Andertoons Cartoon Blog

Hellboy Review

The only thing that kept me from really liking Hellboy, was the movie Hellboy.

I've never read the actual comic that it's based on (I've heard it's quite good), but the movie is a dismal failure filled with lame dialogue, a confusing-at-best plot, and more wooden acting than a Pinocchio film festival!

Hellboy could've been a fun character, but he just gets tiresome about a half hour after he comes on screen. Apparently he's got a thing for this woman who can summon fire bursts (convenient for all involved since he's fireproof), but their relationship is never really explained or explored in any real way. A sign a la silent movies reading "Our hero pines for his lady fair" would've been more effective than the approach taken by the script. One particularly tiresome scene involves Helloby taking love advice from a 9-year old boy while spying on the girl and another man from a rooftop and then pelting the man with a rock.

My favoire character was the C3PO-ish Abe Sapian who was apparently some sort of merman with psychic abilities, but he gets hurt about two-thirds of the way through the movie and is never heard from again.

The villians, Rasputin, some gas-masked nazi Wolverine knockoff (made of sand we find out later), and some woman hatch a plot to get Hellboy to open the gates of hell. At least that's what I was able to piece together after discussing the movie with my wife for almost a day afterwards. Some scraps of paper are involved and Hellboy's father figure is killed for some reason, but I never really understood what was going on.

Most confusing was some creature that apparently spawned two more of itself after being killed being entirely wiped out at the end of the movie. How does that work anyway?! Shoudln't it have just created more as a result?! Again, it's never explained.

Here's the thing - I love comic book movies! Spiderman? Great! Spiderman 2? Awesome! X-men 1 & 2? Oh baby! I even played hookie from work to see the Hulk when it came out. (A decision I later regretted, but that's another blog.) I was ready to really enjoy this! But in the end it's just two lame hours I can never get back. Damn you Hellboy! (Oh wait, too late!)

New Feature! - Inside the Cartoonist's Studio

We've got a brand new feature here at the Andertoons blog that I'm really excited about - "Inside the Cartoonist's Studio!"

Here's how it works - I've been emailing professional cartoonists three goofy questions and asking them to answer in any way they see fit.  Some are thoughtful, some are funny, and some are thoughtfully funny.

Here are the questions:

1) If you were to cast a movie entirely with cartoon characters, what movie would it be and who would star in it?

2) You're a syndicate editor launching a new comic strip. What's the worst possible title you can think of?

3) A light bulb over a cartoon's head signifies an idea, while a string of random characters denotes swearing. Invent a new cartooning icon and what it means.

(OK, so technically that last one isn't technically a question, but you get the idea.)

I'll be trying to post a new set of responses every week, so check back often!

Our first cartoonist is Mark Heath who creates the delightful "Spot the Frog"!  Here are his answers:

1) If you were to cast a movie entirely with cartoon characters, what movie would it be and who would star in it?

This is the sort of question that knocks a hole in the back of my head, and my brain rolls out like a stale nut. I like movies, but for some reason I've never thought to myself, "If I could cast a movie entirely with cartoon characters..." One that comes to mind has already been done, and done perfectly. One Froggy Evening by Chuck Jones. Along with Peanuts and B.C., that bit of animation made me a cartoonist. The expressions are so minimal and so precise. As for something that remains to be made, I'd like to see A Christmas Carol. There are already a thousand adaptions, but there can never be too many. The kids from Soup to Nutz could collectively play the Ghost of Christmas Present (or in their case, Presents.) Monty could play a feckless Marley. Christmas Past could be the fairy godfather from the Barnaby strip. Steve Dallas would be Scrooge. Spot would be the pet frog Dickens forgot to mention. And Robotman appears as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

2) You're a syndicate editor launching a new comic strip. What's the worst possible title you can think of?

Judging from the dozen submissions I showed the syndicates before Spot the Frog, I'll have to assume that Karl the Carrot, Moveable Feast, Idiots, Winslow, and several others I offered were the worst. Other titles I didn't use but would probably fare as well: Dick's Dysentery; You're Too Stupid To Like This Strip; Peanuts.

3) A light bulb over a cartoon's head signifies an idea, while a string of random characters denotes swearing. Invent a new cartooning icon and what it means.

This question demands someone more clever than I am. I'm trying to think of an icon I use that's unique to me, and most that come to mind are borrowed from other cartoonists. One of my favorites is the word sigh, bracketed by asterisks. Schulz did this. I paraphrase it (I omit the word sigh and settle for a single asterisk.) I also like the Bushmiller approach, where punctuation says it all (an exclamation point over the head, for example.) If I had to think of a new icon, off the cuff, I'd say a speech balloon that resembles a fist. But even as I say that, I'm not sure that I like it (picture a speech balloon in the shape of a hand, thumb pointing down, over my head.)

Thanks Mark for being our first participant!

Check out "Spot the Frog"!  It's one of my new favorite comics!  Try Mark's Frog Blog too!  The "Spot the Frog" website has lots of good info and fun stuff!

Well, that about wraps it up for "Inside the Cartoonist's Studio!"  Check back next week when we'll be posting more answers to goofy questions!

Lynn Johnston Moves Syndciates

"For Better or For Worse" cartoonist Lynn Johsnton is moving the acclaimed strip back to Universal Press Syndicate this fall.  Universal had signed Johnston initially and had syndicated the comic until Johnston moved to United Feature Syndicate in 1997.

According to Editor and Publisher, Johnston is also reported as saying that she'll hang up her pen & ink in 2007.  "The cartoonist did add that it's possible her strip might be continued by another creator," E&P notes.

I met Lynn a few years ago at the Festival of Cartoon Art at Ohio State in 2001.  She was just a lovely person and very encouraging about my gag cartoons.

Cartoon in August '04 Funny Times

One of my cartoons is in the August 2004 issue of Funny Times!

Here's another one of my cartoons in the same vein.

Calvin & Hobbes Collection Coming

Looks like Gary Larson isn't the only cartoonist looking to give readers hernias.  Bill Watterson and Andrews McMeel Publishing will be publishing every Calvin and Hobbes cartoon in a giant collection set for Fall 2005 delivery.

According to Editor and Publisher, the set "will include three hardcover volumes of 480 pages each and sell for $150. Gary Larson's "Complete Far Side" featured a total of 1,266 pages in two volumes that retailed for $135."

Maybe they'll include the rules for Calvin ball?

Office-Cartoons.com

I've launched another smaller cartoon webiste geared entirely to office cartoons.

 
Topics include meetings, sales, co-workers and a lot more! 
 
Check out Office-Cartoons.com!

Comic Strip Movies to Come...

Fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 will love this new website by MST3K alums Mike Melson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett.

 
They discucss "Garfield: The Movie" as well as imagining some other comic strips as movies.
 
My personal favorite is "Nancy and Sluggo".  Here's a small excerpt:
 
"Director Quentin Tarrantino has completely reconceived the cornball-jokey world of Ernie Bushmiller's original cartoon as a place of sudden violence and ever-spiraling addiction. Nancy and Sluggo, played by Courtney Love and Benicio Del Toro, are heroin junkies caught up in a nightmarish onslaught of hitmen, ninjas, ultra-sick S & M vampire wannabes, and relentless pop culture references. Tom Arnold costars as Samuel L. Jackson's lawyer, the mysterious "Mr. Turquoise," though he is nearly unrecognizable behind the large Huckleberry Hound ball gag. "

Corporations Conspiring Cancellation of Comics to Cut Costs

There's an interesting, if doom prophesizing, article about newspaper comic strips in the July 19 issue of Newsweek.

As a cartoonist who's trying to make a name (and some money) for himself, this article has really got me steamed. It almost seems that newspapers resent the comics strips that helped make them the successful publications they are!

Before TV and the internet, newspapers fought over comics strips becuase the right cartoon could mean a large boost in circulation. Now comics are the red-headed step-child of content.

Listen, I'm not one of these guys who's constantly pining for the old days and griping about markets lost, but it's reports like this that frustrate me into thinking about abandoning the strip concecpts I'm working on and concentrating solely on the magazine and greeting card markets that still respect cartoons and cartoonists.

In fact, in recent years magazines have begun to publish more cartoons again! Reader's Digest began publishing cartoons only a few years ago, and the response has been outstanding! Other smaller magazines are adding cartoons again too! What do they know that the newspapers don't?!

There's still a huge market out there for cartoons and I think it's time newspapers understood that. Please write your local newspapers and ask for more comics! Bigger comics! Better comics! Don't just take what they're grudgingly handing out, stand up and make your voice heard! "Cartoons!" we'll all shout! "Give us CARTOONS!"

Business-Cartoons.com

I've just launched a smaller cartoon webiste geared entirely to business themed cartoons.

Business-Cartoons.com showcases cartoons in business categories including sales, management and more!

Check it out!

Of course there's always a huge selection of business cartoons right here at Andertoons.com too!

Andertoons.com at new server

Well, it looks like we've got the move mostly finished and with fairly few glitches! Thanks for your patience as we iron out the final little problems!

We've got some big changes on the horizon that should be live on the site in a few days, so stay tuned!

Also, now that we've moved we'll be adding new cartoons to the gallery again. I've got about 50 or 60 news ones to put up, so check back often!