Weekend Reading: Gary Friedrich, Walking Dead, Ted McKeeer & Arcana

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Movies, Reviews, DC Comics, Image Comics, Marvel Comics,

What a weird, weird funnybook week. Let’s take a look:

Artist Tony Moore is suing writer Robert Kirkman over his portion of money from The Walking Dead.

Gary Friedrich is getting legally crapped on by Marvel Comics.

DC Comics is still legally battling over Superman.

Columbia Pictures drops The Boys from their film roster.

Vietnam is banning comic books.

And how was the rest of the week?

If you've ever thought about opening a used bookstore, here are 25 Things you might discover.

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Gary Friedrich, Walking Dead, Ted McKeeer & Arcana

Terry Beatty on The Phantom

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

Do you know who's now drawing The Phantom on Sundays?

Terry Beatty (you might know him from Ms. Tree, or Batman Adventures or Return To Perdition or any number of cool things).

His first Sunday debuted on January 29th, written by Tony DePaul and colored beautifully by an old pal of mine, Tom Smith.

It's not yet a permanent gig, but Terry posted on his blog that King Features Syndicate "is quite pleased with my first five Sunday strips."

Good for Terry, good for The Phantom, and good for the fans. That first strip of his is killer.

[And, of course, if your newspaper doesn't carry The Phantom, please contact them and request that they sign up.]

[Artwork: The Phantom by Terry Beatty, © King Features Syndicate]

Norm Feuti’s Gil Debuts From King Features

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews,

Congratulations to Norm Feuti on Gil!

He started the strip as a webcomic, then put it on hiatus to work on other things, then brought it back through King Features. You can read about that process here.

It debuts this week in classic newspaper syndication (you can also find it online).

It’s a great, funny strip and Feuti’s an excellent cartoonist.

I interviewed him awhile ago when he was first starting on Gil and I wish him nothing but success.

Bookmark the strip, write to your local paper to make them aware of it, and read the heck out it.

There’s also the Gil Blog with lots of fun extras to enjoy.

[Artwork: Gil, © Norm Feuti]

Bud Sagendorf: Popeye and Segar

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

Forrest “Bud” Sagendorf was E.C. Segar’s young assistant on Popeye in the 1930s. When Segar died in 1938, King Features Syndicate considered Sagendorf too young to take over the comic strip. Instead, they put him to work in the bullpen where he worked on the Popeye comic books until 1958, when King decided to hand the strip over to him.
Continuing my little cartoonist series, here’s what Sagendorf had to say about his work back in 1964. This is pulled from an oversized saddle-stitched magazine from Allied Publications with the creatively-challenged title These Top Cartoonists Tell How They Create America’s Favorite Comics. It featured an introduction by Beetle Bailey’s Mort Walker and was compiled by Allen Willette. Newspaper comic strip writers and artists wrote about themselves and their work (or if they didn’t then their syndicate wrote it for them).

Here’s a previous entry in William Overgard.

And here’s the one on Fred Toole, the guy who wrote some absolutely tremendous Dennis the Menace comic books.

Here’s Sagendorf writing about himself:

Click to continue reading Bud Sagendorf: Popeye and Segar

FORGOTTEN COMICS: ARMY LAUGHS with Bill Wenzel

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

From the early days of cartooning until the market went south in the 1980s, there are a lot of humor publications (and would-be humor publications) that all followed the same basic format: black and white gag cartoons, jokes, odd little articles and features, and the occasional pin-up girl. Many of these publications sported cartoons from cartoonists who would go on to careers at the top cartoon markets like Playboy and The New Yorker, and many of these publications served as dumping grounds by cartoonists who sold off their rejects: selling a dozen cartoons at once that had already made the rounds for $15 each was a quick $180, a way to monetize finished work that no one else wanted. Hey, cartooning is a business, too.

The publications had names like Best Cartoons, Broadway Laughs, Army Fun, Laff Time, Cartoon Carnival, Cartoon Capers and Good Humor and were published by companies like Charlton (at the same time they were publishing their comic books) and Crestwood and Magazine Management. You can guess the target audience by some of the titles.

One of my favorites of that era was the digest-sized Army Laughs (one of many similar titles published by Crestwood), which featured a high-volume of risqué military-based cartoons – almost all of them sexist, along with the usual jokes, text features and teasing pin-up girls with funny captions.

Click to continue reading FORGOTTEN COMICS: ARMY LAUGHS with Bill Wenzel