Monday, January 21, 2008

DC area cartoonist does web strip for USA Weekend

Casey Shaw sent me an email with the press release below - let's wish him luck with his new webcomic. Casey, feel free to send in some reminders off and on. I assume the bear's named in honor of James Thurber?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 21, 2008

MCLEAN, VA -- USA WEEKEND Magazine's website is carrying its first online comic strip. In recent years, the print magazine published panel cartoons which were also archived on usaweekend.com, but this will be the first cartoons, and first comic strip, to be created specifically for USA WEEKEND's website independent of the print magazine. The strip, Thurbear, is created by USA WEEKEND's Creative Manager, Casey Shaw, and will update weekly.

"While I've contributed more than 200 individual panel cartoons to the print version of the magazine in the past," says Shaw, "I'm really excited about this opportunity. I really love the comic strip format and having a continuing feature will allow me to play much more with developing a recurring cast of characters."

To view the comic strip, which will also include blog-style postings by Shaw with links to other web comics in addition to the Thurbear cartoon, go to usaweekend.com and click on "Cartoon."

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About USA WEEKEND:
USA WEEKEND Magazine is a national weekly magazine distributed through more than 600 newspapers in the United States. Awarded for its journalism and design, USA WEEKEND focuses on social issues, entertainment, health, food and travel. The magazine provides Newspaper in Education classroom guides to partner newspapers. usaweekend.com provides enhanced content and interactive magazine features. USA WEEKEND is a Gannett Co., Inc. publication.

1 comment:

USA WEEKEND said...

hey Mike --
Thanks for the mention!

I hope you get a chance to peek in on the strip from time to time. And let me know what you think. I'm pretty tough, I can take it.

Thurbear is kind of a work in progress. And has been for sometime. One of the reasons I decided to go ahead and start posting them publicly was to give myself an imposed deadline for producing new work -- and maybe in a year or so the thing will have begun taking good enough shape to start thinking about putting together a syndicate submission.

And, yes, James Thurber is definitely one of my all-time favorites. And one of the many reasons the bear's characteristics include bad eyesight and a slightly grumpy personality. I also liked the Thurbear name to help reinforce the nuance that I was going to post the strips weekly on Thursdays.

Check in from time to time, if you get a chance. -- casey