Comic Strips

Dark Horse Given that pretty much all of the Spartans died at the Battle of Thermopylae - which was sort of the point - people have been speculating for years about how Frank Miller would wring a sequel out of his hit Dark Horse graphic novel and movie 300. Today, at Comic-Con, the answer came out. The sequel, XERXES, will actually take place at exactly the same time on another battlefield of the same war.

We don't often have occasion to link to the comic strip musings at The Comics Curmudgeon but it happened to come up in our...

No "Tomorrow" as LIttle Orphan Annie ends today.

Via email from Hogan's Alley, the winners of the Reuben Awards from the National Cartoonists Society: Seth MacFarlane won the Television Animation division award. Ronnie del...

And on a somewhat lighter note...Fox has released stills from this summer's doggie comics movie, which stars Owen WIlson as the voice of Marmaduke, along with Lee Pace, Fergie, Goegre Lopez and William H. Macy, among others. The film is based on the comic strip featuring the large Great Dane by Brad Anderson, which began in...1954. The film is a combination of live action and CGI. Can Fred Bassett be far behind?

Many of you sent us this link to the news that the Little Orphan Annie comic strip has been canceled. The strip, currently drawn...

Cartoonist Keith Knight reminds us that not only has his syndicated comic strip Knight LIfe lasted two years, it has a book collection coming out, The Knight Life .  In a press release Knight joked at his relief the strip had lasted this long: “The bottom fell out of the economy just as my strip launched. And I became a first-time father one month later…I figured if I can make it through these first coupla years, I can make it though anything. The 200-page collection hits in June and includes strips that never made it to print due to "risqué" content.

Via Titan Books, a reminder that Peter O''Donnell , the creator of superspy Modesty Blaise, is turning 90 this year and fans can email him birthday wishes directly at happybirthday@titanemail.com or via post at Titan Books, 144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP, UK. A prolific author of short stories, novels, articles, plays and film, O'Donnell's best known character is Blaise, who debuted in 1963 as a comic strip drawn by Jim Holdaway, before going on to star in several film and novel adaptations. New strips stopped appearing in 2001, but reprint volumes of her adventures with sidekick Willie Garvin are readily available via Titan.

Iconix, the world's second biggest licensing company, has acquired the licensing rights to E.W. Scripps (aka United Media's) comic strips, including Peanuts, Dilber, Get Fuzzy and many, many others, it was reported today. The price was $175 million. As we reported a few months ago, Scripps, had put its lucrative licensing business on the block, given the problems in their other segments, including the newspaper business. The deal will be a joint venture with the family of Charles Schulz continuing to get a share of the licensing income from a previous deal.

A single gag is recycled in various settings. "What is it about Garfield that makes it so infinitely mutable? Seriously. You can't do this so...

Fresh from Richard Thompson's blog, news that there are four more animated shorts based on the amazingly-super comic strip Cul de Sac.

With Salinger gone, you would have thought that Calvin and Hobbes cartoonist Bill Watterson was ready to assume the mantle of the literary world's...