sunday selection. The Tribune strips don’t appear on Sundays (“Dick Tracy” etc.). Today, vintage “Mark Trail” was missing from the email. I have been reporting these problems to their technical folks politely. I did as instructed and doublechecked my dashboard for “favorites” just now and it shows I have zero selections! Ooooohhhh… I really do not have time to deal with all this, but morning comics are one of the few entertainment items I take time for.
I haven’t had the new version lose my favorites, unlike the previous version that wouldn’t let me add any new favorites for a year and a half, with two escalations to the black hole of tech support. But my older iPad can no longer see the Comics Kingdom page at all. Just a blank screen with a blank red button at the bottom. Broken for Safari and Chrome.
Jinx! Having said that, of course this morning it had lost all my favorites.
I’ve found they come back when I return later in the day; not sure what prompts this.
Add to all the above Comics Kingdom woes the fact that if you are ever able to get a response from customer support it is likely to be a direct insult. That’s what happened to me a few years ago. It was the last straw — after subscribing faithfully for more than a decade, since the days when it was called Daily Ink, I quit.
I have since directly patronized a couple artists, one of whom wasn’t part of King umbrella anyway.
The idiotic way that CK released a new (defective) website on its paying customers makes me very glad that I have only two and a half strips from King Features on my daily reading list (Mutts in reruns only counts for half), and I can get all three from Arcamax. If Comics Kingdom was trying to discourage new subscribers, they certainly found an excellent way to do it.