Talk to the Republicans...while you can

Zuda Comics

On October 30, 2007, DC Comics, the popular comic book publisher behind the Zudacomics.com imprint, will post 10 web comic entries for public view and invite people to vote for their favorite. Editors may also declare as many as six submissions to be instant winners during the calendar year.

Zudacomics.com is designed to allow aspiring cartoonists to register at its web site and submit an eight-panel sample of their work.

Now, not all of the cartoonists on the first list of 10 are aspiring artists. I see Howard Shum, creator of the Image series Gun Fu (inspired now doubt by that crappy Christian Bale movie where they're karate-chopping each other with guns...unemotionally. Can't remember the title...) I also see Pop Mhan's name, as well as...Fernando Ruiz?!?!

That's right Kubert students and Arcie fans...Fernando Ruiz is behind one of the strips. So that means once the 10 strips are posted, sign up and start voting. Here's a description of Fernando's title. To view a description of the other nine, click here:

Leprenomicon
Writer/Artist: Greg DelCurla/Fernando Ruiz
Summary: In old Ireland, when the banshee sings for you it means that your time on this Earth is coming to an end. But American Michael O’Connor refuses to take this news lying down. With the (forced) help of a kidnapped Leprechaun, he intends to solve the mystery of his own death even if it turns the world of faeries, gods, and plain old normal folk upside down.

First 10 Zuda Contestants Named
DC Comics

An Escape From the Slush Pile: A Web Site Tries Out New Comics
The New York Times

Hat tip to: K. Rian Miller

Where's Chris Christie on this one?

One of the downfalls, maybe the only one, of living your life as George Clooney.

From WCBS TV 2:

Just weeks after George Clooney was injured in a motorcycle accident and taken to Palisades Medical Center, CBS 2 HD has exclusively learned that dozens of employees, including doctors and nurses, have been suspended for accessing Clooney's confidential information.

Clooney: Don't Suspend Hospital Workers For Med. Info Leak
WCBS TV 2

George Clooney Addresses the Leak of His Medical Records
People

Here's the sketch:

Long-lost SNL clip

Man, I've been looking for this video for years!!!!!! Thankfully someone posted it on youtube.

Van Drew from the 1st to the 2nd???

Here is a link to today's cartoon at PoliticsNJ. Check it out, and let me know what you think. Com'on South Jersey readers, this is the first cartoon I've done for PoliticsNJ on our beloved region, so don't let me down!

Here's the sketch:



And as always, links to related stories:

Van Drew says he'll remember AFL-CIO endorsement of Asselta
PoliticsNJ

1st District Senate race / Elect Van Drew
Press of Atlantic City

Van Drew will not deny Congressional aspirations
PoliticsNJ

New Schulz bio comes with fresh, depressing scent

Well, it finally came today, the new Charles Schulz biography written by David Michaelis, which has created rumblings across the internets by cartoonists as the most depressing book ever. I don't know if I should start reading it, or hang myself from my ceiling fan.

I mean, com'on, at points in his career he made $4,000 a day!!!! If he can't be happy with that, what chance do the REST of us have.

Here's a count on what cartoonists have had to say about it:

Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbies:

For all the influence that “Peanuts” had on me, I was content to admire Schulz from afar, and like most of his millions of readers I never met him. Mr. Michaelis has done an extraordinary amount of digging and has written a perceptive and compelling account of Schulz’s life. This book finally introduces Charles Schulz to us all.

Scott Nickel, Triple Take, His & Hers and Eek:

I received my copy of Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography from Amazon today. I stopped at page 31 feeling utterly despondent. Author David Michaelis paints such a morose and relentlessly depressing portrayal of Schulz and his family (at least his mother and her relatives), that it’s hard to slog through.

Richard Thompson, Cul de Sac, Poor Richard's Almanac:

Anybody reading this? [refering to "Meanwhile..: A Biography of Milton Caniff" written by R. C. Harvey] You should be; it's probably a lot more fun to read than the Michaelis Schulz biography and it's definitely more a labor of love. Reading this makes me want to be a strip cartoonist, and write about exotic locales & vertiginous adventures. And it makes me want to learn how to use a brush, and how to spell chiaroscuro without looking it up (I looked it up).

Want to see an X-Ray of Hello Kitty?

Here's something strange and wonderful. Oregon illustrator Michael Paulus has done a series of 22 skeletal studies of present and past cartoon characters, ranging from Charlie Brown to Shmoo, a bizarre character shaped like a plump bowling pin with legs, but no arms that originated in Al Capp's Li'l Abner, but eventually went on to gain its own animated series in the late 1970s, as part of the animated series Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo.

Paulus describes it this way:

These Icons are usually grotesquely distorted from the human form from which they derive. Being that they are so commonplace and accepted as existing I thought I would dissect them like science does to all living objects - trying to come to an understanding as to their origins and true physiological make up. Possibly to better understand them and see them in a new light for what they are in the most basic of terms.

Hat tip to Boing Boing

Callaway still in charge

So what do you do when you think you're in the clear, then your editor emails you to find out if you're going to have a cartoon that day? Well, you say, "Sure, I'll get it to you in an hour."

Then you realize that you're nowhere near your drawing table, and all you've got is some letter paper, a black ball-point pen, and a friend that can keep a secret.

You scribble madly and begin curse because you can't use your AMES guide to layout the lettering (can't even worry that you don't have your B-6 nib to do the lettering, leave that to Mr. Sharpie).

The hour passes quickly and viola! A masterpiece that people will think is so witty that they don't notice the hurried craftsmanship and frantic execution.

Only your fellow artists will chide you. At least I didn't trace anything :)

Hey cuz, show me some love

I'm sure you've already heard about this, but for those of you who haven't, get ready for some laughs. While doing research for her latest book, "Blue Skies, No Fences," Lynne Cheney uncovered that Barak Obama and Vice President Dick Cheney share a common ancestor, eventually leading the the revelation that they're 9th cousins.

Here a quote from MSNBC:

“This is such an amazing American story that one ancestor ... could be responsible down the family lines for lives that have taken such different and varied paths as Dick’s and Barack Obama."

Obama is related to Cheney through Mareen Duvall, a 17th century immigrant from France. Mareen and Susannah Duvall were Obama's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents and Cheney's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents.

George W. Bush and Obama, meanwhile, are 10th cousins once removed - linked through a 17th century Massachusetts couple, Samuel Hinckley and Sarah Soole, according to the Sun-Times.

Lynne Cheney: VP, Obama are eighth cousins
MSNBC

So far, no sign he's related to Hillary
Chicago Sun-Times

Dissing Cousins: Obama, Cheney, Bush Related
New York Post

Here's the sketch: