It's a bad news, good news thing.

Good news for cartoon fans. All 600+ issues of PLAYBOY magazine will be reproduced on DVD. Cole, Silverstein, Wilson, Gerberg, Dedini, Interlandi, Hoest -- they'll all be there, in this new page by page DVD -- similar in format to the NEW YORKER DVD set.

PLAYBOY is, along with the NEW YORKER, a seminal publication of 20th century magazine cartooning.

The bad news is for the people who created the content. None of the creators of any of that content will be compensated. Not centerfolds, not writers, not photographers, no one.

And the new owners of NATIONAL LAMPOON will follow suit. (I wrote about LAMPOON and the business practices of its new owners on August 4, 2006 here.)

The COMPLETE PLAYBOY DVD will make money, sure. But only for the men and women in the PLAYBOY business offices. This is wrong.

Some thoughtful comments from Tom Spurgeon here.

Veteran comic book artist Joe Edwards died on Thursday, February 8. In a career spanning over 65 years, Edwards wrote and drew comic book stories for various companies, most prominently Archie Comics.

After studying art at Rome Academy and Hastings Animation School, Edwards landed a job drawing for Demby Studios, one of several outfits generating comic book stories for various publishers in the fledging days of the industry.

After drawing comics for Dell and Timely, he joined Archie, which was then known as MLJ Comics. Edwards' animation training made him perfect for "funny animal" features including Squoimy the Woim, Cubby the Bear and Bumbie the Bee-tective, all of which have the distinction of gracing the pages of a milestone comic from MLJ: Archie Comics #1 from 1942.

When the Archie comic series took off, Edwards drew many stories featuring the flagship characters as well. Over the years, he continued to contribute to the company with stories and art on features including Super Duck, Captain Sprocket and the series he is most associated with, Li'l Jinx. The mischievous little girl was so named because, like Edwards' son, she was born on Halloween. The feature appeared for years not only as its own series but also as a backup in such titles as Little Archie and the Archie Giant Series.

Joe Edwards was 85 years old. Funeral arrangements have been made for Sunday, February 11.

H/t to THE BEAT and Silver Bullet Comics.

Sunday's Connecticut Post interviews Al Scaduto, who's been drawing the King Features cartoon panel THEY'LL DO IT EVERY TIME for 59 years. The article's written by Dirk Perrefort.

"'What I like most about being a cartoonist is starting with a fresh piece of paper and ending up with an idea,' he said. 'You're the writer, the actor and the director. I never thought about retiring. I enjoy what I do.'"

(Photo by Whitney Kidder-Alvarez for the Connecticut Post)

The opening reception at Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art for Stan Lee: A Retrospective is Friday, February 23, 2007. MoCCA has all the details here.

The reception will cost $250 per person, which, states MoCCA, a little defensively, reflects "the unique and exclusive nature of the event." There will only be 100 guests.

At left, a gorgeous bit of art on the site that -- as far as I can tell -- goes uncredited.

It's all at Trekmovie.com.

Back in this post I talked about the episode of the old STAR TREK show called THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE, and how there were two people -- tow completely different people -- that were working on new effects to be inserted in the 1967 episode; one set of effects by a fan, another by the Official Trek Franchise, CBS/Paramount.

Here's a link to Daren Dochterman's "amateur" DOOMSDAY MACHINE efx enhancement. (I put amateur in the quotes since Daren does work in the film biz; not as a SFX artist, but as an illustrator. The idea -- to add new special affects to an old episode of TREK -- was his long before CBS/Paramount started doing it.)

And here are clips of the new effects from CBS/Paramount.

And video of DOOMSDAY writer Norman Spinrad commenting on everything is here and a bit more here.

Again, a huge hat tip to Trekmovie.com for supplying all the news.

Postscript: Just heard that iTunes is no longer offering STAR TREK or ENTERPRISE episodes for download. They're just gone, vanished. All I know is what I read here. H/t to Mark Anderson!

It's less than 2 weeks until the deadline for the NCS Division Awards.

Cartoonists have until Friday, February 23, 2007 to submit their work.

(Sy Barry, Joe Edwards, Joe Giella -- from an October 2006 Berndt Toast Gang get together)

Writer Mark Evanier writes eloquently about Joe here.

I was fortunate enough to hear the story of Archie from Joe. Joe was there, in the MLJ offices, with Bob Montana and John Goldwater, as they were hashing out ideas. Publisher Goldwater (whose first name was the "J" part of the "MLJ" publishing acronym) wanted a new comic book story, maybe something like the Andy Hardy series of movies. But what would it be? What do teenagers want? How do you appeal to them?

He turned to the then-twenty year old Joseph Edwards.

"Joe, you're a young guy. What do you want?" asked Goldwater.

"Three things," said Joe, counting on his fingers. "Girls, of course -- money, so I can take girls out -- and a job, so I can make the money to take out the girls."

Bob Montana created the initial look of Archie Andrews, Jughead and Betty Cooper for Pep Comics #22, December 1941. By the next year, Archie had his own title.

Archiecomics.com has more on the story of the beginning of the icon, written by Jeffrey C. Branch, at its Web site.

Joe Edwards, who drew ARCHIE and LI'L JINX, passed away. He will be deeply missed by his friends and family.

Joe received his artistic education at Rome Academy and Hastings Animation School. In the 1930s he worked in animation, for Demby Studios. After that, he drew funny animal comic books for Dell and Timely, winding up at Archie Comics in 1942, along with Bob Montana and Dan DeCarlo. He remained at Archie Comics for over forty years.

He was there, as he says, at the beginning -- when Bob Montana created Archie, Jughead and the Riverdale gang. And it was his hand that drew every page of Li'l Jinx, a character he created.

Joe was a regular to our Berndt Toast Gang meetings and was known for cracking jokes and speaking his mind. It's hard for me to believe that he is gone.

He is survived by Eda, his wife of 63 years, their 2 sons, a daughter, and 3 grandchildren.

Services: 11AM Sunday, February 11, 2007 at the New Montefiore Cemetary, 1180 Wellwood Avenue, West Babylon, NY 11704.

"Rocket's Blast Comics Collector" magazine ran an amateur comic book story in 1972 called MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS. I remember that time. There was going to never, ever be a team-up between any DC character and Marvel character. It was not going to happen, despite the fans wanting to see a Superman/Spider-man team up. The management just wasn't going to get it together. (Of course, a couple years later, there were a series of crossover DC/Marvel "events.")

But, back then, in those dark days, a young cartoonist named Brad Caslor thought up a story, and drew it for the RBCC, a comic/SciFi mag of the time.

That story marked cartoonist Fred Hembeck for life. This week, Fred shares with us the impact of the story, as well as scans of MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS from those old RBCCs.

Thanks for sharing this Fred!

What do you want? Well, both, of course.

A couple of good links that deserve a click:

Tom Spurgeon opines about too much harking on the bottom line as a gauge of success.

Mark Anderson says that successful gag cartoonists are in the minor leagues of cartooning.

Coming from the Midwest, there are a some things you don't talk about:

Religion

Politics

Sex

Money

But thank goodness we're in blogland, where every little thought can be put out there. So, let's touch on money, and the religious aspect (!) of cartooning in today's rambling essay.

It's nice to feel successful.

Some people think it's money. Money impresses people. Ostentatious possessions impress people; "look at my Hummer, my designer clothes, my $200 haircut, etc."

But cartoonists?

I do think that there is something in the personality of the person -- something in his/her chemistry -- that makes he/she a good cartoonist. Sure, you got to be able to write and to draw -- but how do you handle the rejection, the lonely hours of working, having to come up with ideas?

Sometimes I hear that cartooning is a calling, like the priesthood. It's not for everyone.

I think doing what you like to do -- and making money from it -- is success. And not a lot of people are able to do what they like. Most people don't like their jobs. Maybe that's why some people consume conspicuously.

But, yeah, there are times I get no respect.

Sometimes, people don't know what to say when I tell them I draw cartoons. They look at me like I have 3 heads. But, hey, this job is all about drawing silly pictures and convincing an editor to part with good money for them. Most people have never had the experience of even getting one lousy thing they've done published. What cartoonists do is a square peg kinda endeavor.

This was a conversation I had last week.

"What do you do?" I get asked.

"I'm a magazine cartoonist." (I used to say "gag cartoonist," but magazine is more apt. I stole this idea from my friend, magazine cartoonist Benita Epstein.)

"Oh. You're an editorial cartoonist then?"

"No. Magazines," I say. "Those little square cartoons that are in magazines like Reader's Digest." Sometimes I emphasize, making a little square shape with my fingers.

"Oh." Silence. "My grandma used to get Reader's Digest."

There was very little beyond this except a long pause, and then me asking this person what she did for a living (school administrator). Anyway, a total disconnect about what I did, and the conversation died. But it didn't bother me. It happens. At least she didn't ask me to draw Garfield.

Anyway ....

If some people think that drawing magazine cartoons is not as cool as strip cartoonists or Web cartoonists or graphic novelists or whatever -- phooey on them. That elitist junk is a waste of time. Like buying Hummers.

The glory of the job (and the scary part too) is the fact that it's just you and that piece of paper and your brain.

And a cartoonist can make fun of religion;


politics;



sex;



and money.



All the time making a point while making a joke.

I would like to say that all my cartoons are quality and all my work just brilliant, thank you very much -- but it's up to readers to decide if it's IMPORTANT and all.

In the meantime, I'm just going to try to make it GOOD.