Showing posts with label comic strip. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comic strip. Show all posts

January 17 – Popeye Day

Posted on January 17, 2018

I know a few things about Popeye:

He was a Sailor Man with a TV show and a rather annoyingly catchy theme song called "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man."
He adored Olive Oyl.
His nemesis was Bluto.
He got his strength from spinach. Actually, he got his strength from what I think is the very worst form of spinach: canned spinach. It was usually eaten straight from the can in a crushed-tin-can geyser that plops down into his eager throat!



Here are some things I didn't know:

* Popeye was introduced on this date in 1929 as just a very minor character in a newspaper comic strip named Thimble Theater.

* Popeye was so popular, he quickly became the main character of that strip. And that strip then went on to become one of the most popular and profitable strips of its time.

* About nine years after Popeye's introduction to the world, his creator died; Thimble Theater (which was eventually changed to the name Popeye) was carried on by several other writers and artists.

* Over the years, Popeye also appeared in comic books,  theatrical and TV cartoons (as I mentioned above), arcade and video games, ads, and products like spinach. He was also the inspiration for radio shows and a 1980 live-action movie Popeye!





* The movie set for the movie Popeye is now a tourist attraction called Popeye's Village.



Also on this date:
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

October 2 – Peanuts Day

Posted October 2, 2017

Today is not about a yummy legume:


Instead, it is about a lovable comic strip that grew into an empire of books, TV specials, movies, and even a stage show.

Some people call the Peanuts comic strip "the longest story ever told by one human being." The storyteller is cartoonist Charles M. Schultz. He wrote about a gang of kids, including Charlie Brown (a character based loosely on himself), plus Charlie's dog Snoopy and Snoopy's best friend Woodstock the bird.




Today is the anniversary of the start of the Peanuts comic strip, in 1950. The last original comic was published in 2000, the day after author Schultz died. The comics are still reprinted - get this! - in almost every newspaper in the U.S.

Here are some stats on the long-running Peanuts:

The comic ran in more than 2,600 newspapers
It ran in 75 countries
It was published in 21 different languages
More than 335 million people read Peanuts
Schultz earned more than $1 billion!!




There have been a LOT of Charlie Brown specials on TV! Check out all the title cards for the various shows here. 

To get you in the mood for the upcoming Halloween holiday-times, here is "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."


Here is a simple (and free) online jigsaw of the Peanuts characters, and here is a much more challenging one. 

Here are some videos about how to draw the Peanuts characters.





Also on this date:




Day after the National Day of the People's Republic of China in Macau
 










































First Monday in October





First Monday in October








Plan ahead:



Check out my Pinterest boards for:
And here are my Pinterest boards for:
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

May 5, 2013 - National Cartoonists' Day

We've just celebrated Batman's first appearance in comic books, and today we celebrate cartoons and cartoonists.

Which made me wonder, what's the difference between cartoons and comics?

Most people will tell you that cartoons are animated features with moving pictures and sound, whereas comics are still pictures, either printed or online, that tell a story through a series of drawings, usually with narrative words and dialogue.

However, that isn't completely correct. Otherwise, why would we call the still, printed political cartoons “political cartoons”?  

“Cartooning” is actually a simplified style of drawing that exaggerates features, either to be humorous or to make a point. A synonym for cartoon is caricature. (Check out this explanation of how the word cartoon came to be.)

The word comic comes from comedy and means, of course, humorous. Most comic strips are indeed funny (and “the comics” section in a newspaper is often called “the funnies”). But some comic strips and comic books are not at all humorous.
Many comic strips and books are drawn as cartoons. In other words, the drawing style is simplified and exaggerated. However, many comic books (and a few comic strips) feature very detailed and even realistic drawings. And some even use photographs!

Today, we use the term graphic novel for a long story told in comics, when the publication looks like a book, and we use the term comic book for comics published in a magazine format.

So...cartooning is a style. A lot of comic strips, comic books, and animated movies are drawn in cartoon style.

Comics is a genre that features pictures, captions, speech balloons, and sound-effect words as it tells a story or conveys information. Comics includes comic books, comic strips, political cartoons, graphic novels, and webcomics.

(By the way, for anyone who is interested, there is a book called Understanding Comics that tells the history and theory of comics WITH COMICS. How brilliant is that?)










Today...

  • Read a comic book, or the funnies, or a graphic novel.
  • Watch a cartoon.
  • Create your own characters for a comic strip. Think of simple stories that can be told in just a few drawings arranged in a panel. For example:
      > Boy sees leaves blowing, gets a huge smile on his face.
      > Boy gets his kite and runs up a hill. The kite looks very unhappy.
      > Boy is high in the sky, looking terrified—and the kite is grinning as he holds the string and “flies” the boy.
Remember that humor can occur because of a “switcheroo,” like the boy-and-kite story above. It can occur because of an unexpected ending or irony or plain old silliness. Also remember that not all comics are funny!

By the way...

If you were wondering, “Why is National Cartoonists' Day today, of all days?” it's because today is the anniversary of the first-ever color cartoon, The Yellow Kid, in 1895.

Plan Ahead...
Check out my Pinterest boards of May holidays, historical events in May, and May birthdays.


Also on this date:











Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)