Author: Robert Greenberger

Suddenly, there’s a lot of news coming out of Alaska.  In addition to the state’s governor being nominated as the Republican candidate for Vice President, cartoonist Chad Carpenter was named Alaska’s Cartoon Laureate last week. State representative Wes Keller began campaigning for the designation back in February, according to the Daily Cartoonist. 

Carpenter has been drawing Tundra for a dozen years now and as a thirty year resident of Alaska, knows something about the environment. He was encouraged to get into comic strips by Dik Browne and Mike Peters and has managed to grow his strip into a mini-empire with not only the strip but four strip collections, t-shirt designs, note cards, mouse pads, bumper stickers, and an interactive CD-ROM.

Keller said at the time, “Chad is one of my most famous constituents. I love his humor and success, and I was happy to ask my fellow legislators to support and co-sponsor this citation recognizing and honoring the work and goodwill he has accomplished for Alaska during his successful run of Tundra. His ability to export Alaska grown is a true example of what you can do when you put your mind to it.”

On May 24, Carpenter was given the Reuben Award for Best Newspaper Panel, crediting Carpenter’s success as a self-syndicated cartoonist with over 200 newspapers carrying Tundra.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment announced the box set of the eleventh season of The Simpsons will be unveiled on DVD on October 7.

In addition to the stellar cast, the eleventh season of the seminal series featured guest voices Mel Gibson, Lucy Lawless, Kid Rock, Dick Clark, Tim Robbins, John Goodman, Parker Posey, Don Cheadle, Ron Howard, Willie Nelson, and Britney Spears.

The Simpsons The Complete Eleventh Season will feature a special Krusty The Clown themed box that  is promised to contain a surprise insert for the die hard fan.  The DVD collection will be available for the suggested retail price of $49.98 U.S./$69.98 Canada. (more…)

Brett Ratner is no stranger to bringing pop culture icons to the screen.  After all, he directed the third X-Men film and is attached to bringing Valiant’s Harbinger to the screen.  He’s even handling the big screen adaptation of the video game God of War. But…Guitar Hero?

Ratner told MTV News, "I would love to do a Guitar Hero movie, if Activision would ever let me. I’m trying to convince them. It could be about a kid from a small town who dreams of being a rock star and he wins the Guitar Hero competition."

Ah, something unpredictable and surprising.

Meantime, the newest iteration of the global phenomena, Guitar Hero: World Tour, complete with microphone and drum kit, will be unleashed this fall in the $200 price category.
 

Just shy of its 29th anniversary, today Lynn Johnston completes her run on For Better or For Worse.  The comic strip, though, isn’t going away nor is it exactly going into reruns.

Instead, Johnston is going back to the beginning, when the strip debuted on September 9, 1979 and is cleaning up her art and dialogue.

She’s been reaching an end point for some time now and has repeatedly revised how she intends to carry on once the storyline ends.  One thing has remained certain, she wanted to bring the characters full circle so John and Elly are now the grandparents and Michael’s children are about the same age as he was when the strip first arrived.

"All of September will be brand-new material," Johnston explained to The Washington Post. "In October, it will be [a ratio of] 50-50. The color Sunday comics will be all-new material. . . . I think it will be 50-50 for the first year, at least."

Johnston continues to work in her Toronto studio although does so after recently separating from her husband, an act she says now frees her. "I really wanted to be happy as a couple and make everything right, but things became more stressful. . . . It made me look again at my career. I thought I would now be a retired woman with my Tilley hat and sitting on a cruise ship and going to the Galapagos," Johnston said.

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With Heroes returning for season three on September 22, NBC has released official descriptions of the first two hours.

Here’s NBC’s description of "The Second Coming": "The first chapter of Volume 3: Villains kicks off moments after shots rang out, as the shocking identity of Nathan’s (Adrian Pasdar) assassin and the reasons why the Texas press conference had to be cut short are revealed–immediately throwing Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) and Matt (Greg Grunberg) into unexpected, uncharted territory.

"With his powers partially restored, Sylar (Zachary Quinto) decides a visit to Claire (Hayden Panettiere) could give him a boost. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson Lee) are charged with safeguarding a family secret that could split the planet apart and discover that the path to a grim future starts with shady speedster, Daphne (guest star Brea Grant).

"In New York City, thanks to Maya (Dania Ramirez), Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) makes a startling breakthrough that could change the world–or just destroy his. And who is Tracy Strauss?"
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