Andertoons Cartoon Blog

End of the Year Wrap-up

Tomorrow it'll be a brand new year, and I thought I'd take today's blog to look back at 2004 a bit.

Probably the biggest changes this year were right here at our favorite cartoon website. I moved to a new web designer/host, Karma Marketing & Media, and have been thrilled with the results. Two redesigns and a blog later, the boys at Karma and I still have a lot of new ideas that we'll be putting into place and I'm really pleased with how things are going.

To focus a little more on the blog, I have to say I wasn't sure how this whole blog thing might work out. I didn't even know what a blog was until April or so when I ran across the term in a magazine. Seven months and about 200 entries later, I gotta tell ya, I really do enjoy the blog, and I hope you do too.

Of course the engine that keeps this whole thing running is my daily crop of gag cartoons. I tried to stick to a schedule of three new cartoons every weekday. A lot of the time I hit it, and sometimes I didn't, but on the whole I drew a slew of cartoons this year. (Some of them are even funny!)

Well, that's about it. Thanks to everyone reading this, my editors and clients for keeping my ink in the black, the boys at Karma for putting up with me, my family for constantly telling me how funny I am, my 17-month old son for keeping his dad hopping and providing incalcuable joy, and, of course, my wife for laughing with, at, and for me all year long.

Here's hoping 2005 is even better! See you on the other side...

Tsunami Cartoons

Some great/sad cartoons about the tsunami here. (Gorrell's is my favorite.)

So You Thought Only Being Able To Draw Stick People Could Never Pay Off...

Nike loses "stickman" lawsuit to Chinese Flash cartoonist

Andertoons Blog Schedule Change

Well, it's been a lot of fun this year, but to be honest, blogging every weekeday has taken a bit of work.

So I just wanted to give everyone a heads up that in 2005 our humble little cartoon blog will be changing to a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule. (Of course if I find short little blurbs to link to I'll be posting those as they pop up.)

Hopefully this will free up some time for some new projects I have coming down the proverbial pike and allow me more time to find even better cartoon stuff to blog about.

Anyway, tune in tomorrow for our year end wrap-up, and then I'll start the new scedule next week.

Honestly...

Does anyone really need/want this?

Medical Cartoon in January '04 Good Housekeeping

One of my medical cartoons is featured in the January 2004 issue of Good Housekeeping!

Check it out!

Shrinking Editorial Cartoonists

Here's some good audio on editorial cartoonists' diminishing ranks - check it out!

All Kurtz, All The Time

OK, so there's been a ton written already about this Kurtz vs. the syndicates thingy, and I've hesitated to weigh in on it, but I ran across an article about it and couldn't resist any longer.

According to reporter John C. Kuehner, Kurtz notes that "because syndicates own the strips, they continue to run outdated comics such as 'Peanuts,' 'Nancy' and 'Blondie' after their old-guard creators die."

(Please note - This is not an actual quote from Kurtz, but one from Kuehner instead.)

True, syndicates did once, and do still to some extent, own some strips outright, but most if not all recent comic strips are owned by the cartoonist with revenue being shared between the syndicate and the artist.

I'm going to assume that Kurtz was misquoted here as he seems to be a fairly intelligent and well-spoken guy.

Here's another thing: PVP is certainly a popular comic (I'll be reviewing it soon) and it's well executed, but I'm not sure Kurtz's anti-syndication revolution will come swiftly if it ever comes at all.

An ad featuring a PVP character on Kurtz's site for speakeasy.net boasts 80,000 visitors a day to his site. Sounds like a lot right? And let's assume that recent newspapers printing PVP has upped his stats significantly to, oh, I dunno, 100,000 visitors or so.

The population of people over the age of 14 in the US is estimated to be about 234 million. So that's roughly .00004 percent of the population that visits PVP online. Or to put it a little more plainly, except for the entire population of Peoria, Illinois, no one else on the planet visits PVP online.

I'm sure to be hearing from Kurtz, Kurtz's friends, and fans of PVP about how I suck, how my cartoons suck, and what a dumbass I am etc...

Here's my point:

PVP is a good strip and it's worth more that Kurtz thinks. Why he's choosing to miss out on additional income by simply giving his work away is beyond me.

Kurtz is successful and the strip is wildly popular with its fans, but ultimately he's selling himself and the art form short.

James Point Du Jour - Inside the Cartoonist's Studio

Well, it's the end of 2004, and to wrap up this year's Inside the Cartoonist's Studio fun we have Ellington Way's James Point Du Jour!

Here goes...

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

I'd remake "The Princess Bride" with Cyclops and Jean Grey from X-Men. Oscar gold.

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

"Roquefort the Puppy Stabber." Reuben gold.

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.

An empty coffee mug floats over the character's head signifying imminent meltdown. This would commonly occur while watching "The Age of Innocence."

Dang! Now I'm going to have to retool my latest strip, "Rupert the Puppy Stabber!"

Thanks a bunch, James! Be sure to check out Ellington Way, his CoffeeRoll site, and Artists Helping Children (a great organization James hipped me to!).

Andertoons Christmas Cartoons

Well, tomorrow's the big day, so I thought I'd throw some of this year's Christmas cartoons on the ol' Andertoons blog!

The above Christmas cartoon is in the December issue of Good Housekeeping this year, as is this Christmas cartoon.

This Christmas cartoon appeared in American Legion and ended up being my Christmas card too.

And this Christmas cartoon never got picked up, but I just really liked it!

Well, that's it for this week. Happy holidays!