11/19/07 - Podcast Gurney Interview and Guide to Interning

These were two items that I thought might be of interest:
First a recent audio interview with Dinotopias's James Gurnery.
Second an enlightening post from James Apples' blog Visual Editors about getting your foot in the door at your local newspaper.

09/05/07 - See You in the Funny Papers?

The attention diverting image on the left will link you to a great blog on comics by Steve Duin of The Oregonian. Nice that they value the medium enough to have a regular columnist assigned to cover it! You can read a review about Craig Voe's mag there as well.

Meanwhile, our local paper, the Lexington Herald-Leader, is running a request on their website for input about the comics they run in the paper. Stop by and enter your votes. This is great that they are asking, but the ballot system they are using seems a little restrictive.

How about we look at the big list of comic strip options? There a lot of great strips that don't get much attention: Liberty Meadows, Spiderman, Little Orphan Annie, you can probably remember some that you thought had gone away or are no longer produced. Here is a link to some of the best comic strips you have never heard of. Below is a partial list (let me know what I have missed) of the offerings from some of the comics syndicates:

• King Features: http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/comics.htm
• United Media: http://www.comics.com/
• Tribune Media Syndicate: http://www.comicspage.com/
• Creators Syndicate: http://www.creators.com/comics.html
• United Features: http://www.unitedfeatures.com/ufsapp/home.do
  

Oh, and while we're at it let's look at Editorial Cartoons - do you think they want our input on that? Here's some links to some of the leaders in that form of cartooning:

• The Washington Post Writers Group: http://www.postwritersgroup.com/edtoons.htm
• Tribune Media Syndicate: http://www.comicspage.com/ed_comics.html

I encourage all readers of this blog to contact your local paper and let them know you are interested in what they run, how they choose to display it (have you noticed the comics page space just keeps shrinking?) and that you want local content as well as the syndicated stuff!

For local area blog visitors, I don't have specific names or emails (yet!) for you all to send your messages to - in the meantime here is a link to the contact us web form for the Herald-Leader. Let them know what you want to read! Start a list here as a comment - we can summarize the suggestions and forward on to the powers that be. Viva La Revolucion!