This Modern World creator Dan Perkins said he is "very pleased that the genre of alt-weekly cartoons is increasingly being recognized."
OC Weekly Brings Back 'Red Meat' Comic; Derf Goes Hollywood; Matt Groening talks to Pasadena Weekly about the end of Life in Hell; and Jen Sorensen tells the Austin Chronicle, "You need to be a certain kind of masochist to be a political cartoonist."
The Village Voice released its Comics Issue this week, with an inventive and eye-catching cover done by longtime alt-cartoonist Ward Sutton.
The cartoonist behind "This Modern World" was tapped by Pearl Jam to create the cover for the band's most recent album, Backspacer. Now it has gone gold after selling a half-million units, and the band thanked Tomorrow (aka Dan Perkins) with a framed gold record. "I had no idea they were going to pull me up on stage last week in Hartford, and I had no idea this was in the works. It was an incredibly thoughtful gesture on their part, and I was as moved as you might imagine," Perkins says. "And now I have a gold record, with my name on the plaque and everything -- how cool is that?"
Tom Tomorrow broke the news yesterday on his blog that the ailing economy is forcing Village Voice Media to suspend publication of syndicated cartoons "at least through the rest of the first quarter, and quite possibly beyond." City Pages editor Kevin Hoffman tells the Minnesota Independent he expects some reader backlash, but says the suspension is part of an effort to "trim where we can while inflicting the least damage -- realizing that we're already cutting bone." MORE: Syndicated cartoonists Jen Sorensen and Derf weigh in.
Matt Bors and Tom Tomorrow both report that they have lost several papers in the last few months.
The cartoonist behind "This Modern World" says on his blog that his new compilation, The Future's So Bright I Can't Bear to Look, is now in stock at Amazon.com. The book, which he calls "a cartoon chronicle of the end of the Bush era," is officially set for release Sept. 29 by Nation Books.
Taking a page from New York Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia, who famously read comics on the radio during the city's 1945 newspaper strike, Olbermann last week read a two-page Tom Tomorrow cartoon from The Village Voice out loud on Countdown. The comic, "Bill O'Reilly's Very Useful Advice for Young People, as Channeled by Vile Left-Wing Smear Merchant Tom Tomorrow," features 16 helpful hints for the "young generation." As far as we know, this is the only time the first-ever recipient of AAN's Molly Ivins Award has had the opportunity to reference his own penis size on air.
