Nazara Technologies, a mobile phone content provider based in India, has signed a deal with Archie Comics Inc. (www.archiecomics.com) to provide comic panels and full strips to cell phones. Betty, Veronica, Archie, and the gang will be part of the growing market of mobile phone content. Here is a quote from the official press release:

“As a result of the agreement, Nazara secures an exclusive license to develop content based on the Archie Comics characters Continue reading →

The Public Editor for the Chicago Tribune, Don Wycliff, has written a column explaining and defending the paper’s decision to pull the comic strip Boondocks from their pages for two days. The strip, by celebrated cartoonist Aaron McGruder, inferred that the president has engaged in drug use. The justification for the censoring is that since the strip deals with political issues it must be subjected to the same standards of fairness and accuracy in reporting and since President Bush’s Continue reading →

The ongoing efforts of 64 web comic artists to prove they can stick to a schedule has been reported on in the ultimate geek source for news, Slashdot.org (www.slashdot.org).

As Daku posted before, the challenge is for all the cartoonists participating to update their strips at least once every 24 hours. If a single update is missed then that artist is out of the competition. The last cartoonist updating on time at the end gets the pot, which is now up to $1,120.00.

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The long running syndicated comic strip Foxtrot (www.foxtrot.com) by Bill Amend often incudes humor about the web. In a recent series of strips one of the characters is revealed to be an avid online gamer.

Allakhazam.com (www.allakhazam.com), a news and resource site for several online computer games, caught wind of the comic’s storyline and got a chance to interview Bill about his own gaming habits. The text of their extensive interview and a display of the six strips Continue reading →

On Feb. 18 a Federal court ruled suspensions given to two students, in August 2004, for comments made in an off-campus strip was unconstitutional. The ruling was in response to a suit by the two senior students attending Greenwood High School in Arkansas.

U.S. District Court Judge Jimm Hendren ruled that the postings on Neal and Kuhl’s Web are protected under the First Amendment [and] that under the standard created by the Supreme Court’s decision in the 1969 case Continue reading →

Last week Wildstorm began posting complete first issues of many famous comics. These include various TOP TEN issues, Tom Strong, and Tomorrow Stories. This is an excellent example of using the web for comics and how both can be used together. The next step is to convince the comic industry to use the web for all promotions and new releases. The biggest obstacle in this pursuit is the belief that readers will not buy the hard copy if they can simply get it for free online, but the print industry is simply not paying attention to how many web comics have no problem selling hard copies of what they provide free in their archives.