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Chiara, a 7-year-old girl from Columbia, recently won a contest and was drawn into a nationally syndicated Oh Brother! comic strip. The contest solicited parents to send in a funny story about how their kid is a character, with the top prize being an appearance in the comic strip. Oh Brother! was started in June of last year by cartoonists Bob Weber Jr. (Slylock Fox) and Jay Stephens (The Secret Saturdays, Tutenstein, Oddville).
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The Columbia Tribune has an in depth profile of webcomic artist Mick Beyers. Beyers celebrated the one year anniversary of his Buster Drake comic this last week, and has relaunched it as a larger weekly comic (Previously he updated the site with smaller strips three times a week.). In addition to the new schedule, his site has a new look and he’s also added Michelle Rivas as colorist for the comic.
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Some St. Louis comic creators have put together a new anthology of 13 crime tales called Shots in the Dark. The anthology is a follow up to last year’s Spirits of St. Louis horror anthology put out by Ink and Drink Comics. Playback: STL has a review of the anthology up on their blog. They are hosting an official release party for the book on April 13th at Star Clipper in St. Louis.
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Last week the Maneater student newspaper published a profile of local comic creator Scott Ross. Ross is the driving force behind the web-comic Young Learner’s Guide to American Wildlife, which he also prints up as mini comics and distributes around town under the name of The Dancing Bear.
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Writer Josh Eiserike would like to up the ante for local cartoonist Zac Crockett to finish drawing their series Anyone but Virginia, so Eiserike has started a Kickstarter campaign. The idea is to pay Zac for his time on illustrating Anyone but Virgina #5 (the final issue), and keep him away from other commissioned projects until he finishes the series. If you pledge your support for the series, there’s lots of goodies available for various pledge levels.
Update: The Kickstarter campaign was successful!
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University of Missouri graduate student Jake Johnson recently took the top prize in the Columbia Art League show “Hybrid Identity” with his painting “Batman after Velásquez.” Johnson explains the painting on his blog:
Batman is based off of a painting of Mars by Diego Velázquez. The original hangs in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain. The artist (Velázquez) reveals a sense of humor in the painting as the infamous war god is portrayed here not as a strong warrior (as his armor is stripped from him on the floor) but as a weaker more human-like version. Here Mars is not a fighter, but a lover as this is a scene portrayed from Greek mythology where the warrior god has been caught in romance with the love goddess Venus. Rumors state that this painting was also a portrait of King Phillip IV, who was known himself to be the flirtatious type with the ladies. One of the strongest themes in Velásquez’s painting that con-temporized his works was that of banal humanity. The artist was representing the average person as mythological god. In essence Velázquez takes a god from above and brings him down, making him human as he stripped his armor to the floor. Batman attempts to meet Velázquez in the middle, rising from below (A pile of comic books on the floor) to become human.
The Columbia Tribune has an interview with Johnson about the Batman painting. To see more about Johnson’s work, go to his official website, and his blog. The art show runs at the Columbia Art League from January 18 – February 26, 2011.
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The University of Missouri Department of Theatre will put on the play Dog Sees God Feb. 3-5 and 10-13. The play re-imagines characters from the Peanuts comic strip with a harsher edge. Here’s some more info about the play from a Columbia Tribune article:
The “Peanuts” characters we all came to know and love on the comic strip page come to the stage, now in their teens and facing situations far more troublesome than kicking a pesky football. Deemed an “unauthorized parody,” the characters bear different names but also vestiges of very familiar personas. In Royal’s paradigm-bending world, Linus is now on drugs, Pigpen is an abrasive homophobe, Lucy is a pyromaniac, Charlie Brown is finally popular but with a few secrets, and Snoopy is no longer with us, having succumbed to rabies.
The play, written by Bert V. Royal (Easy A) and directed by Bryan Vandevender, will be held at the Corner Playhouse at MU.
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The new Mort’s Grill eatery is now open in the MU Student Center on campus. You can check the Campus Dining Services website to see the hours they’ll be open.
The grill was not quite done when Mort Walker visited in October, but according to the Missouri Student Union’s facebook page, it officially opened on January 13th. The place features the a Beetle Bailey Statue and many other comic strip references.
Update: The Missourian has a story about Mort’s.
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The State Historical Society of Missouri has recently announced that they’ve put up several online databases. One of these databases is the Editorial Cartoon Database, with work by such notable cartoonists as Daniel R. Fitzpatrick, Bill Mauldin, and Tom Engelhardt.
In other news, the State Historical Society of Missouri has recently taken over management of the Western Historical Manuscript Collection. The Western Historical Manuscript Collection houses some comic related material including items from Lester Dent, Daniel R. Fitzpatrick & Peter Mayo.
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The State Historical Society of Missouri is exhibiting four newly acquired Mort Walker comics in the Society West Corridor. From their website:
Mort Walker has produced his award-winning comic strip, Beetle Bailey, for over fifty years and is one of the nation’s best-known comic artists. Walker grew up in Kansas City and attended the University of Missouri where he invented the character that later became Beetle. This exhibit features several Beetle Bailey cartoons as well as Walker’s popular strip Hi and Lois.
The exhibit started in December and runs through Spring 2011.
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Local creator Zac Crockett has finished up drawing Anyone but Virginia #3 and has started in on issue #4. You can start reading issue #3, or start from the beginning of the series. The writer of the comic, Josh Eiserike, notes that a short live action film based on the comic is in the works.
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Cartoonist Gary Lister is taking the month of November to do the 30 characters in 30 days challenge. Lister explains the challenge:
The goal is to create 30 new characters for each day in November! The roots of this challenge begin at 30characters.com. Over 150 other artists and writers have signed up for this year’s challenge! By the end of November, the site will see the creation of thousands of new characters – everything from fantasy to superheroes/villains to slice-0f-life to characters for a dramatic novel! Please visit 3ocharacters.com and check it all out. It’s too late to participate for this year but according to site admin Tyler James, this is the event’s 2nd year and we have 4 times the participants as last year! Mark it on your calendar for 2011 and come join us then!
Check out Lister’s characters that he’s created so far for the challenge.
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The latest issue of Mizzou Magazine is out, and they’ve posted a video interview with Mort Walker:
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This month Mick Beyers has been adding some color to his Buster Drake online comic. It’s quite a shift away from his strips he was creating when we profiled him last summer. The strips he’s been coloring so far have been ones that he finished during the 24 hour comic day event back in October.
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After speaking at this year’s Toonfest, cartoonist and musician Guy Gilchrist is coming back to Marceline Mo. on November 27th. According to the Linn County Leader, he’s giving presentations at 4pm and 7pm at the Uptown Theatre, with book signings after each talk. Gilchrist is best known as the artist behind the current Nancy comic strip.
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Local creator Scott Ziolko has been busy posting some comics to his flickr site. Go check out the first Owen Steelheart chapter he’s posted. You can also keep up with Ziolko’s tumblr blog to see more of his work.
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The Neosho Daily News has a large story that ran recently featuring Mort Walker talking about Camp Swampy. The Beetle Bailey comic strip takes place in the fictional Camp Swampy, which was inspired by Walker’s stay in Neosho Missouri’s Camp Crowder in 1943.
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Ben Chlapek has some new zines (He currently has a solo art show at Ragtag until mid-December):
Morgan has some new zines too:
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The Be a Superhero for Columbia Public Schools event yesterday attracted roughly 760 people dressed as superheroes, which fell short of the world record of 1,580 people. The event was still successful, raising around $3,000 for the Columbia Public Schools Foundation.
There have been a lot of news stories surrounding the event. The Tribune seems to have several items about it, including a Friday editorial, a followup story and a slideshow. (They also covered another superhero related event that happened Wednesday.) For more coverage, there’s the Missourian, KOMU, and KRCG. The TV spot for the event is also online. You can check out our previous posts about the event for more information.
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MU alumnus Mort Walker, the creator of Beetle Bailey, stopped by to watch the new MU Student center dedication on Friday, and he also had a book signing for his latest book, Beetle Bailey: The Daily & Sunday Strips, 1965. Here’s some photos I took from the signing:
Mort Walker signing books for fans.
The autograph line for Mort Walker.
Walker standing in the entrance to the Shack.
The MU bookstore was selling many things for Walker to sign. In addition to his latest book, they were selling last year’s Sam’s Strip, Beetle Bailey statue prints, Shack hats, and various other collectables.
The Missourian has more photos from the events, and both the Tribune and Missourian have stories about the signing. KBIA also has a short audio interview with Walker.
Update: The Maneater has a story interviewing Walker as well.
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