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]

Robert G. Baldwin: Rupe and Freddy

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

Freddy is another one of those “forgotten” comic strips that ran for quite a long time, 1956-1980 and then disappeared. If you don’t know to look for it, you might never find it.

Continuing my series on cartooning and cartoonists, Rupe wrote about himself and 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.

Here’s Rupe on Rupe and Freddy: “Although I sign my work ‘Rupe,’ my real name is Robert G. Baldwin, and I was born in Washington, DC. I’m fifty years old, and I have five children, ages 11 to 22. Four boys and one girl. Frequently the family gathers around my finished work for discussion and, I hope, for a good laugh.

Click to continue reading Robert G. Baldwin: Rupe and Freddy

Q&A: NORM FEUTI on Gill and Retail

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Interviews,

Cartoonist Norm Feuti must draw with both hands at the same time. He has not one, but two comic strips going simultaneously. One strip, Retail, is syndicated by the granddaddy of all newspaper syndicates, King Features. The other is his own web comic Gill which debuted toward the end of last year. Retail is set in the world of, well, retail – about four employees of the fictitious Grumbel’s department store. It currently appears in about 70 newspapers worldwide. If your local paper isn’t one of them, you can read Retail everyday right here.

Gill is Norm’s second strip. Despite the syndicated success of Retail, Gill didn’t get traction with the syndicates. Norm made the leap to the internets and launched it as his first web comic. Gill is the story of a chubby kid, trapped in a lower income lifestyle, whose parents are divorced. Hijinks, naturally, ensue.

That might be more than enough to keep any cartoonist busy, but in 2007, Hyperion published Norm’s humorous Retail Employee Handbook called Pretending You Care. See what I mean about the drawing with both hands thing?

TOM: You have two regular strips going at the same time. How do you work your busy schedule around being a stay-at-home Dad?

Click to continue reading Q&A: NORM FEUTI on Gill and Retail