Comics historian Bill Blackbeard donated much of his collection to Ohio State a while ago… they have some information about it online here.

A particularly interesting part of this guide is the image reference to old cartoons, MANY of them utterly forgotten… one panel only in most cases, unfortunately, but it can be quite a tease.

An example:

Circus Solly
George Frink
April 30, 1905

Just ran across a particularly interesting entry they provided some extra info on… the first jam comics?

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Crazy Quilt (various artists), 1914
Everett Lowry Quin Hall Lester J. Ambrose Charles Lederer Dean Cornell Frank King

Crazy Quilt was a full-page, sometimes interactive, Chicago Tribune feature that ran from April 12, 1914 to June 14, 1914. It consisted of untitled panel cartoons and the following series titles: And His Name Is Mr. Bones, Genial Gene, Simp Simpson, Old Doc Quack, Stone Age Stuff, Pinhead Pete, Hi Hopper, Freddy Frappe. Crazy Quilt was an unorthodox arrangement of strips and panels printed sideways, upside-down, criss-cross, etc. Notably, this feature used self-reflexivity; different artists working on individual strips interacted so that, for example: panel borders were breached by characters from one title entering a panel of another title, single panels that acted as the intersection between criss-crossing strips would include characters from both strips and would be incorporated into both storylines, etc.

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This topic is continued on the board here.

!!! UPDATE – REGISTRATION DEADLINE EXTENDED TO APRIL 7TH – SEE ABOVE POST !!!

Just a reminder… Saturday is the deadline for registering for the 24 Hour Comic Day event in Minneapolis on April 23-24… so those of you wanting to participate should get down to Big Brain and register ASAP. Seating is limited. More info here:

www.cartoonistconspiracy.com/minneapolis/24hours

I recently got a submission for Weird Illustrated from cartoonist Nick Jeffrey. He recently won a Xeric grant to print Centerfield, which he sent me a couple copies of with his submission… it is excellent. Apparently, it is going to be distributed through Jeff Mason’s Alternative Comics, so keep an eye out for it. Nick has a really nice detailed, dense, scratchy style, and knows how to tell a good story. I’m going to bring the extra copy to the next Minneapolis Conspiracy meeting for some lucky cartoonist to take home. His submission to the Weird Illustrated anthology is really dark and uncomfortably hilarious.

Another contribution I’ve recieved is from Argentinian cartoonist David Paleo… actually, he’s sent a number of things that are so great I don’t know which one to use. He’s a perfect cartoonist for the anthology, as his stuff is weirder than tits on geese. He is really, really, really good… if you want a point of comparison, his stuff reminds me a bit of Robert Williams comics, but he is definitely doing his own thing. You can check out his website here:

http://mx.geocities.com/illoton/

The deadline for submissions to the Weird Illustrated book is May 23rd…

Thanks for inviting me to this, Steve. A few exciting things are happening in our cell, the Two Trees Cartoon Guild (2TCG). Our next meeting is April 16th at the Lancaster County Art Association. Also, Sam Mylin and I have “formed a cartoon studio” called Schizophrenic Studio. We’re putting together a monthly minicomic anthology (has that ever been done before?) called First Friday Funnies. It contains one page strips about the whole art scene and why it’s silly. I had to set up a blog of my own to join this one. I think I’ll keep it! You can read it here:
http://schizophrenicstudio.blogspot.com/
This is Ron Good, live from a secret bunker in Lancaster signing off. Long live the Conspiracy!

Today is a good day to conspire…

In San Francisco:
http://www.cartoonistconspiracy.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=450

In Minneapolis:
http://www.cartoonistconspiracy.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=417

Minnesota cartoonists can now register for the Minneapolis 24 Hour Comic Day event… read the details here:

http://www.cartoonistconspiracy.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=456

The Conspiracy website has been rearranged.

First of all, a blog has been added:
http://www.cartoonistconspiracy.com/blog

This is where news and events will be posted from now on… you can access it by clicking on the news and events button in the nav.

It is a group blog, so I will not be the only one posting to it to keep you all informed of the latest Conspiracy happenings. This is intended to provide conspirators with a source for regular (generally it will be daily) updates on the latest news and events of the conspiracy, as well as colorful commentary. It should supplement the newsletter nicely.

I outright killed the calendar in favor of the current events that are listed on the right-hand side of the blog. It may be back some day, but probably not (I don’t think anyone used it anyhow).

The news section in the message board is still there, but it’s importance has been deemphasized, since the blog should largely replace it’s purpose. It is no longer linked directly from the nav.

The nav now emphasizes areas where content changes frequently.

If you feel like you should be included in the group blog for some reason, let me know why and you’ll most likely get an account on it.

Hope you all like the changes… let me know what you think.

I got this disturbing alert from the Electronic Frontier Foundation today. It would effectively make all direct satire of corporations illegal:

* Alert: Stop the Trademark Act from Diluting Free Speech!

The Trademark Dilution Revision Act (TDRA, HR 683) is a big company’s dream. If it passes, the lawyers policing a trademark could sue businesses and individuals for using words, images, or even colors that look vaguely like a famous brand – without even having to prove that the company is being harmed. In other words, TDRA would make it possible for UPS to sue Brown’s Record Store, even though nobody in their right mind would get the two confused. This bill would chill speech and hand ownership of common words to big companies. Fight the TDRA today!

Make your voice heard with EFF’s action center:
http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=113

Text of TDRA:
http://trademark.blog.us/blog/2005/03/14.html#a1628

Join EFF as a member today:
http://secure.eff.org/support

There’s an article on CNN today about one of the co-creators of the Blair Witch project using Bitpass micropayments (www.bitpass.com) to sell his latest movie work. This could be the highest exposure micropayments have got in the mass media, I suspect. Micropayments, if you don’t already know, give browsers the ability to buy content on the web for as little as a penny… making it so content providers (like, say, cartoonists) can sell their content directly to the reader for a modest sum completely bypassing all middlemen. Scott McCloud is a big proponent of them (and was one of the first cartoonists to use it)… if you’re interested you can read a lot more about micropayments in his book Reinventing Comics.

LINK

This is only a test. Please do not adjust your monitor.