Showing posts with label comic strips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comic strips. Show all posts

Monday, June 08, 2009

Weingarten on Doonesbury's perceived 'anti-Semitism', comic strip salaries and Ted Rall

Here's some bits from Weingarten's last two chats:

Chatological Humor: Grammatically Speaking; Late-Term Abortion (Updated 6.5.09)
aka Tuesdays With Moron

Gene Weingarten
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 2, 2009; 12:00 PM

Isn't this your guy, Gene?: From Illinois' State Journal-Register last Friday, 5/29:

"From health care to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn't have the nerve to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?

"Obama is useless. Worse than that, he's dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now - before he drags us further into the abyss."

Rush Limbaugh? Nope. Dick Cheney? Nope. Bill Ayers? Nah. It's none other than Ted Rall, whose cartoon work and political insights you've always admired so much. Here's the whole column.

Enjoy.

Gene Weingarten: This is CLASSIC Ted Rall.

Rall often has good points to make, but then makes them with such wild overstatement that he undercuts himself. And occasionally has to apologize.

Here's a cartoon of his

after Antonin Scalia said he'd be in favor of slapping terrorist prisoners under certain circumstances.

Here's another one

that's self-explanatory.

----------------------

15th Street, D.C.: Gene- What do you think of Sunday's "Doonesbury"? Do you think it could have been perceived as a tad anti-semitic? I am not even close to being politically correct but thought Trudeau took an...interesting path to make a not funny or interesting point.

Best- A 31 married Jewish guy in D.C.

Gene Weingarten: I don't see any antisemitism here, and I think it was a very funny and interesting comic.

The joke is about the current economy, and what bankers have done to us.

_______________________


Chatological Humor: Insuring Your Weekly Quota of Yuks. And Yucks (UPDATED 5.29.09)
aka Tuesdays With Moron

Gene Weingarten
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 26, 2009; 12:00 PM

Westminster, Md.: Gene, I am curious about how cartoonists are paid. If a cartoonist is syndicated in 1,000 newspapers, as some are, and is paid a mere $5 by each paper, the cartoonist (and his distributor, agent, etc.) make $5,000 PER DAY for drawing a cartoon. But it seems equally unreasonable that a paper like The Post pays a mere $5 for something that may draw more eyes than the headline story on the Metro page. So what's up?

Gene Weingarten: As the old Yiddish expression goes, re wishing something stated were true: "From your mouth to God's ear."

Alas, no. The formula for comic strips is that the author and the syndicate split about $1,000 a YEAR for each newspaper that runs the strip. So, if a strip is in 1,000 newspapers (this is almost unheard of) the cartoonist would get $500,000 a year.

A typical, moderately successful strip might be in 100 papers. Do the math. It isn't pretty.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Weingarten on his new comic strip's lettering

Not much on comics this week, but this tidbit...

Chatological Humor: Single-handedly Saving the Newspaper Biz
aka Tuesdays With Moron
Gene Weingarten
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 12, 2009; 12:00 PM

Princeton, N.J.: Hey Gene - This may sound like a dumb question, but is the text in comics always all done by hand as well as the drawings? It always just seems so perfect and unwavering.

Thanks, mister.

Gene Weingarten: Some toonists still letter by hand. Some use computer lettering, which has gotten very sophisticated. Even the purist Garry Trudeau made the switch to computer lettering a couple of years ago -- I believe to a lettering system created from his own past lettering.

Barney and Clyde, the strip Dan'l and I are doing, will be hand lettered by the artist, David Clark.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Weingarten's comic strip picked up, opinions on other comics cease

From the April 7th chat, Gene Weingarten says,

I have a wonderful announcement about how Chatological Humor is going to get even better! This is exactly like announcements you've been seeing in other newspapers practically every day now about how they are cutting costs, paper quality, paper size, staff and features in order to bring to you, the reader, an EVEN BETTER, MORE STREAMLINED PRODUCT!

Well, this is the last week Chatological Humor will offer its picks for the best comics of the previous week. Yes, the CPOW [Comic Pick of the Week] is dead. All for your benefit!

Okay, as it happens, there is nothing dastardly or craven behind this decision and no one I can yell at self-righteously. Last week, the Washington Post Writers Group syndicate picked up its option on "Barney and Clyde," the comic strip being developed by me, my son, Dan, and cartoonist David Clark. Editors at The Writers Group feel that I can no longer offer my half-assed, semi-knowledgeable opinions about other comic strips that might, in the future, compete for space with mine. I hate to admit it, but they have a point.

_______________________

Alexandria: So, when does Barney and Clyde's run begin? And what will it replace? (this is news, not commentary, I'm asking for)

Gene Weingarten: No clear answer to either question; no way of knowing even if The Washington Post will run it. There are no obligations in any direction.

_______________________

Comics abomination: Gene, I noticed on Sunday that while some of the regular strips seem to have shrunk or the panels squeezed together oddly (Pearls especially got the short end of the stick), the Slylock Fox panel has grown significantly.

I'm all for encouraging youngsters' abilities to solve petty crimes through observation, but does it really need to be larger than most of the other strips?

Gene Weingarten: This may be deliberate, and smart. Pearls Before Swine (Pastis will hate me for this) seems to be drawn shrewdly, to deter shrinkage. Its characters are simple, dialogue simple, spaces big. It can shrink without injury more than most can.

_______________________

Re: Pearls Before Swine: I disagree with Pastis' strategy - I think he is inadvertently enabling shrinkage instead of deterring it. A comic editor might see his strip and assume that shrinking all comics won't hurt the content. What if the comics fought shrinkage by adding more art and content, so that readers would complain to the comics editors?

Gene Weingarten: Uh, that would be a lot of nose-cutting for face-spiting.

_______________________

Pearls shrinkage: I think you might be missing the point. Whether or not Pastis is deliberately drawing his strip to survive the Great Comic Shrink of 2009 or not, SLYLOCK FOX IS GETTING BIGGER!

Surely another comic deserves enlargement before Slylock.

Gene Weingarten: If you are going to run Slylock, you need to give it space! A lot of stuff is going on in there.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Post drops, shrinks comics

The Post introduced its new 2 comics pages today. The strips are about 1/4 smaller. They justified themselves in several places recently. First the ombudsman, and then the managing editors:

"Why Monday's Post Will Look a Lot Different,"
By Andrew Alexander
Washington Post Sunday, March 29, 2009; A11

Another [way to cut costs] is to trim the physical size of the paper. The savings can be substantial.

A single page of newsprint in the daily Post, with its 650,000 circulation, costs roughly $2,500. A single page on Sundays, with its 870,000 circulation, costs about $3,500.

Shaving two pages from each daily and Sunday paper can save close to $2 million a year. ...

Reducing the number of comics and games was a simple matter of gauging reader preferences. The Post uses an outside firm to regularly question more than 3,000 adults in the Washington area and also conducts its own surveys. To evaluate the comics and games, adults were asked which ones they read, and adults with children were asked which ones their kids read.

Those scoring at the bottom with both adults and kids got the ax.

So, by that logic, if you cut printing the paper out completely at 100 pages (guesstimate for an average day) X $2,500 = $250,000/page/day. Multiple that by the 650,000 copies you print and you can save $162 billion dollars a day! They may have solved the economic crisis!

Ask The Post: Liz Spayd and Raju Narisetti, Washington Post Managing Editors
Monday, March 30, 2009; 12:00 PM

The Washington Post's managing editors, Raju Narisetti and Liz Spayd were online Monday, March 30 at 12 p.m. ET to discuss the recent changes and enhancements in both the newspaper and Web site. They will also answer your questions about the current state of the news industry.

Anonymous: "For all the choices we are making, we have used reader surveys to make sure we keep the features that are most popular."

Does that include comics? Because I never saw one, and I'm a faithful reader.

How was the decision made to drop six current, ongoing strips while keeping Peanuts reruns and tired old "zombie" strips that might as well be reruns, such as Family Circus, Garfield, Beetle Bailey, Mark Trail, and Dennis the Menace. those strips should have been put our of their (and our) miserry years ago.

Sacred cows, anyone?

Raju Narisetti and Liz Spayd: We do regular readership surveys both on the phone and in-person and the comics that moved online were the least popular with our readers.

_______________________

Silver Spring, Md.: Why don't you put Gene Weingarten in charge of the Comics section?

Raju Narisetti and Liz Spayd: We are putting it on our list of things to ask Gene!!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Weingarten on his comic strip, and the Post's

Gene W from the March 23rd chat:

Silver Spring, Md.: Re: Doonesbury CPOW - that's one thing that has always impressed me about that strip - he always seems to have a character already in place for any news event or trend or whatever that comes up. He can pick up a character and put he or she in the event without any problem or stretch. He has Joannie working on the hill, BD was set for any "hostilities", Bernie was perfectly positioned to be a high-tech mogul, Boopsie ended up in the movie industry. I loved it when Mike's youngish techie-wife turned out to be the Vietnamese orphan who had been adopted into the US years before.

Gene Weingarten: Obviously, this is not coincidence. Garry has more active characters than any strip ever, probably by a factor of five.

The strip my son and I are working on -- look for it soon, I hope -- is going to start with about 16. Absurdly high for a new strip, nowhere near Dbury.

_______________________

New strip: When your new strip debuts, can it replace Peanuts?

If you were able to, say, accidentally slip the email address of the comics editor, perhaps it may result that he or she is bombarded with enough requests to get rid of Peanuts repeats that his or her loins will be girded sufficiently to withstand the few complaint letters that will be mailed (from people who I don't think would folow through on their threat to cancel their subscriptions).

Gene Weingarten: I am beginning to think that no one will ever have the courage to replace Peanuts.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: AAAAAHHHHH! According to the notice on today's Style section, they're schwacking both "Pooche Cafe" and "Brevity" from the comics section. What's wrong with these people? They'll keep stale stuff like "Blondie," "Peanuts," "Mark Trail," "Family Circus," and "Dennis the Menace" but kill two of the comics that are actually, you know, funny? Isn't there anything we can do to stop this? AAAAAHHHHHH!!!

Gene Weingarten: They are also keeping Hagar the Horrible.

_______________________

Alex., VA: Do readers actually write in and support Peanuts?

Gene Weingarten: I don't know, but I doubt it. I think that newspaper comics deciders are loath to get rid of any strip so old that old loyal readers would miss it.

Very, very bad decisionmaking.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Post dropping 6 comics, not 5

Today the Post reported that it's dropping 6 comics - adding "Brevity" to the list of "Judge Parker," "Little Dog Lost," "Piranha Club," "Pooch Cafe" and "Zippy the Pinhead" - and shrinking the comics pages to 2 instead of 3. Dilbert is moving back to the comics section as the Business section goes down the tubes.

Comments are invited at comics@washpost.com

I'm sure they'll be announcing a price increase any day too. You know - this pisses me off - I actually subscribe to the paper and pay to get it and its ads, and they keep taking out stuff I read, but still offering it free on the web. Nice business model. Perhaps Madoff gave lessons on running newspapers too.

And for god's sake, drop Peanuts rather than a living strip. I loved it, I buy the Fantagraphics collections, and I don't need it in place of a current strip.

[I just made the last two paragraphs the core of my letter to the Post]

Friday, March 13, 2009

Post dropping comics

Mike Cavna's breaking the story that his colleagues are dropping Pooch Cafe, Zippy, Judge Parker, Piranha Club and Little Dog Lost as of March 30th. Bah.

I really like Judge Parker and Pooch Cafe, Zippy and Piranha Club (Bo Grace is local by the way) both have their appeal. Little Dog Lost didn't catch on with me. No notice as to why except that Dilbert is moving back from the Business section, but I'll bet they're putting in another Soduku type game since the NY Times just added one.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Self-syndication seminar in Vegas features Amy Lago

Alan Gardner is reporting a self-syndication seminar in Las Vegas that will feature the Post's Am Lago, among others. My own 2 cents, which is worth 2 cents, is that self-syndication, at least for newspapers, is collapsing around the ears of the alternate cartoonists. On the other hand, this has some successful strip and webcomics cartoonists who are making a living without being with a syndicate.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Comic strip characters in DC for Inauguration

Verne from Over the Hedge probably gets the closest although Prickly City did ok too. The Rudy Park cast apparently hasn't heard that all the highways from Virginia are closed - maybe they're coming from Maryland where the roads stayed open? Secret Asian Man is watching it on tv.

And Curtis is in trouble! I never realized he lived in DC before, but he just took a bus into town so he must.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Stan Lee AND Zombie comics at Comic Riffs

Cavna ups the Washington comics blogger ante by getting Stan Lee to talk about Obama meeting Spider-Man - "Obama the Comic Superstar: Stan Lee Explains All..." By Michael Cavna, Washington Post Comic Riffs blog January 14, 2009. I think it's a little unfair because he can say he's from the Washington Post...

But he's not writing about the type of zombies you'd expect from visiting a comic book store where there's at least 2 good-selling zombie comics, one of which deserves to be (Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead) and the other which is just a bad idea even if it makes money (Marvel Zombies). Cavna writes about strips that are either done by dead people (Peanuts) or continued by other hands (Blondie, Dennis the Menace, Hagar). And he's got another neat chart.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Another virgin gone

After 9 Chickweed Lane's characters experienced their shared joy, perhaps it was inevitable that others on the comics page should lose their virginity as well. Today's example is apparently Watch Your Head with a 27-second life-changing moment.

And while I don't want to take over Comic Riffs role, I can't help but note the flat-out sincere insincerity of Wiley's Non Sequiter today.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Dave Astor interview

Boy, I miss Dave's work for Editor and Publisher. See "Talking Comics with Tim: Dave Astor," by Tim O'Shea, Comic Book Resources' Robot 6 blog January 5, 2009.

Monday, January 05, 2009

Spider-Man strip reboot explained

Michael Cavna touched on Spider-Man's suddenly lacking a wife in Comic Riffs last week, and I can't be bothered to explain it so here's Graeme McMillan to do so for anyone following the strip in the Post. Brian Steinberg at the Examiner just posted on this as well, and appears as cranky about it as I am.

Onion dropping comic strips?

In the January 1 issue of the Onion, Wondermark by David Malki has a strip that says "In three weeks, The Onion will cease printing a comics page." Malki suggests visiting his website and signing up for having the strip emailed, but that's just not the same as reading the paper, is it? DC is one of the two or three places to have a print copy of the paper - it's in New York City, and possibly still in Madison, WI.

Other strips on the next-to-last page are Shannon Wheeler's Postage Stamp Funnies (recently collected by Dark Horse Comics, as was Wondermark), Red Meat by Max Cannon (fugitive from the City Paper and soon homeless again apparently), The Spats, Ziggy (in Spanish... what a waste) and P.S. Mueller's panel.

Earlier in the paper is Ward Sutton's fake editorial cartoon, nominally by 'Kelly.'

Saturday, December 27, 2008

New York Times on future of comic strips

This is a pretty good article - "Prototype: The Comics Are Feeling the Pain of Print," By LESLIE BERLIN, New York Times December 28, 2008.

New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff is quoted in this article about financial humor - "I’m Penniless, but the Laugh’s on Them," By LIZ ALDERMAN, New York Times December 28, 2008.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

President Bill (not Clinton)

At a used book store yesterday, I ran across President Bill by William L. Brown. This panel used to run in the Washington City Paper in the late 1980s - the Bill is not Clinton, but Bill of Takoma Park, MD who is chosen at random to be the president. Bill's pretty left-wing and had some odd ideas about how to run a country. Brown's artwork was done on scratchboard, leading to a woodcut-like look. The book has an introduction by Jules Feiffer. The story holds up okay, especially after the past 8 years.

Brown still does illustrations every once in a while for Washington papers.