Laugh Tracks

Free Eisner Awards App for iPhone and iPod Touch!

Uclick has announced the release of a free Eisner Awards app for iPhone and iPod Touch. The app gives a brief background of the Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards and their namesake, legendary comics creator Will Eisner, as well as information and images of each of the nominated works in the 26 award categories.

The app will update to note the winners shortly after they are announced at a special ceremony at the San Diego Comic Con on July 24.

To download the free Eisner Awards app for your iPhone or iPod Touch, click here or on the image below (launches iTunes).

Mark Tatulli and Dave Coverly on Tall Tale Radio!

Mark Tatulli (Lio) and Dave Coverly (Speed Bump), winners of this year's Reuben awards for Newspaper Comic Strip and Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year, respectively, were recently interviewed by Tom Racine for Tall Tale Radio. Listen here.

Uclick Brings Free Comic Book Day to the iPhone!

For the first time ever, Uclick is celebrating Free Comic Book Day by making several of our iPhone apps free for a limited time. (Click here to read the official press release.)

What does this have to do with GoComics? A few of your favorite GoComics titles are part of the promotion!

Look for apps featuring GoComics favorites The Argyle Sweater, Basic Instructions and Pibgorn, as well as comic book apps starring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ghostbusters and many more. All will be available for free on the App Store starting Friday afternoon and ending Saturday night at 11:59pm PST.

 Click here or on the image below to open up the Uclick page in iTunes.

Animated Pooch Café!

Check out these animated Pooch Café strips, posted on YouTube by RingTales.com. (Via Alan Gardner of the Daily Cartoonist.)

RingTales has also posted a series of Cul de Sac animations:

So what does everyone think about animated comic strips?

A whole lotta Tweetin' goin' on

If you're addicted to Twitter - and it seems everyone is these days - here are a few GoComics-related Twitters to follow:

• GoComics (twitter.com/gocomics) - Site updates, news and information

• Roland Hedley of Doonesbury (twitter.com/Roland_Hedley) - Random tweets from the FOX News Senior Correspondent 

• Calvin and Hobbes (twitter.com/calvinandhobbes) - Daily teasers with links to the strip

• Garfield (twitter.com/Garfield_Cat) - Occassional thoughts from the famous fat cat

• Candorville (twitter.com/candorville) - Updates and info from creator Darrin Bell

• Pibgorn (twitter.com/pibgorn) - Daily teasers with links to the strip

• Legend of Bill (twitter.com/LegendofBill) - Updates and info from creator Dave Reddick

You should also check out Alan Gardner's Daily Cartoonist Twitter for news from the cartooning industry. 

Nickelodeon Mag Comics Awards Winners: Garfield, Calvin and Bone!

The most famous feline on the comics page was the big winner in the first ever Nickelodeon Magazine Comics Awards. The award for Favorite Comic Strip went to Garfield, by Jim Davis, which beat out finalists Calvin and Hobbes, FoxTrot, Peanuts and Mutts.

Take heart, Calvin fans: While he missed out on the Favorite Comic Strip award, Calvin didn't go home empty-handed, winning the Best Hair in Comics award. (Not bad for a kid who's been enjoying retirement for more than a decade.)

And lastly, Jeff Smith's Bone won the award for Favorite Fantasy Graphic Novel. The entire Bone series, originally published in black and white from 1991-2004, was reprinted in color by Scholastic Books' graphic novel imprint, Graphix. The first nine issues of the color series have also been re-released in a series of comic apps produced by Uclick for iPhone and iPod touch.

Read the story from Universal Press Syndicate here.

Tim Rickard on Comics Coast to Coast!

Tim Rickard, creator of Brewster Rockit, is the featured guest on the latest Comics Coast to Coast show. Covered topics include Hee Haw, Star Trek, Lost in Space, Indiana Jones, MENSA, Dodge Coronets and more! Click here to listen.

Review: KC Star cartoonist Lee Judge knocks 'em dead

Lee Judge, staff editorial cartoonist at the Kansas City Star, gave a special presentation at the Kansas City Central Library last night entitled "A Look Back!: Cartoons We're a Little Afraid to Show You." One of our GoComics Toonologists was in attendance and offered this review:

Judge thanked the crowd for braving the icy conditions admitting, "I wouldn't come out tonight to see me." He shared many of the cartoons that -- for a variety of reasons -- the editorial page editors of the Kansas City Star were unwilling to publish during his 27-year tenure with the newspaper. He also spoke about the challenges newspapers face to be provocative and interesting and commercially viable while also avoiding complaints and lawsuits.

My opinion:

Lee Judge puts on a top-notch comedy show. He killed. To me it was like going to Standfords except the food and wine were free and it was funny.

He had the crowd howling over his censored comics and seemed a bit surprised by how far over the line he could go and still get raucous laughter from the library crowd. In addition to sharing his comics, he was generous with his time, taking questions as long as people were willing to ask them. He described giving the presentation as a "privilege", clearly enjoying the live feedback that newspaper cartoonists don't normally receive.

Pibgorn (and more) on the iPhone and iPod Touch!

Brooke McEldowney's Pibgorn is now available on the iPhone and iPod Touch! In recent weeks, we've released three installments of "Mozart and the Demon Lover," a time-swap storyline in which Pibgorn and Geoff trade places in time with Wolfgang Amadeaus Mozart and Anna Gottleib. While the legendary composer and star soprano find themsleves sequestered in the future under the watchful eye of the god-like Thorax, Geoff works frantically in the 18th century to keep the timestream intact by "composing" Mozart's late works from memory - all while knowing that the date of the real Mozart's death is quickly approaching...

Pibgorn joins Scott Meyer's hit webcomic Basic Instructions and a plethora of comic book titles - including Tales of the TMNT, GODLAND and more - Uclick has recently launched on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Search "Uclick" on the App Store (from your iPhone or iTunes) to browse the entire collection of comic book and comic strip titles currently available.

(Click on the image below to launch iTunes)

Calvin, FoxTrot, Garfield on ballot for Nick Mag Comics Awards

Several of your favorite GoComics strips have been nominated in the Nickelodeon Magazine Comics Awards!

• Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson: Favorite Comic Strip
• Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes): Best Hair in Comics
• FoxTrot by Bill Amend: Favorite Comic Strip
• Garfield by Jim Davis: Favorite Comic Strip

The newly created Nickelodeon Magazine Comics Awards honor the best comic books, strips, and graphic novels for kids published across the U.S. Readers vote for their favorite comics and characters either by mailing the ballot printed the December/January 2008 issue (on sale now) or by voting online at http://www.nickmag.com/comicsawards. Ballots must be received no later than December 31, 2008. The winners will be announced in the April 2009 issue of Nickelodeon Magazine and online at nickmag.com.