Comic Strips/Comic Books/Classic Cartoons and Animation

[originunknown]

McGruder Stopped Doing 'Boondocks' Because He 'Was Sick of It'

By E&P Staff

Published: November 21, 2006 1:00 PM ET

NEW YORK Many people have guessed that "The Boondocks" comic didn't
return from sabbatical this fall because Aaron McGruder was busy with
"The Boondocks" TV show.

The cartoonist, speaking last night at the University of South Florida,
cited at least one other reason. "I got sick of the strip and sick of
politics. It was Bush, Bush, Bush. Okay, he's dumb, we get it," said
McGruder, as quoted in a St. Petersburg Times story linked to today on
DailyCartoonist.com.

If his Universal Press Syndicate comic ever resumes, added McGruder, it
would be online.

He also discussed the Cartoon Network's "Boondocks" series with the
Florida crowd of nearly 500. "It's a show for people who look at the
world and say, 'There's something seriously wrong here,'" said
McGruder,
as quoted by the Times' Amber Mobley. "There are people who get satire,
[people] with critical thinking skills. And then there are those who
don't get it. This show was created for people who get it. Everyone
else
we're really not too concerned about."

The cartoonist also said his TV audience "gets it more than your
average
newspaper reader [who's] a 50-year-old white man."

Universal launched "The Boondocks" comic in 1999, and was syndicating
it
to more than 300 clients when McGruder went on hiatus this spring.


Source: Editor & Publisher

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003410757

______________________________

FoxTrot waltzes its way into early retirement
Comic set to end daily run; strip will still appear in the Sunday
newspaper

By ERIC HARRISON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

FoxTrot, the popular comic strip that runs in more than 1,000
newspapers--including the Chronicle--will end daily production Dec. 30,
as its creator joins the growing list of cartoonists to grow weary of
the daily grind.

Bill Amend, who created FoxTrot in 1998, will continue to write and
draw
the Sunday strip.

"After spending close to half of my life writing and drawing FoxTrot
cartoons, I think it's time I got out of the house and tried some new
things," he said in a statement. "I love cartooning, and I absolutely
want to continue doing the strip, just not at the current all-consuming
pace."

Aaron McGruder, Bill Watterson, Berke Breathed, Garry Trudeau and Gary
Larson also have all either taken sabbaticals or ended their strips
altogether, citing the grueling pace and challenge of maintaining
originality and quality as factors in their burnout.

McGruder, who created Boondocks, ended his strip in March for what was
supposed to be a six-month hiatus. He had already handed drawing duties
to a substitute artist while devoting time to developing an animated TV
series for the Cartoon Network. The strip has now officially been
cancelled.

In earlier generations, the lives of comic strips seemed endless. After
the original artists died or retired, successors continued the strips.
That was because the characters and titles were owned by syndicates,
the
companies that distribute comic strips and other features to
newspapers.
The syndicates had the right to fire creators and replace them at will.

That began to change--at least for the most popular and powerful
cartoonists--in the late 1980s.

Breathed started the trend.

"I had to quietly, secretly, threaten the comic pages' first walk out
in
1989" to gain ownership of Bloom County's copyright from Universal
Press
Syndicate, Breathed said in a 2001 interview with The Onion's A.V.
Club.
"It had never been done before."

A Houston native whose Bloom County became only the second comic
strip--after Doonsbury--to win a Pulitzer Prize, Breathed ended the
strip in 1988, at the height of its popularity. Opus, his current
strip,
appears only on Sundays.

FoxTrot, The Boondocks, The Far Side, Doonsbury and Calvin and Hobbes
also were all distributed by Universal, which since taking on Doonsbury
in the 1970s has attracted the most envelope-pushing cartoon features.

Cartoonists are retiring their strips now because they can, because
they
own them. And because maintaining the quality of strips such as
FoxTrot,
Doonsbury and Calvin and Hobbes isn't easy. These aren't gag-a-day
strips. In addition to the daily dose of humor, there's character
development, narrative arcs and, in the case of Doonsbury and
Boondocks,
the struggle of staying topical.

Watterson ended his wildly popular Calvin and Hobbes in 1995, he has
said, in part to avoid the inevitable drift into "halfhearted
repetition"--the fate of many long-running comic strips.

Larson retired The Far Side the same year. Earlier, he had taken a
14-month leave to travel and study jazz guitar. He had drawn more than
4,000 cartoons since the cartoon went into syndication in 1979. Since
"retiring," Larson has made animated films and published books.

Lee Salem, president of Universal Press Syndicate, dangled the
possibility of FoxTrot popping up later in another form, such as
animation. "In addition to Sunday newspapers, we may see FoxTrot
entertaining us in other kinds of media platforms," he said in a
statement posted on the company's Web site.

A spokesman for the syndicate wouldn't confirm that plans are in the
works for a FoxTrot movie or TV series, saying only that it's "too
early" to discuss it. Amend, she said, is "not doing interviews" and
Salem didn't care to elaborate on the statement.

[e-mail]


Source: Houston Chronicle
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/4381689.html