In recent months Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip (www.dilbert.com), has used his comic’s web site to cull the collective talents of the engineers that read his comic for ideas of what to add to his dream home.

The San Francisco Chronicle interviewed Scott about his development plans. The article is light on the details of Adams’ future home, but multi-million dollar figures were passed around. You can bet the new house will be technology laden and Dilbert inspired. Cartooning has certainly been good to Adams.

There is a great write-up in the Princeton Packet, a local paper for central New Jersey, USA, about local artist Rico Telofski and his web comic ‘Conehenge‘. Rico’s comic explores the oddities inherent in running a small business and is targeted at like minded entrepreneurs.

From the article, “With his ‘Conehenge’ Web comic, Rico Telofski has done more than merely capture the essence of the small-business experience in New Jersey ? he has created a fiction-driven tutorial on getting started, and peopled it with characters recognizable to anyone familiar with the small-business scene.“

A convention centering on web comics and independent publishing is being held in the UK on Saturday March 19 at the Great Hall, Mile End, LONDON. The UK Web & Mini Comix Thing 2005 “…is aimed at showcasing web & mini comic artists, and a bunch of other sorts, like illustrators and publishers, of the NOW giving you the chance to meet them and buy their stuff…” Sounds like a fun show.

Tim Buckley, the creator of Ctrl+Alt+Del, the excellent gaming web comic, has posted an auction on eBay for an original piece of artwork. The original hand-drawn cartoon being auctioned depicts several of the strip’s main characters. If you’re familiar with the strip I’m sure it’ll put a smile on your face.

There was a story broadcast on NPR recently entitled, “Holy Evolution Darwin! Comics take on Science“. The audio can be found on their site. They discuss how creators like Jim Hosler, Jim Ottaviani, and Jack Chick are using comics to push ideas of science and creationism. Links to various comics online are also found on NPR’s page.

[Updated 2-18-2005] : I made a mistake with the artists names and who was for what in the original post. Thanks Jason.

The LA Times ran a commentary earlier this week severely criticizing the comics business. It was written by Gerard Jones, the author of “Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book“. The commentary gives a brief history of the business behind comics and points to the recent lawsuits involving Stan Lee and Marvel as an indication of overall business problems within the industry.

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Today marks the 5th anniversary of the death of Charles Schulz, creator and artist of one of the most recognized comic strips in the world, Peanuts. The Greenville Daily News sums things up in an article running today.

Also check out the recently published collections of the Peanuts strips that republish the strips from the 1950’s in some excellent bound editions.