entertainment – Page 14

I’m loving the linked cartoons

I’m in New York this week for Comic Con which starts Thursday. I’ll post lots of pics once I go. But I saw something today that I love.

I’m always looking for ways for comics to be shared. I wrote recently about the subway, a thought I had for many years, you know, a single panel cartoon where ads or maps are placed now.

link1 — Here is a Link NYC station and you can see the comic right there.

But today I came upon something at the Link NYC site. If you don’t know what that is, Link NYC are stations in areas where old pay phones used to be and the Link is a free service all over the city where you can get free wifi, charge your electronics, get information, see the news and even make free phone calls! And I saw today that there is a New Yorker cartoon on the Link along with the ads and news! Love that.

link2 — This cartoon rotates with ads and news and such.

As people walk by they can get a chuckle along with seeing the news and weather, etc.

link3 — Here is an ad that rotates on the Link.

link4 — This is the front of the Link NYC were you operate, link in, charge, make calls, etc.

Gary Larson is forcing my hand

After posting about how much I love single panel comics, I see that The Far Side is coming back. Everyone is making a big deal about changes on the website here: thefarside.com. It’s been updated after years of being dormant.

Could it be reruns or new stuff? Speculation is that it will start up again on January 1, 2020 because it first appeared on January 1, 1980. So will it start up again fresh, will it be reruns or what on January 1, 2020? Of course I think we all hope for new stuff!

Anyway, to that end, how can I compete, how can anyone compete? After Gary Larson left the scene on January 1, 1997 (Gary likes January 1st), there were lots of new single panel comics appearing to try and fill the space left.

Now the Gemini in me has changed course regarding my comic strip/panel. I’m thinking of now starting up a strip, rather than a panel and have a usual sitcom style thing going.

I like the name I trademarked in the past, “Hal and High Water,” and originally it was about living in a world where the whole planet is submerged due to global warming, but now with the major hurricanes we are seeing these past few years and the real threat of global warming, it doesn’t seem like a funny idea to play around with in a comic strip. So I’ll keep the name “Hal and High Water,” and keep Hal and one or two of the other characters and reformat it.

The premise is explained like this on Twitter: “Comic strip. Hal’s wife threw him out. Now he ends up traveling the world in an old rickety boat with his best friend. Adventures await!”

It’s a bit more exciting than that and I see a lot of interesting and fun things happening. I’d like to incorporate my own travels into the strip and use real scenery that I encounter. I’ve been practicing drawing lots of boats lately, I guess that will be a big feature in the strip.

I’m not sure of a start date, but was thinking of January 1, 2020, too. If it’s good enough for Gary Larson . . .

Anyway, I’ll post on a website, not sure where yet, and also daily on Facebook and Instagram. You may not realize, but Instagram is really a great place to read comics, with the feature where you can swipe through the panels, it’s an excellent place to find new comics.

You can follow along now for updates and things like that along with Twitter.

Here are the social media links:

Hal and High Water Twitter: twitter.com/HalAndHighWater
Hal and High Water Instagram: instagram.com/HalAndHighWater
Hal and High Water Facebook: facebook.com/HalAndHighWater

Some of my favorite comics strips

ipso-facto1

Some of my favorite comics these days are Ipso Facto by Mike Wallster. It’s about one of the last remaining video stores in the country called Eddie’s Video Paradise. I love the drawing style and it’s funny.

Mike has started posting again after a long absence and in color now. I hope he keeps up the schedule, I enjoy seeing it.

ipso-facto2 ipso-facto3

I also like War and Peas by Elizabeth Pich and Jonathan Kunz. I also love the drawing style, it draws you in. It seems simple at first, but it’s actually quite intricate.

war-and-peas1 war-and-peas2

Also, a bit new is Macanudo by Liniers. It’s a bit weird and sometimes hard to understand, but that’s what makes it great. Even greater is the drawing. I’ve never seen it printed in newspapers, I’ve just seen it online. I’m not sure seeing it printed in newspapers would do it justice. Is the quality diminished, you know, I mean does the line work show up well? Does the color pop out like it does online?

The one comic shown here is word for word taken from the first Peanuts strip ever. Word for word. And it works!

macanudo1 macanudo2 macanudo3

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Daily News Sunday comics; a blast from the past

I started following a page on Facebook that is all about The New York Daily News Sunday papers. Mostly the comics and thrown in are some old images and comic from the New York Mirror.

What I like about it is that as you scroll down, you feel as if you are reading the actual comics pages at the time. Three comics stood out that I had forgotten about but when I saw them here it brought back so many childhood memories for different reasons.

The reason I remember Louie so well is Silly Putty! I distinctly remember picking up this comic by pushing Silly Putty onto it and then taking up the image. Like this image shows below.

I don’t know why Louie stands out, because I’m sure I did this with all the comics, but I distinctly remember picking up Louie with Silly Putty.

I liked Pottsy because it was funny, but also it was New York. He was a NY cop and the scenes clearly depicted New York. This top comic is obviously Coney Island and the one below clearly shows City Hall in lower Manhattan. I was just there a couple of weeks ago.

As for Super Duper, I remember drawing it as a kid. When I learned to cartoon by redrawing the Sunday comics and putting my own characters in. I can clearly remember drawing and re-drawing Super Duper.

I want my ‘Big Brother’

So CBS tv is throwing a tantrum and they are upset with ATT Uverse, my cable company. And to that end, CBS took itself off of ATT Uverse, so we can’t get CBS shows now.

This normally wouldn’t be a big deal because I realized I don’t watch much CBS. Currently only two shows – Big Brother and CBS Sunday Morning. I mostly watch reality tv on cable channels now and a lot of PBS.

I watched the Big Brother episodes the next day on the CBS app on my phone but realized that a few years back I bought a little tv that I can watch with the old fashioned antenna, like this one here. I had forgotten about it. What’s funny is that I didn’t have tv for a few weeks after Hurricane Irma two years ago and I never thought of the antenna tv, I just did without tv for a few weeks, at night I watched YouTube videos on my cell phone.

The little tv was in the closet the whole time and it never dawned on me. But when it comes to Big Brother, it was all hands on deck, I needed a solution, and I remembered the little antenna tv. Hurricanes, no. Big Brother, yes!

I hope it works. I haven’t tried it out for years.

Enjoyed the play, ‘Ink’

ink We went to see “Ink” over the weekend at the Samuel J. Friedman theater in NYC.

It was closing, night, but hopefully it will come back. Ink is about The Sun, the British newspaper and the play stars Bertie Carvel and Johnny Lee Miller. Bertie plays Rupert Murdoch, who purchased The Sun in 1969 and changed the whole format of news and newspapers with Johnny playing Larry Lamb, the editor.

I really enjoyed it. There is a bit of musical in it and I enjoyed the part where the whole newspaper-making process is described and shown on stage.

‘Ink,’ the play

ink

We’re going to see “Ink” on Broadway in a couple of weeks. It’s a play about Rupert Murdock and the Sun newspaper. I’m not a fan of Rupert, but am a huge fan of newspapers, so looking forward to it.

I also am a Fan of Johnny Lee Miller who stars with Bertie Carvel, who plays Murdock, Johnny Lee plays Larry Lamb, the editor of the Sun. Johnny of course plays Sherlock Holmes in the excellent tv show Elementary.

From Ink’s website: “It’s 1969 London. The brash young Rupert Murdoch purchases a struggling paper, The Sun, and sets out to make it a must-read smash which will destroy—and ultimately horrify—the competition. He brings on rogue editor Larry Lamb who in turn recruits an unlikely team of underdog reporters. Together, they will go to any lengths for success and the race for the most ink is on!”

Wookiee of the year

wookiee-of-the-year

RIP Peter Mayhew

7 of my favorite Etsy comics-related items

I’ve been finding some very cool comics related items on Etsy these days. As you know, I collect vintage comics and comic-related items and most are these are new, but they are pretty cool. Here are some of my favorites.

etsy1

Superman, Batman and Spider-man cuff links! On sale now, too! On sale for $16.14 each with $4.00 shipping. At FabuStuff Store.

spider-man

A full 131-page screenplay of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2018 movie, Oscar 2019 Best Animated Feature Film winner, with pre-printed autographs of cast members including Stan Lee. Note, the autographs are pre-printed. $19.95 plus shipping from Singapore. From Autograph101 Shop.

captmarvel

A Captail Marvel mask from My Cosplay Props. $150.00 Free shipping.

archie

A intage 1994 Archie Comics Big Face White Promo T-Shirt. $44.00. Free shipping from cTwetnyTwo shop.

dress

Retro Inspired Comic Strip Skater Dress from VintageGaleria. $35.00, $4.95 shipping.

pogo

Vintage Set of Walt Kellys Comic Strip Pogo Figures. $49.00 plus $8.20 shipping from PutFamilyFirst.

dicktracy

Dick Tracy Wall Clock by Fun Around the Clock. $21.99 plus $6.95 shipping

Celebrating the King Mango Strut

We have a parade in our little village each year called the King Mango Strut. The last Sunday of each year the town comes out and we parody everything that’s gone on during the year – local things, politics, etc. I write the daily news for our town called the Coconut Grove Grapevine, and nine years ago, the Grapevine was one of the things parodied as the “Gripevine” – since people always felt we were constantly griping about things, here’s a little of that here.

Anyway, here is some of this past Sunday’s 37th annual King Mango Strut.