Everyone else has been linking to the 1907 comic strip Madge the Magician’s Daughter by W.O. Wilson — why shouldn’t The Beat?
While enjoying this newspaper strip’s whimsy and imagination, it also gets us pondering. What would W.O. Wilson be doing today? The market for lavishly drawn comic strips has dried up; ditto illustration. Perhaps he would do children’s books. As wild and fun as the strip is, the art is kind of weird and wonky…nowhere near the virtuoso skill of a Feininger or O’Neill. If we plopped Wilson down in today’s comics market, he’d probably be doing weird-ass indie comics for AdHouse or Top Shelf or PictureBox, and he’d be considered an “indie” artist. Whatever that means.

Ballantine is going to collect those bleak, nihilistic “Garfield Minus Garfield” strips by Dan Walsh. PR below:

The full-color book format will give readers the experience of having both the original and doctored Garfield strips together on the same page for comparison. Dublin, Ireland-based Garfield Minus Garfield creator Dan Walsh will provide the foreword to the book.

Garfield creator Jim Davis was intrigued by—and pleased with—the concept. “I think it’s an inspired thing to do,” Davis said. “I want to thank Dan for enabling me to see another side of Garfield. Some of the strips he chose were slappers: ‘Oh, I could have left that out.’ It would have been funnier.”

Garfield Minus Garfield site creator Dan Walsh says, “When I looked at Jon and laughed at his crazy antics I thought ‘He’s just like me.’ As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one saw myself in him: millions of visitors from all over the world visit Garfield Minus Garfield and tell me they think the same thing. Now, thanks to the awesome generosity and humor of Jim Davis, Garfield Minus Garfield is going to become a book and I’m absolutely honored to be part of it.”

Ballantine has already made a mint printing Garfield — 33 Garfield books have made the New York Times bestseller list. Will the strip minus the porky pussy fare as well?

Rutu Modan’s new strip at The New York Times has begun. It’s called “The Murder of the Terminal Patient.” The paper also presents a slideshow of Moden’s previous work.

In a story that proves that owning your good ideas gives the biggest payout, R Stevens has announced he’s ending print syndication of DIESEL SWEETIES:

As of mid-August, DS is ending its run in newspapers and going back to being web-only! Why? Because I’m an optimist, I opted out.

At Fleen he tells Gary Tyrell
more of the reasons behind his decision:

Fleen: What was the prime factor in deciding to quit?

Stevens: Not to sound like a jerk, but time and money. I was (currently still am) spending 12+ hours a day 5.5 days a week keeping my business afloat and doing 12 comics a week. My website and merch were a little over 90% of my gross income last year. When the workload starting making me sicker and fatter, it was pretty much a no-brainer which job had to go.

(And before there is any argument from the Peanuts-worshipping gallery, this was my experience. It is not true for all newspaper strips or print cartoonists, but I lived it and have the debt and carpal tunnel to prove it.)

Later in the interview, Stevens seems to say it wasn’t a question of not liking United Media, but just the hidebound nature of the print business these days

It’s natural in these things for us geeks to spring on the “Evil Syndicate“, but I don’t blame ‘em for anything. They can’t force editors to dump 80-year-old comics and they can’t legally kill all the rabid Snuffy Smith fans who would set the world ablaze if he ever left print.

I’m not saying they aren’t working on ways to kill these people, but I don’t think radioactive nanodagger ink is ready for prime time yet.

So there you have it. Game, set and match. WEB up. PRINT down. Creator ownership, UP. Selling it all, DOWN.

If one of you Beat readers can make me a little red arrow thingie, we’ll make this official.

As usual when we’re too busy to post, we’ll just try to distract you with pretty pictures. Courtesy of ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive — gaze upon the newspaper comic strip sections of yore and weep, weep, weep.

§ ICv2 reports the thrilling news that Fantagraphics will begin reprints of Prince Valiant and Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy, two more incredible comic strips that deserve to be seen once again.

Prince Valiant will be presented in an oversized color hardcover format, with two years per book, beginning in 2009. This presentation will be of higher quality than the 50 trade paperbacks Fantagraphics published, which collected all of the strips with art or story by creator Hal Foster. At two years per book, it will take 16-17 volumes just to reprint the full page strips with Foster art.
Fantagraphics will also begin releasing its collections of Wash Tubbs and its successor strip Captain Easy in 2009. Sundays will be printed in color; dailies in black and white. Although the two strips ran an incredible 64 years, from 1924 to 1988, creator Roy Crane’s work ran only until 1943.

§ CBR follows up the Comic Book Resources > Andy Schmidt to IDW story from yesterday and reveals taht he’ll mostly be working on the newly acquired GI Joe license.

Thelma Keane, wife of cartoonist Bil and inspiration for the mom in FAMILY CIRCUS has died at age 82 of Alzheimer’s disease.

“She was the inspiration for all of my success,” Bil Keane, 85, told The Associated Press from his home in Paradise Valley on Sunday. “When the cartoon first appeared, she looked so much like Mommy that if she was in the supermarket pushing her cart around, people would come up to her and say, `Aren’t you the Mommy in “Family Circus?” ‘ and she would admit it.”

Bil and Thelma “Thel” Keane met during World War II in the war bond office in Brisbane, Australia. She was a native Australian working as an accounting secretary, and Bil worked next to her as a promotional artist for the U.S. Army.

Thelma was mother o six children, including Jeff, who helps his father on the current strip, and animator Glen.

Funky Winkerbean creator Tom Batiuk remarks on the passing of comics artist Jim Mooney — it turns out a strip Mooney drew for the comic strip may be his last published work:

I was saddened to hear about Jim Mooney’s passing. About a year ago, Tony Isabella wrote a sweet little Funky Winkerbean Sunday featuring my characters as Superman and Supergirl. He suggested I contact Jim to actually draw the Superman characters. I did and found him to be one of the nicest and genuine individuals you’d want to encounter. He agreed to do the Sunday and did a wonderful job. The strip will run Sunday April 13th and quite possibly could be Jim’s last published work. If so, I feel privileged to have been a small part of it.

See the strip larger here.

Longtime alt-paer mainstay Keith Knight joins the ranks of daily strip artists with Knight Life. The strip covers the usual topics: “political and social satire, humor about daily life, and other elements. The autobiographical comic features Knight, his wife, his father, and an “odd” assortment of friends, neighbors, and strangers.” The strip begins May 5. Knight was recruited by Ted Rall who continues his campaign to introduce a newer breed of cartoonist to the syndicated world via his job at United Media.

Cartoonist Stephanie McMillan writes to tell us of several upcoming events:

Resistance Through Ridicule: Two Evenings with Political Cartoonists Ted Rall and Stephanie McMillan

Kick-ass, controversial cartoonists Ted Rall (www.rall.com) and Stephanie McMillan (www.minimumsecurity.net) will present a slideshow of their latest comics, plus a humorous and inspirational discussion about politics, ecocide, the Evil System, and resistance. This will happen twice:

7 p.m. Monday, April 14
Bluestockings Bookstore
172 Allen St., New York, NY (between Stanton and Rivington, near the
Second Ave. F train stop)
212-777-6028; www.bluestockings.com
$3-$5 suggested donation

And:

7 p.m. Monday, April 21
Idlewild Books
12 W. 19th St., New York, NY
(across from and sponsored by Revolution Books, which is moving)
212-691-3345; www.revolutionbooksnyc.org
Free

Nancy, the comic strip beloved of ontologists every where, will be appearing in color starting Monday, E&P reports. The strip is currently drawn by Guy Gilchrist.

In the first color strip, Nancy will start a new activity — karate. “I’m into the martial arts myself, and have seen how empowering it is to girls, boys, men, and women,” said Gilchrist. “Thankfully, it can also be pretty funny!”

Is this change to the eternal Nancy just a fun and progressive upgrade, a nod to emerging technologies or the first sign of the apocalypse? Find out on Monday.
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Buck Rogers, the early sci-fi comic strip icon is coming back to the comics from Dynamite Entertainment. Rogers debuted as “Anthony” Rogers in a couple of stories in Amazing Stories by Philip Francis Nowlan; syndicate executive John Flint Dille teamed with artist Dick Calkins to create the familiar “Buck Rogers” comic strip. Rogers was later seen in a TV show that coined the annoying phrase “Bidi! Bidi!” and Erin Gray’s appearance as Wilma Deering fueled countless fantasies in boys around the land, at least accoring to anecdotal evidence we’ve heard.

Dynamite’s version of the character will have covers by Alex Ross and John Cassaday, according to president Nick Barrucci. Dynamite’s agreement with the Dille Estate also allows for the creation of Buck Rogers comics, collections, including classic material, comics-based fine art prints, posters, action figures, trading cards, statues, and other high-end collectibles.

Introducing Amazing Facts…and Beyond! Click for larger version.

[Via Tim Hodler]

Jason’s new comic is being serialized in The New York Times Magazine. It’s called LOW MOON and it’s a Western. We’re in.

Dan Clowes Mr. Wonderful strip ends this weekend in the New York Times and you can catch up with the whole thing right here.

Next up in the Times: Jason!

Technorati Tags: Jason, New York Times, puppy

For those so inclined, take a break today from reading those comics or watching DVDs for today’s annual Hockey Day in Canada. (Apparently, it’s also Hockey Day in Minnesota, according to the Islanders/Wild telecast.) The Detroit/Toronto game may be in the books already, but there are plenty of games left tonight (including the Battle of Alberta).

Some of the better-known hockey/comics/nerdverse connections:

* Although people always associate PEANUTS with baseball, St. Paul native Charles Schulz was a big hockey enthusiast, owning a rink in Southern California and was even inducted into the US Hockey Hall of Fame in 1993.

* Todd McFarlane used to a partial owner of the NHL Edmonton Oilers and even designed their one of their alternate logos. And there was the Tony Twist Lawsuit.

* James Kolchaka and the Zambonis’ song “Hockey Monkey.”

* Hockey is a big part of Kevin Smith’s View Askew Universe, from playing rooftop hockey in CLERKS to the skating demons in DOGMA.

We know there are more but it’s almost time for the prime-time games to start on CBC. Gotta go.

Posted by Mark Coale

Gus Arriola, creator of the comic strip Gordo, has died at age 90. The strip, which began in 1941, was one of the first to highlight Mexican culture on the comics page, although Arriola changed the character from a bandit to a bean farmer after some complaints.

In an interview with The Chronicle several years after he retired, Arriola said he drew the comic strip for an audience that knew little about Mexico or its culture.

“My main goal was to maintain a positive awareness of Mexico through all the years, every day, without being political,” he said in 1989. “When I started, words like ‘burrito’ were unknown in the United States.”

You may just spend a few hours clicking around Steven Stwalley’s Crumbling Paper site, an archive of old comics strips by Herriman, Gruelle, Opper, Gluyas Williams and many, many more. Above, a panel from The Love of Lulu and Leander by F.M. Howarth from August 19, 1906. (Note, we lightened the scan just a tad– the “crumbling” in the title is sadly apt. Much of this stuff is disappearing from our fingertips.

We are a sucker for a curmudgeonly old timer (or at least someone who writes like a COT) taking to a local editorial page on a comics related topic, and today’s piece by Cathy Gillentine in The Galveston County Daily News fills the bill just right. Gillentine is annoyed by the shrinking comics page in the paper:

To me, it looks kind of strange. I carefully check out each page figuring the page with the puzzle and Heloise contains the least popular comics, the full black and white page has the next favorite bunch and the colored comics are supposedly everybody’s favorites.

The problem with this is, I don’t agree with the choices and I don’t know who decided the positions. My two favorites, “One Big Happy” and “Sally Forth,” are both on the black and white, middle choice page.

Incidentally, when they made the announcement, they said everything missing off the pages would be in the online comics collection. I got online and counted 225 comics, more than anybody ever had.

Our takeaway? This is an outrage and something must be done!

PS: we’re guessing the “Sally Forth” Gillentine enjoys is not the one by Wally Wood but rather the one created by Greg Howard (above.)

We larfed.

The SF Chronicle reports that cartoonist Martha Arguello - better known as Marty Links — died on Sunday at age 90. As Links, Arguello was the creator of Bobby Sox, which ran for 35 years, although it later changed its name to Emmy Lou. The panel inspired a short-lived TV show, but more than that was a looking glass for society, capturing the moods and fashions of teen-aged girls through the 40s and 50s. Arguello raised three children while working on the strip and turned to making greeting cards and ceramics when she retired.

Like some other successful women cartoonists of the day, used a male name, Don Markstein writes:

By the way, if you happen to be confused by the the given name of the cartoonist, you’re not alone. So, apparently, was The National Cartoonists’ Society, of which she was one of the first female members. Correspondence from the Society was addressed to “Mr. Marty Links” even after she’d given birth to her first child. She offered to send them her bust size.

Arguello is survived by two daughters. There will be a reception in her honor at the Cartoon Art Museum 655 Mission St., San Francisco, from 5 to 8 p.m. on Saturday. The family suggests donations in her name to Canine Companions for Independence, 2965 Dutton Ave., Santa Rosa, CA 95402.

UNDERTOWN, the OEL/OGM manga by Jim Pascoe and Jake Mylar will be the lastest syndicated strip for Tokyopop, as this press release reveals. The book has also been picked up by Scholastic for their book club.

If the first name that comes to mind when you think of Sunday comic strips is Peanuts, you haven’t been tuned into the manga revolution that has been drawing kids back to the funny pages.

Jim Pascoe announced today that his original English-language manga UNDERTOWN will be the new property running in TOKYOPOP’s syndicated slot starting this Sunday, January 6, 2008. Since 2005, TOKYOPOP has provided a rotating selection of manga to Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes comics and columns globally to newspapers.

Over 50 papers plan to carry Undertown, including the Los Angeles Time, Denver Post, Vancouver Sun and Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

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A very important link that has been floating around over the last 10 days or so. Jeannie Schulz finally speaks out on the David Michaelis bio of her husband, Charles, and explains what he got wrong:

I was married to Charles Schulz for 26 years, and in all that time together, plus in 45 years worth of interviews that I have read, and additional autobiographical material Sparky wrote for the 25th anniversary book, and subsequent books, I never heard Sparky express any doubt of the love both his parents had for him and he, in turn, spoke often of his love for his “little kids”, and his stories were full of games with them and normal parental memories. Unfortunately, David Michaelis took bits of information, and without double-checking it, printed opinion as fact and judgment.

A subsequent post has more:

There is an issue that Michaelis brings up a number of times in the Schulz biography which has completely baffled me in that he seems to take an accusatory tone that Sparky didn’t get therapy for his “problems”. I am not sure how it is attributed, but the statement is that Sparky didn’t go to therapy because he was afraid it would alter his creativity (or words to that effect). Sparky did, in fact, go to two different therapists at two different times. But that is not the point I want to make.

Sparky told me early on in our marriage when in fact he WAS going to a therapist to combat his “travel anxiety” (I think it helped in that it gave him an understanding that lots of people feel this way and it gave him a framework so that he could devise strategies to make it better.) That it was his first wife, Joyce, who suggested that he was afraid to go to therapy because it would stifle his creativity. He always pooh-poohed her statement but it but it obviously sounded logical to some people and stuck in their minds. It seems that as Sparky is not here to explain, that anyone writing about it would ask more questions and seek additional perspective.

Here’s the official PR on IDW’s upcoming Noel Sickles Scorchy Smith reprint. We couldn’t gank any Sickles SMITH art online, so here’s a COMPLETELY UNRELATED Sickles illo. Thanks to Scott Dunbier for sending us a link to actual SCORCHY SMITH art! (We did white-correct the scan though.)

Scorchy Smith, the daily strip that exploded in popularity in the 1930s and catapulted author and illustrator Noel Sickles to comics fame, has been a Holy Grail among fans, landing on countless top-ten lists. But a complete collection hasn’t existed in 70 years.

Next summer, IDW Publishing will release the first complete collection of Sickles’ work on Scorchy with a hardcover edition entitled Scorchy Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles. This deluxe edition showcases every panel drawn by the author and illustrator, who is regarded as the individual responsible for putting the John Terry-created strip on the map.

Scorchy Smith, which ran in newspapers from 1930-1961, was drawn by many artists. It featured a pilot-for-hire who traveled the nation doing everything from battling spies to busting up bands of cattle rustlers. Because adventure found Scorchy at just about every turn, Sickles once described the strip as “pure entertainment, pure action, from one damn thing to another.”

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comiXology is on of those new comics websites you are seeing everywhere. The site focuses on recent comics releases, biling itself as “the ultimate indigital comics bok pull list management.” Whatever. Where they have distinguished themselves (at least in our view) is by signing up Shaenon K. Garrity and Kristy Valenti to write two excellent columns. Thus far they have been the kind of wide ranging yet accessible overviews that one hardly ever sees online — so far it’s a little Comics(x) 101. Garrity’s first “All the Comics in the World” column she weaves together Tristam Shandy, Peter Bagge, Civil War, Stumptown and All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder. In the second she discusses Pogo and the psychology of the comic strip:

Comic strips, even more than comics in general, strike me as the perfect medium for the dedicated loser. Drawing a daily strip means plugging constantly away at a neverending story, thousands upon thousands of pages long, which may, if you’re very, very lucky, succeed in making a few people chuckle briefly around a mouthful of bagel. The effort-to-payoff ratio is absurdly skewed. Most of the strip cartoonists I’ve met seem to have a fatalistic attitude about it. They’re more even-tempered than comic-book artists, who always seem shocked not to be hailed as the new Great American Graphic Novelist. Comic strippers know they’re never going to be hailed as the Great American anything. The best they can hope for is a licensed coffee mug.

Valenti has been presenting in-depth looks at some important young cartoonists, starting with the incomparable Jason Shiga in two parts. (above a panel from his Bookhunters.)Her latest covers Esther Pearl Watson. We’re not huge Watson fans, but this profile put her work into a perspective which made us appreciate it a bit more:

While teaching, exhibiting in fine-art galleries and drawing illustrations for clients such as Rolling Stone, Watson edited two books with Todd: The Pain Tree, a collection of poetry by teenagers that she and Todd illustrated, and more recently, Whatcha Mean, What’s a Zine? a well-received how-to for young adults on how to create, print and distribute a zine. It included advice from heavyweights such as Eric Nakamura from Giant Robot and minicomics master Dan Zettwoch. “My husband and I really like creating works for this age group,” explained Watson. “Most of our work is based off our growing-up years. I would have loved to have found these books in the library when I was 13.” When queried about working professionally with her husband, Watson replied, “He knows my work very well, my motivations behind pieces, what sucks. Sometimes he can be too blunt or we are around each other too much (24 hours a day).”

Other recent features on the site include podcasts with G. Willow Wilson (Cairo) and Richard Starkings and others. Where most comics websites (including this one, probably) present too much information, Comixology’s features have a quality-over-quantity feel which we quite enjoy. Bookmark.