Category: Comics

FoxTrot to Cease Dailies
Kansas City, MO (12/05/2006) Bill Amendís popular FoxTrot comic strip will go to a Sunday-only publication schedule as of Dec. 31, 2006, announced Universal Press Syndicate today. The last daily will be Saturday, Dec. 30. Reruns of dailies will be available for Web usage.
ìAfter spending close to half of my life writing and drawing FoxTrot cartoons, I think itís time I got out of the house and tried some new things,î said Amend. ìI love cartooning and I absolutely want to continue doing the strip, just not at the current all-consuming pace. Iíve been blessed over the years with a terrific syndicate, patient newspaper clients, and more support from readers than I probably deserve, and I want to assure them all that while Iíll be now a less-frequent participant on the comics pages, Iíll continue to treat my visits as the special privilege they are.î
Amend, who started the strip in April, 1988, and who has more than 1,000 client newspapers, is taking time to pursue other creative outlets. ìIn addition to Sunday newspapers, we may see FoxTrot entertaining us in other kinds of media platforms,î says Lee Salem, president and editor of Universal Press Syndicate.
Amend has more than 30 published FoxTrot comic collections and has licensed his characters for calendars and wallpapers for cell phones. He was nominated in 2006 as a finalist for cartoonist of the year by the National Cartoonists Societyís Reuben Award.

‘Batwoman’ revived as a lesbian
NEW YORK (AP) – Years after she first emerged from the Batcave, Batwoman is coming out of the closet.
DC Comics is resurrecting the classic comic book character as a lesbian, unveiling the new Batwoman in July as part of an ongoing weekly series that began this year. The five-foot-10 superhero comes with flowing red hair, knee-high red boots with spiked heels, and a form-fitting black outfit.
“We decided to give her a different point of view,” explained Dan DiDio, vice-president and executive editor at DC. “We wanted to make her a more unique personality than others in the Bat-family. That’s one of the reasons we went in this direction.”
The original Batwoman was started in 1956, and killed off in 1979. The new character will share the same name as her original alter ego, Kathy Kane. And the new Batwoman arrives with ties to others in the Gotham City world.
“She’s a socialite from Gotham high society,” DiDio said. “She has some past connection with Bruce Wayne. And she’s also had a past love affair with one of our lead characters, Renee Montoya.”
Montoya, in the 52 comic book series, is a former police detective. Wayne, of course, is Batman’s true identity – but he has disappeared, along with Superman and Wonder Woman, leaving Gotham a more dangerous place.
The 52 series is a collaboration of four acclaimed writers, with one episode per week for one year. The comics will introduce other diverse characters as the story plays out.
“This is not just about having a gay character,” DiDio said. “We’re trying for overall diversity in the DC universe. We have strong African-American, Hispanic and Asian characters. We’re trying to get a better cross-section of our readership and the world.”
The outing of Batwoman created a furor of opinions on websites devoted to DC Comics. Opinions ranged from outrage to approval. Others took a more tongue-in-cheeck approach to the announcement.
“Wouldn’t ugly people as heroes be more groundbreaking?” asked one poster. “You know, 200-pound woman, man with horseshoe hair loss pattern, people with cold sores, etc.?”
DiDio asked that people wait until the new Batwoman’s appearance in the series before they pass judgment.
“You know what? Judge us by the story and character we create,” he said. “We are confident that we are telling a great story with a strong, complex character.”
DiDio spent most of the morning fielding phone calls from media intrigued by the Batwoman reinvention.
“It’s kind of weird,” he said. “We had a feeling it would attract some attention, but we’re a little surprised it did this much.”

‘Doonesbury’ still feisty after 35 years
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Not long after the dust settled from the Iraqi explosion that took Doonesbury comic strip character B.D.’s left leg last year, the Pentagon was on the phone.
The frequent target of Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau, the Defence Department offered the satirist extensive access to soldiers wounded while fighting in Iraq and the doctors and caregivers trying to put their bodies – and psyches – back together.
“There are so many ways to get it wrong,” Trudeau said of portraying the soldiers’ struggles accurately during a recent meeting of the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors. “They figured, correctly, I could use all the help I could get.”
It also spoke to the fact that Doonesbury, an often funny, sometimes frustrating and frequently controversial comic strip born in syndication 35 years ago, is still considered weighty enough to get the government’s attention.
Over the years, the strip – which started as a cartoon that Yale graduate Trudeau, 57, wrote for the college paper – has used humour and biting commentary to address a broad sweep of society, from race relations and AIDS to same-sex marriage and stem cells.
His huge cast of characters have aged along the way: Mike Doonesbury, the strip’s lead character, has gone from idealistic college student to befuddled dad of a college-age daughter; Zonker Harris, the former professional tanner is now a nanny; Uncle Duke, the Hunter S. Thompsonesque mercenary, ran for the presidency in 2000 and, until recently, was serving as mayor of the fictional Iraqi city of Al-Amok.
But he’s always come back to raw politics, taking a page of Walt Kelly’s Pogo, which pioneered the use of poking fun at politicians on the funny pages. Most recently, he has relentlessly hammered the war and U.S. President George W. Bush, who’s depicted as an asterisk wearing an increasingly battered Roman helmet.
“Well, it’s a humour strip, so my first responsibility has always been to entertain the reader,” Trudeau said in response to e-mailed questions from the Associated Press. “But if, in addition, I can help move readers to thought and judgment about issues that concern me, so much the better.”
Many times, those efforts have landed him in trouble with newspaper editors who have pulled or edited his strips because of salty language, uncomfortable images or controversial subjects.
Last fall, 20 newspapers objected to a strip that had Vice-President Dick Cheney using a profanity as he remotely coached Bush through a press conference. The strip married two real-life controversies – a similar profanity Cheney used on the Senate floor and rumours denied by the White House that a mysterious bulge under the president’s suit jacket was an audio receiver, designed to help him through a debate.
His subjects often claim he’s unfair and trying to score political points for liberals.
In 1984, a week of Doonesbury strips depicting then-vice-president George Bush placing his “manhood in a blind trust” so he could serve in the Reagan White House led to this Bush retort: “Doonesbury’s carrying water for the opposition. Trudeau is coming out of deep left field.”
In a column last year criticizing the B.D. story line in Doonesbury, Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly said Trudeau was using “someone’s personal tragedy” to generate opposition to the war. He led off the column with an anecdote about Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels using images of fallen soldiers to encourage war against Poland.
Trudeau, who describes his politics as “stone dull moderate,” said he’s supported Republicans in the past but has felt compelled to go after “mindless ideologues like the ones who’ve had a stranglehold on power the past five years.”
Some observers say the war has given Doonesbury a new energy, one that they say was largely absent during the 1990s, when American politics and culture didn’t deliver the high-stakes issues that experts say satire needs to thrive.
“I think Doonesbury was really of the Vietnam generation and became a voice of the Vietnam generation, and what’s interesting to me is that decades later (Trudeau) tapped into that exact same thing with the Iraq war,” said Matt Davies, a Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist for The Journal News in Westchester, N.Y. “Because of his reputation and perhaps his infamy, he rose to the challenge with the Iraq war and was back throwing barbs on the comics page. He’s still got it. He’s still an angry young man.”
Of course, Doonesbury is no longer the oddity it once was. In the 1970s, the idea of using humour to skewer the political and social issues of the day was still rare in popular culture.
“Those were very self-serious times,” said Trudeau, who won a Pulitzer in 1975. “The end of the Vietnam War changed all that. The nation exhaled, Saturday Night Live hit big, and satire really took off.”
Christopher Lamb, an associate professor of communication at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, dedicated a chapter to Doonesbury in his book Drawn to Extremes: The Use and Abuse of Political Cartoons.
“He rides the cultural, political and social waves,” said Lamb. “He’s a heck of an observer.”
Reason magazine Managing Editor Jesse Walker, on the other hand, said the strip has become more Democrat polemic than satire.
“Ultimately what happened to Trudeau was he got older, no longer had his finger on the pulse and started writing as an outsider,” Walker said.

New Asterix and Obelix comic book set for release
A new comic book featuring the Roman-bashing warrior Asterix and his inseparable chum Obelix will be appearing in stores next month.
One of its creators, Albert Uderzo, announced the latest book in Brussels Thursday, but he revealed little about it except for the title — Le Ciel lui Tombe sur la Tete or Asterix and the Falling Sky.
He also assured fans that Asterix and the Falling Sky would not be his last album.
“I enjoy what I’m doing despite my age and as long as I can find a good idea I will make another album,” he said.
The 33rd comic book depicting the famous Gaul heroes will go on sale in 27 countries around the world on Oct. 14.
Illustrator Uderzo, 78, met author Rene Goscinny in the 1950s in Brussels, and together they created the characters, which first appeared in a French magazine in 1959.
Since then over 300 million comic books have been sold in more than 107 languages. The last title, Asterix and the Actress, sold 10 million copies.
When Goscinny died in 1977, the colourblind Uderzo continued writing and illustrating another eight albums.
Brussels was getting set to celebrate the new book this week by converting its medieval Grand-Place square into a Gaul village. Fans will be able to enjoy a “magic potion” made by village druid, for those who wish to attain Asterix style superhuman strength.

Comic Book Giveaway on ‘Punisher’ Opening Day
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) – It’s a comic book lover’s dream come true.
When Lions Gate Films’ “The Punisher” debuts nationwide on Friday, April 16, superhero fans will get more bang for their buck. While supplies last, each paid admission for the film will be accompanied by a special giveaway reprint of “Amazing Spider-Man #129” — the 1974 Marvel comic book that featured The Punisher’s first appearance.
The original comic book is currently going for over $900 on eBay.
In the comic, The Punisher is introduced as a one-man army taking on society’s worst criminals. He’s fooled by the villainous Jackal and mistakes Spider-Man for a bad guy. By the end, the two vigilantes realize they’re on the same side and part ways to fight crime in America.
“From that first appearance … Marvel readers responded very strongly to The Punisher, so much so that he earned his own comic,” says Avi Arad, the film’s producer and CEO of Marvel Studios. “We think the movie ‘The Punisher’ — not to mention Tom Jane’s incredible performance — is going to make an equally lasting impression.”
In the film, Jane stars as Frank Castle, an ex-Delta Force operative who seeks vengeance for losing his family. With no superpowers and only his intelligence, training and fury on his side, Castle transforms into a merciless vigilante known as The Punisher.
“Punisher” also stars John Travolta, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Roy Scheider and Samantha Mathis.

More Marvel Movies On The Way
In Marvel’s annual first quarter report, they announced that the upcoming FANTASTIC FOUR movie could see a release on November 4, 2004 with 20th Century Fox films. Additionally, Marvel Studios are working on BLADE 3, THE PUNISHER, SPIDER-MAN 2, IRON MAN, NAMOR and several other film adaptations.

TOON TIME
Oscar winner William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) adapting DC Comics’ Shazam! for New Line for a possible Christmas 2004 release, reports Variety. Shazam was the wizard who transformed mild-mannered Billy Batson into Captain Marvel.

Wonder Woman Gets a Makeover
NEW YORK – Her bullet-deflecting bracelets are gone, her golden tiara has disappeared and her long, flowing locks have been shorn.
After 60 years of fighting evil, Wonder Woman has a new, edgy look, complete with short, spiky hair and a camouflage bustier. The new Wonder Woman will appear in this Wednesday’s DC Comics issue.
With characteristic finesse, a somewhat shocked Wonder Woman looks in the mirror and takes her new ‘do in stride: “It’s hair. It will grow back.”
The makeover is part of Wonder Woman’s latest six-part adventure, a harrowing scenario in which she gets amnesia and must fight demons without her superpower strength. Luckily, her brains out-muscle the brawn.
In Issue 190, Wonder Woman decides she must go undercover if she is to survive her ordeal and reclaim her identity.
“She’s bright and when she realizes she’s getting attacked she thinks she probably ought not to look like herself,” said Wonder Woman writer Walter Simonson of DC Comics. Simonson expects readers to have mixed reactions to the new look.
To foil her enemies, a slight trim won’t do. So, Wonder Woman chops her hair, dons a pair of glasses (a nod to Clark Kent and his superhero alter ego Superman) and trades in her star-spangled leotard for the camouflage bustier.
The look is more boot camp than beauty queen.
“In this series, she has plenty of battles and she looks like a soldier,” said illustrator Jerry Ordway. “Here we have someone who is a fighting machine. She’s suddenly put in a situation and she can handle herself.”
An identity crisis ó the short hair, the military garb? Could Wonder Woman be a metaphor for our post-Sept. 11 selves?
Although the creative minds behind Wonder Woman don’t want to make too much out of the similarities between their heroine’s struggles and the current global crisis, they do acknowledge the parallels.
“After 9-11 a lot of people went back to think about who we are and to do some soul-searching,” Simonson said. “But remember, Wonder Woman’s specific mission is to bring peace; she’s a heroine who fights for peace.”

Spider Man Creator Sues Marvel for Profit Cut
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The creator of Spider-Man and other superheroes sued Marvel Enterprises Inc. on Tuesday, alleging it has trampled on his rights and broken promises to pay him a cut of the profits from the commercial success of his characters.
Stan Lee, the 79-year-old artist behind Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, X-Men and Daredevil, is seeking 10 percent of the profits earned from this year’s hit film “Spider-Man: The Movie” and other films and television shows. The suit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, also names Marvel Characters as a defendant.
The Spider-Man movie grossed $114 million in its record-breaking opening weekend and has earned more than $1 billion worldwide, the suit said. Lee said he created the Spider-Man character about 40 years ago.
The DVD and videocassette versions of the movie went on sale Nov. 1 and executives of Sony Corp.’s Sony Pictures Entertainment reported that sales were expected to generate more than $190 million in North America alone in the first three days on the market, according to the suit.
“Mr. Lee has made contributions to Marvel and the comic book industry in the past, for which he continues to be well compensated,” Marvel said in a statement on Tuesday. “Marvel believes it is in full compliance with, and current on all payments due under, the terms of Mr. Lee’s employment agreement and will continue to be so in the future.”
The company had said in regulatory filing last week that Lee was threatening litigation.
‘SHAMEFUL SCHEME’
Lee alleged in his suit that despite all the acclaim for his characters, the defendants “embarked upon a shameful scheme to keep Mr. Lee from participating in the commercial success of his creations.
“In so doing, the defendants have trampled upon Mr. Lee’s rights — particularly the profit sharing commitment which they made to Mr. Lee which entitled him to share in the profits derived from the Marvel superhero characters,” the suit alleged.
The suit said the defendants’ actions are especially egregious given that Lee was initially employed by the defendants or their predecessors in 1939, and his 60-plus year association with them followed. Lee was first hired at age 17 to be an office errand-boy for Marvel’s predecessor, Timely.
“During these many years, while defendants’ business was built on the wings of his creations, Mr. Lee placed his trust and confidence in defendants — ultimately entering into a profit sharing venture with defendants for the exploitation of his creations,” the suit said.
Under the agreement, Lee said Marvel had a duty to pay Lee 10 percent of the profits from production using his characters in television and movies. The suit alleges that Marvel executives have already received “enormous windfalls” from X-Men and Spider-Man films and related merchandise.
Lee said in the suit that future films will be based on his characters including Daredevil, which is currently in production and scheduled to open in February.
On Saturday, Lee was named one of the winners of the inaugural Golden Panel Awards presented by The New York City Comic Book Museum, the nation’s only museum dedicated to the art of the comic book. Lee was selected “Legend of 2002” for his lifetime achievements in the comic book industry.