But he is topical, and the LA Times runs him in the Business section; he’s the only cartoon in there. I remember the first time he appeared there; apparently there was some infighting in the Times as to who would get him, Business or Comics, and Business won. They made an announcement like they’d won the Olympics!

But when times got tough, they narrowed the columns, the pages, etc, and started running him one-panel size, so he ran vertically. I found out that I can’t understand the cartoons very well now. I have to read them 2 or 3 times, and sometimes I just skip it. Maybe this is my limitation, but I was so annoyed I wrote about this a year ago.

Last week I got a lot of traffic looking for Dilbert and the LA Times, and I knew something must have happened. I couldn’t check the paper, as I didn’t get it that day, but turns out the Times forgot to include Dilbert that one day, and people went nuts!

Apology from the Times the next day. No link to it, as they didn’t think it important enough to put online. Rock on, Dil.

More cartoons:

1. Dilbert isn’t funny anymore.
2. Obama won Nobel Peace Prize in spite of himself.

I just couldn’t believe this article in the LA Times and many other papers today.

But for one day — this Sunday — nearly a dozen cartoonists of color will be drawing essentially the same comic strip, using irony to literally illustrate that point. In each strip, the artists will portray a white reader grousing about a minority-drawn strip, complaining that it’s a “Boondocks” rip-off and blaming it on “tokenism.” “It’s the one-minority rule,” says Lalo Alcaraz (”La Cucaracha”). “We’ve got one black guy and we’ve got one Latino. There’s not room for anything else.”

Blondie comic book cover

Let’s respect syndicates like King Features for not allowing registered and copyrighted characters and cartoons to be uploaded, I really do, but it makes my life as a comic reporter much harder. However, came across this blogger who has some very cool comic book covers for you to ogle and enjoy. Blondie is written and drawn by two men, bless their hearts.
Or, as Darrin Bell says in Tampa Bay here:

Cartoonist Darrin Bell likes to call it the “two strip rule.”

It’s the trend he’s noticed while pitching his syndicated comic strip Candorville to newspapers across the country. Most newspapers, it seems, will make room for only two strips drawn by people of color, no matter the subject.

It does seem a little unfair, although the Times goes on to point out:

Still, others argue that it’s not that simple. For one, there are demographics to consider, says Rick Newcombe, chief executive of Creators Syndicate, (Hi, Rick!) which syndicates “B.C.,” “Herb and Jamaal,” “Working It Out” and “Cafe con Leche.”

“In defense of newspaper editors,” says Newcombe, “it’s only natural to buy [comic strips] according to categories. You might have one according to sports, or one according to office etiquette or work.

And some other syndicate editors remind us if one strip is picked up, another is dropped, the paper business is hard, yada, yada.

Immediately, I go to the LA Times to count strips (as if I haven’t done this before.)      Hmm, the LA Times has three strips by cartoonists of color! The Times is ahead of the game!

And how about cartoons by women? Let’s see…two. Two strips by women, For Better or For Worse, and Cathy. Huh. Of course, there are several strips ABOUT women, but apparently women weren’t able to draw or write them. That’s peculiar…

9 Chickweed Lane – by Brooke McEldowney, a man with a girl’s name.
Sally Forth – by two men. You know, to get a woman’s “voice” just right.
Blondie – by two men. But they’re very sensitive men, I’m sure…

A dozen minority (men) cartoonists, but I can’t think of even 10 syndicated women, and this is my business. Oh, dear, [slap upside the head], how did I forget Six Chix, by King Features? It’s not in the Times, but it’s in Daily News, so, in close proximity. King Features, the syndicate that figured one woman couldn’t “carry” a panel by herself, so it takes 6 (as in Six Chix) women, all patched and stitched together, to make some kind of funny impact.

Did I make my point yet?

UPDATED TODAY!

Hmm. Nothing has changed. Oh, For Better or For Worse is on hiatus, or retirement, or retreads, whatever they’re calling it now, so they are testing Between Friends, by Sandra Bell-Lundy for a few months. So, still only 2 women, 3 cartoonists of color (see, they can’t say minority cartoonists, because that would INCLUDE women). So cartoonists of color have more power and influence.

Say, that’s just how our recent election worked out, too!

More cartoons:

1. Dilbert isn’t funny anymore.
2. Doonesbury predicted an Obama victory. Quel surprise.

Credit: G. B. Trudeau / Universal Press Syndicate.

It was a week ago that all the papers threw up their hands in mutual pretended concern that Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury did his Nov 5 strip early, predicting Barak Obama for the win. How to handle this delicate situation? Most papers decided to take the “risk” and run it. Not the LA Times.

First the Times decided not to run it.

Times editors have decided that in the interest of accuracy, it would be best to wait to see the results of the election.

They changed their minds, however, when readers wrote in. Much sarcasm ensued.

I applaud the L.A. Times decision to wait until the election before running Doonesbury’s strip where Obama wins “in the interest of accuracy.” But in the interest of accuracy the Times should also withhold Non Sequitur, Mutts, Get Fuzzy and Tundra (animals don’t really talk). Also stop Brewster Rockit: Space Guy (he’s not really in space). Just don’t tell the editors that Snoopy can’t fly his doghouse.
Bill Becher
Westlake Village

Here’s part of the suspect strip.

Personally, I found the repetitious shouts of, “We Did It,” and “Now I’m proud to be an American” so annoying from folks that I deleted every MySpace friend and Twitter friend that said it. I guess I’m not very social with my social networking.

More cartoons:

1. Dilbert isn’t funny anymore.
2. How many minority and women cartoonists are in the LA Times?

Image from HuffPo, which I ASSUME got permission from Andrews McMeel. AM is very strict about any kind of image use, as they should be.

A California initiative on the November ballot — Proposition 2, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act — will phase out the cramming of veal calves, breeding pigs and egg-laying hens into small cages and crates.

The Huffington Post has an interesting interview with  Patrick McDonnell, the creator of the comic strip MUTTS. (I don’t believe in reading the PuffPost regularly, when they don’t believe in paying their writers (over 2000 now), when it’s the BIGGEST BLOG in the world. (We won’t go into the fact that Arriana Huffington is a billionaire, too.)) 

MM: What inspired you to run a whole week of strips on the humane treatment of farm animals?

PM: Prop 2 is just too important to not tackle. Even though the reform will be modest, it puts a stake into the ground that the way we treat farm animals matters.

MM: Why is Prop 2 important to you, and what can your readers do to help?

PM: Because 20 million animals will be directly impacted, suffering less, if this measure passes. It will also send a clear message to the factory farm conglomerates that, once people are made aware, they will not tolerate the way most animals raised for food are treated in this country.

Patrick is also on the board of the Humane Society. Yay, Mutts!

The other cartoonist I wanted to give a bow to is Dan Piraro, of Bizarro fame.  I think I only saw one or two cartoons about farm animals recently, but he has been associated with Farm Sanctuary for a long time, and has donated a lot of work to them. Farm Sanctuary is a co-sponsor with HSUS on Prop 2. Yay for them!

Dan talks a lot about being a vegan in his blog. He also talks about his half-nekkid wife who does stunts in NYC for Peta.

More cartoons:

1. Something about gays, a Time Magazine un-cartoon of the week.
2. Take this election cartoon to the voting booth with you today.

I don’t usually read Doonesbury, by Garry Trudeau. I do like it, think it’s extremely clever, but I regularly read only a handful of comics.  (list to be divulged at another time.) But for some reason, I looked over and took a look at a story arc starting October 17.

One of his characters, Rick Redfern, the journalist, about 50 years old or so, I guess, just started a blog. He’s excited because somebody finally linked to him. (I wanted to get permission from uclick to reprint it, and it took a couple of days to get an answer – No. Unless I want to cough up $50. From a BLOGGER?  You gotta be kidding.) So here’s a link.

Since I don’t regularly read Doonesbury, I was confused. I looked at the cartoon title. Was this a rerun? Nope. So…did Garry Trudeau just. discover. blogs???! If true, oh my gah. I am appalled. I just started this blog a few weeks ago, but I’ve been contributing comments to blogs for 6 years now, and have been running my Griffith Park blog for over 18 months. True, when I go to parties, most people I meet still say they don’t read blogs! Even the younger ‘uns! But Garry Trudeau is….the man au courant. Or at least I used to think so.

I found a blogger here, Robert Niles, who has a different take. He names it: What Doonesbury’s Rick Redfern did wrong:

The real-world WaPo has taken one of the newspaper industry’s most aggressive approaches to staff blogging and chatting. If Redfern had worked at the real WaPo, he undoubtedly would have had the opportunity to start a blog long before he faced a buyout. He could have developed his blogging voice, as well as an online following, with the help of one of the newspaper industry’s top dot-com staffs.

He has some interesting tips on how to start a blog before you get laid off from your paper, which would be great, you know, if one had the newspaper job to begin with.

Well, at least I don’t have to worry about Garry seeing this, as blogs aren’t on his radar – should we call it bladar- yet.

More cartoons:

1. Two more cartoons I’m glad I didn’t do.
2. Doonesbury predicted an Obama victory. Quel surprise.

All rights reserved by Scott Adams.

Hello, Dilbert, my old friend. (Can’t link to him on caption: http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/).

I know papers are trying to save money. The LA Times is laying off 150 more reporters this month. Really shameful. And haven’t I already been a victim from that?!

And so sometimes they shave a sliver off the page. I guess the columns just got skinnier, too, because a few months ago I noticed Dilbert, which runs in the Business section of the LA Times, was suddenly running vertically, instead of horizontally.

I think Dilbert is one of the funniest, if not the funniest, strips out there. Laugh out loud funny, which is rare for me. But I guess I can’t think in a North-South way, because I literally can’t understand it now. I keep looking at the shape, and then try to figure out the vertical action. ( It’s also compressed & distorted; I’m surprised you don’t have people throwing up when they try to read it, Times.) By the time I reach the bottom I forget what the premise was. And who wants to re-read a comic? This is not the way to showcase the biggest cartoonist in the US, editors.

A few years ago I was lucky enough to hear Wiley Miller, of Non-Sequiter, speak at a local cartoon group (CAPS). He was quite pleased with a solution he worked out with his syndicate. (He is really a single panel, but also draws as a rectangle to fit in with the other strips. I’m talking about his older stuff, before he had characters.) Many Sunday papers didn’t have enough room to run him on Sundays, so he told his syndicate, ok, he’d just draw the Sunday strip vertically, to squeeze into available space that way! You’ll have to decide for yourself if this works. Or if it’s funny.

More cartoons:

1. LA Times forgot Dilbert, but readers didn’t.
2. How many minority and women cartoonists are in the LA Times?