I think John Read needs to get a hobby.

You’d think he’d have enough to do writing, editing and producing the excellent cartooning industry magazine Stay Tooned!, but apparently he has a lot of time on his hands. Instead of doing puzzles or collecting rozzers or veeblefetzers he’s put together a traveling exhibit of original cartoon strip artwork called “One Fine Sunday in the Funny Pages” which features 140 comic strip and panel originals… all published in American newspapers on the same Sunday, April the 11th.

Here is the show where it is currently hanging in a former jewelry store space in Northpark Mall, the busiest mall in Jackson, Mississippi:

Managing to get a Sunday original strip or panel from 140 different syndicated cartoonists is an amazing feat in and of itself, but to be able to get every single one that was published on the same day is sort of mind boggling.

From here the show will go to the Walt Disney Hometown Toonfest in Marceline, MO in September, and then will hang at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE starting at the beginning of October. I will be seeing it in Omaha as the show coincides with our fall National Cartoonists Society chapter meeting on Oct. 1st and 2nd. Looking forward to it!

The comics in the exhibit include (list courtesy of The Daily Cartoonist):

• ADAM@HOME by Rob Harrell & Brian Bassett
• AGNES by Tony Cochran
• ALLEY OOP by Jack & Carole Bender
• ANDY CAPP by Rogers Mahoney & Kettle
• AMAZING SPIDER-MAN by Stan Lee & Alex Saviuk
• ANIMAL CRACKERS by Fred Wagner
• ANNIE by Ted Slampyak & Jay Maeder
• APARTMENT 3-G by Frank Bolle & Sandra Moy
• ARCHIE by Fernando Ruiz & Craig Boldman
• ARCTIC CIRCLE by Alex Hallett
• ARGYLE SWEATER by Scott Hilburn
• ARLO & JANIS by Jimmy Johnson
• ASK SHAGG by Peter Guren
• B.C. by the John Hart Studio
• BABY BLUES by Rick Kirkman & Jerry Scott
• BALDO by Carlos Castellanos & Hector Cantu
• BALLARD STREET by Jerry Van Amerongen
• BARN, THE by Ralph Hagen
• BEETLE BAILEY by Mort & Greg Walker
• BETWEEN FRIENDS by Sandra Bell-Lundy
• BIG NATE by Lincoln Peirce
• BIZARRO by Dan Piraro
• BLONDIE by John Marshall & Dean Young
• BORN LOSER, THE by Chip Sansom
• BOUND & GAGGED by Dana Summers
• BREWSTER ROCKIT by Tim Rickard
• BRILLIANT…EDISON LEE by John Hambrock
• BROOM-HILDA by Russell Myers
• BUCKETS, THE by Greg Cravens
• BUCKLES by David Gilbert
• CATHY by Cathy Guisewite
• CLEATS by Bill Hinds
• CORNERED by Mike Baldwin
• CRANKSHAFT by Tom Batiuk & Chuck Ayers
• CROCK by Bill Rechin & Don Wilder
• CUL DE SAC by Richard Thompson
• CURTIS by Ray Billingsley
• DADDY’S HOME by Tony Rubino & Gary Markstein
• DEFLOCKED by Jeff Corriveau
• DENNIS THE MENACE by Ron Ferdinand
• DIAMOND LIL by Brett Koth
• DICK TRACY by Dick Locher & Jim Brozman
• DOG EAT DOUG by Brian Anderson
• DOONESBURY by Garry Trudeau
• DRABBLE by Kevin Fagan
• DUPLEX by Glenn McCoy
• DUSTIN by Jeffry Parker & Steve Kelley
• EDGE CITY by Terry & Patty LaBan
• FAMILY CIRCUS, THE by Jeff Keane
• FLASH GORDON by Jim Keefe
• FLO AND FRIENDS by Jenny Campbell
• FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE by Lynn Johnston
• FORT KNOX by Paul Jon
• FOXTROT by Bill Amend
• FRANK & ERNEST by Tom Thaves & Co.
• FRAZZ by Jef Mallett
• FREE RANGE by Bill Whitehead
• FUNKY WINKERBEAN by Tom Batiuk
• FUSCO BROTHERS, THE by J.C. Duffy
• GARFIELD by Jim Davis
• GASOLINE ALLEY by Jim Scancarelli
• GINGER MEGGS by Jason Chatfield
• GRIN AND BEAR IT by Fred Wagner & R. Dunagin
• HAGAR THE HORRIBLE by Chris Browne
• HEART OF THE CITY by Mark Tatulli
• HEATHCLIFF by Peter Gallagher
• HI & LOIS by Chance Browne & B. Walker
• JUDGE MORGAN by M. Manley & W. Wilson
• KATZENJAMMER KIDS, THE by Hy Eisman
• KNIGHT LIFE, THE by Keith Knight
• LIO by Mark Tatulli
• LITTLE DOG LOST by Steve Boreman
• LOCKHORNS, THE by John Reiner & Bunny Hoest
• LOLA by Todd Clark
• LUANN by Greg Evans
• MARMADUKE by Brad & Paul Anderson
• MARVIN by Tom Armstrong
• MARY WORTH by Joe Giella & Karen Moy
• MIDDLETONS by Ralph Dunagin & Dana Summers
• MOMMA by Mell Lazarus
• MONTY by Jim Meddick
• MOOSE AND MOLLY by Bob Weber
• MOTHER GOOSE & GRIMM by Mike Peters
• MUTTS by Patrick McDonnell
• NANCY by Guy Gilchrist
• NON SEQUITUR by Wiley Miller
• OFF THE MARK by Mark Parisi
• OLLIE AND QUENTIN by Piers Baker
• ON A CLAIRE DAY by C. Ventresca & H. Beckett
• ON THE FASTRACK by Bill Holbrook
• ONE BIG HAPPY by Rick Detorie
• OTHER COAST, THE by Adrian Raeside
• OVER THE HEDGE by Michael Fry & T Lewis
• PAJAMA DIARIES by Terri Libenson
• PC & PIXEL by Tak Bui
• PEARLS BEFORE SWINE by Stephan Pastis
• PHANTOM, THE by Paul Ryan & Tony DePaul
• PICKLES by Brian Crane
• PIRANHA CLUB, THE by Bud Grace
• PLUGGERS by Gary Brookins
• POOCH CAF’E by Paul Gilligan
• POPEYE by Hy Eisman
• PRICKLY CITY by Scott Stantis
• PRINCE VALIANT by Gary Gianni & Mark Schultz
• PROS & CONS by Kieran Meehan
• REALITY CHECK by Dave Whamond
• RED AND ROVER by Brian Basset
• PIRANHA CLUB by Bud Grace
• RETAIL by Norm Feuti
• REX MORGAN, M.D. by G. Nolan & W. Wilson
• RHYMES WITH ORANGE by Hilary Price
• RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT by John Graziano
• ROSE IS ROSE by Don Wimmer
• RUBES by Leigh Rubin
• SCARY GARY by Mark Buford
• SHERMAN’S LAGOON by Jim Toomey
• SHOE by Chris Cassatt & Gary Brookins
• SIX CHIX by Margaret Shulock
• SLYLOCK FOX by Bob Weber Jr.
• SNUFFY SMITH by John Rose
• SOUP TO NUTZ by Rick Stromoski
• SPEED BUMP by Dave Coverly
• STRANGE BREW by John Deering
• STONE SOUP by Jan Eliot
• TANK McNAMARA by Bill Hinds & Jeff Millar
• TINA’S GROOVE by Rina Piccolo
• TUNDRA by Chad Carpenter
• W.T. DUCK by Aaron Johnson
• WATCH YOUR HEAD by Cory Thomas
• WEE PALS by Morrie Turner
• WIZARD OF ID, THE by Jeff Parker
• ZACK HILL by John Deering & J. Newcombe
• ZIGGY by Tom Wilson
• ZIPPY THE PINHEAD by Bill Griffith
• ZITS by Jim Borgman & Jerry Scott

Last year I participated along with several other cartoonists in judging a show of college student cartoon work organized by Toon Ed. Toon-Ed is dedicated to educating the student of cartooning and provides a chance to showcase students cartoon art that are enrolled in post-secondary schools, colleges, art schools, and universities. It’s a great organization headed up by cartoonist and educator Ken Alvine.

This year’s Toon Award Exhibition is officially announced and will be judged by memmebrs of my chapter of the National cartoonists Society at our fall meeting in Ohama, NE on Oct. 1-2. Heres’ the official press release:

You can visit the Toon Ed website for all the details! It’s a fun show and gets some really great work. I’m looking forward to the exhibition.

This short promo just surfaced for the new MAD show on the Cartoon Network this fall:

Here’s another shorter one:

Neither feature any of my work. As you can see the style of animation runs the gamut from traditional cartoons to collage and highly stylized stuff. Many of the “skits” will be only a few seconds long with a single, quick gag. Segments like the TV show parodies I’ve worked on, the movie parodies and some ad parodies are a minute or two long and not part of these short promos.

The show debuts on Mon. Sept 6th at 8:30 pm.

I’ve operated a caricature concession business at the ValleyFair! amusement park in Shakopee, MN since 1991, and one thing that park has been missing is a real “character brand”… Disney of course has Mickey Mouse and co., Six Flags has the Warner Bros. cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck as well as the DC Comics superheroes, Universal has the Hanna Barbera characters like Yogi Bear as well as Universal movie characters, a deal for comic strip characters, the Marvel Superheroes and now Harry Potter.

Valleyfair had the Berenstein Bears and a couple of home grown characters called Colonel Ohmpa-pa and Chocolate Moose… no doubt the sales on Colonel Ohmpa-pa merchandise left a little something to be desired. The Berenstein Bears had a reasonable recognition level but nobody got real excited about seeing Papa Bear and company.

Well those days are over. Today Valleyfair announced the 2011 opening of “Planet Snoopy”, a 9 acre ‘Peanuts” themed area that will be include 6 new rides and 7 “rebranded” rides as well as lots of Snoopy and gang themed shops, food stands and decor. One of my caricature booths is located smack in the middle of this area, so we will be getting a facelift and probably seeing our quotient of drawings of kids skyrocket.

Having drawn caricatures in the old “Camp Snoopy” that is now “Nickelodeon Universe” in the Mall of America, I know that this will be pretty well received, especially around here. People weren’t too happy when the Mall of Amercia’s theme park lost the Peanuts licensing. Sparky was from St. Paul and the people of this state are pretty proud of him being a native Minnesotan. It’s fitting that these characters are going to be represented in a local theme park. Maybe Jeannie Schulz and some representatives from Peanuts will be on hand to see “Planet Snoopy” open up next spring.

Read the official press release here.

Debuting today on the National Cartoonists Society website is Thursday “Member Spotlights”… brief looks at NCS members/ legends in cartooning. Fittingly enough, the first spotlight is on cartooning giant Milton Caniff, the namesake of the NCS’s “Milton Caniff Award” for lifetime achievement in cartooning.

These spotlights are written by NCS member Leif Peng, and a new one will appear each Thursday on the NCS blog. I’ll be reminding folks to check them out… they are short and insightful glimpses into the work and behind the scenes careers of some great cartoonists and members of the National Cartoonists Society. As the library of spotlights grows you will be able to find an alphabetical listing of them all on the NCS’s blogroll.

Comic-Con 2010 is “in the books” as they say and it was it’s usual exhausting but fun time. This year I did a lot of new things including being on a panel about MAD and the new cartoon show and participating as a guest artist in “Quick Draw” with regulars Sergio Aragonés, Scott Shaw! and host Mark Evanier.

There was a lot of interest in the MAD show on Cartoon Network, premiering on Sept. 6th and featuring some of my artwork. Here is an interview with producer Peter Giradi and head writer and producer. Kevin Shinick… you will spot me once or twice at the WB signing we did and on the panel:

That was pretty cool. Kevin and Peter are creative and funny guys and they really “get” MAD, so I hope the show will really take off. There are a few short clips in the video but none of the stuff I worked on.

My “Quick Draw” appearance was especially fun. Basically it’s an entertaining show where fore mentioned cartoonists Sergio and Scott sit up on stage with one other guest cartoonist (in this case William Stout) and draw on boards with projectors so the entire audience can see what they are doing. They then do super fast drawings around themes and games that have the crowd roaring. Usually Mark has three guest artists come up and play a game for a short time, and this year he asked me to be one of the guests… naturally I was thrilled and of course got mercilessly paired with Sergio. The game we played was … well, just read Mark’s post about it.

Other than that I got to hang out with some super talented cartoonists, do a little drawing and signing and drink a lot of beer. Here are just a few pictures:

Hey! It’s Bart Man!

Hey! It’s the guy who created Bartman! Jeff Keane with The Simpsons’ Matt Groening

Thought this was a great costume… MAD Eye Moody!

Jeff Keane, R.C. Harvey and Stephen Pastis

From the WB Booth’s loft… the floor’s other end is literally too far to see.

MAD show writer/producer Kevin Shinick and MAD Magazine editor
John Ficarra hangin’ in the WB green room

MAD artist and art director Sam Viviano