Laugh Tracks

EEK! Caption Contest!

Hey, everyone check out yesterday's EEK! Creator Scott Nickel launched a caption contest, the winner of which will receive the original cartoon artwork. To enter the contest, email your caption to nickelscott@yahoo.com. Nickel will post his 5 favorite entries on his blog, where fans can vote throughout the week for the winner. The cartoon with the winning caption will be run the following week on GoComics.

Hurry! Entries must be received by midnight EST, Sunday, November 2nd!

New Comics - Love Is..., Bliss and Free Range!

We've added three hit single-panel cartoons to GoComics in the last week or so:

Love Is... by Kim Casali, conceived by and drawn by Bill Asprey. A classic, heart-warming cartoon that gives simple daily examples of love showing up in everyday actions. And yes, the characters are naked 99% of the time.

Bliss, by New Yorker cartoonist and best-selling children's book illustrator Harry Bliss. Bliss' cartoons are drawn in such a warm, distinct style, it's easy to get caught up in the art and miss the joke entirely. But don't do that, because the humor is top-notch.

Free Range, by Bill Whitehead. All right, now we're just spoiling you. Consider yourself totally spoiled.

Lynn Johnston on the Shania Twain new-run

A Shania Twain reference in a recent For Better or For Worse new-run strip (below) prompted one fan to ask an interesting question in the most recent installment of 'Elly's Coffee Talk,' the blog section of FBOFW.com in which Lynn Johnston answers fan mail. Do the new-runs take place in 1981, the year they were originally created, or does the storyline now take place in the present? The reference would seem to point to the latter. Read Lynn's response here.

Add GoComics to your iGoogle page!

Today marks the launch of the new GoComics gadget for iGoogle! (Read the official press release here.)

We are truly excited here at Uclick to offer this new gadget, which was many months in the making. It gives iGoogle users direct access to today's comics (with expandable views), plus comments, tags, and recently favorited comics. In other words, you get a lot of the fun, interactive features - the experience, if you will - of GoComics.com, right on your iGoogle page.

Get the GoComics gadget for your iGoogle page now!

Sign Jack's cast!

A 'virtual cast signing' is taking place right now on the Cleats page. Stop in and sign Jack's cast by posting a comment!

Breathed: Opus will end Nov. 2

Berkeley Breathed has announced that Opus will come to an end on November 2nd, the Sunday before the presidential election. Opus, a follow-up to Breathed's wildly successful Bloom County and Outland strips, launched in 2003 after the cartoonist had taken nearly 8 years off from comics.

"With the crisis in Wall Street and Washington, I’m suspending my comic strip to assist the nation. The best way I can help is to leave politics permanently and write funny stories for America’s kids. I call on John McCain to join me."

"The Opus Paradise Contest," in which readers can guess the ultimate fate of Opus the Penguin, begins October 12th on Breathed's website.

Read the official press release from Washington Post Writers Group here.

Alan Gardner also has a great quote from Breathed, transcribed from this NPR interview, in which Breathed describes the experience of drawing Opus for the final time.

Lots and lots of news bits!

- Congrats to Garry Trudeau, creator of Doonesbury, for his Harvey Award win Saturday night! Doonesbury took home the award for Best Syndicated Strip or Panel.

- The first Ted Rall animation is up! (I'd post it here, but the YouTube screenshot is a bit suggestive.) The cartoon plays on the wildly unreasonable expectations of Barack Obama's very first day as President...

- Angry feedback over a recent Pat Oliphant cartoon depicting Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin speaking in tongues has led Deborah Powell, the ombudsman for the Washington Post, to speak out in an article entitled "The Power of Political Cartoons."

- Bleeker: The Rechargeable Dog was optioned for a TV show a few months back; now creator Jonathan Mahood reports on his blog that Radical Sheep Productions has reached a deal with TVO to develop 26 11-minute episodes. 

Travelling Poncho!

Poncho, star of Paul Gilligan's Pooch Cafe, has hit the road! A hand-made, stuffed Poncho doll has begun his journey to all parts of the globe, where at each stop a fan will take his picture in unique settings and then send him on to the next fan. The first Poncho's Travels pics were taken in Kansas City, where the doll was created, and photos of Poncho at his first stop are up on the Pooch Cafe blog now!