… “Gil” is more “Baby Blues” than “Boondocks,” and while all comic strips are ultimately written for adults, it still serves the classic comic strip purpose of reflecting real life back through a much funnier lens. Some things are funny to all ages. For others, the question of why it’s funny offers a child a glimpse into the grown-up mind …

Read the rest on the NYT’s Motherlode blog.

If you missed it, above is the audio of my interview with Beth McDonald of “Beth & Friends” on KEZ 99.9 radio in Phoenix, AZ.

From Today.com:

Nuclear families have dominated newspaper comics since the dawn of the Nuclear Age, from the warm and fuzzy world of “The Family Circus” to the tree-lined suburban home of “Dennis the Menace.” But a new comic is breaking that mold, reflecting an America where roughly half of marriages end in divorce.

The title character in “Gil,” a syndicated strip that launched last week in the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers, has a hard-working single mom and an underachieving dad he sees only on alternate weekends.

Not only that: He’s a bit plump, he doesn’t have all the latest toys, and he’s exactly not at the top of the grading curve (assigned a school report on “Favorite Hero,” Gil’s best friend chooses abolitionist Sojurner Truth; Gil picks Batman). But somehow he always manages to look on the bright side …

Read the rest of the story on Today.com.

If you’re not familiar with Pooch Cafe, you should be!  Check out Paul’s site by clicking on the strip below.

From The Attleboro Sun Chronicle:

Nationally syndicated cartoonist Norm Feuti of Plainville launched his comic career by mining his past as a shoe store worker for a daily strip about working as a low-paid retail employee.

Now Feuti is looking back on his childhood as he debuts a new strip that brings to life the problems and pratfalls of kids in the 21st century.

“Gil,” whose title character is an 8-year-old boy, hits the nation’s funny pages for the first time today, including The Sun Chronicle.

…

You can read the rest of the article at TheSunChronicle.com.

Charlie Brown’s parents divorcing?

Not really, but Gil, a newspaper comic strip that made its debut Monday, goes where few family strips have gone before, exploring the trials and exasperations of an 8-year-old boy raised by a single mom.

“Yay, alternate weekends,” Gil deadpans in one panel after his deadbeat dad admits he has no plan for the day other than buying a lottery ticket.

…

You can read the rest of the article in today’s paper, or on USAToday.com.

Today’s the big day!  Above is GIL #1. Be sure to look for GIL in your local newspaper, and/or add it to your DailyINK page!

It’s almost here!  GIL will be launching this Monday in newspapers and on the web!

We’ve changed the GIL development blog at www.gilcomics.com. Going forward, it will be a blog and home base for all GIL related news. You can also follow GIL on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter for the latest news about the strip.

Early in the New Year www.gilcomics.com will begin including daily installments and an archive of the comic itself, but we’re waiting on some new software.  I will be sure to announce that when it happens. Until then, you can still read GIL on the web through King Features’ digital services DailyINK, and Comics Kingdom.

If you have a smartphone, or tablet, I highly recommend the DailyINK app, which is available for both the Apple and Android markets.

Thank you to the many friends and fans who have wished me well with GIL, and followed the strip over the years.  It’s been a long journey – one that I hope will continue for years to come.

Happy New Year!

-Norm

The above strip ran on Sunday, October 30th.  Shortly after it ran, I received an email from the wife of Elmo Shropshire, A.K.A. “Dr. Elmo,” creator of the famous holiday novelty song “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer!” As it turns out, Dr. Elmo loved the strip and wanted to find out if he could acquire it. I happily gifted it to him, and he was kind enough to send me a couple of autographed CDs in return!

The note in the picture reads:

Dear Norm,

Thank you for making the cartoon about Monster Mash and “Grandma.” It is a brilliant piece of artwork and we will treasure it.

Gratefully,

Elmo

AKA Dr. Elmo

I totally geeked out over this. Although it’s now a holiday staple, I clearly remember the first time I heard “Grandma” on the radio back in the 80s. A friend and I used to listen to a weekly radio program called “Dr. Demento” that played novelty songs from Dr. Elmo, Monty Python, Weird Al, and various others. I actually wanted to be a novelty song writer at one point. The fact that I have no musical ability whatsoever put the kibosh on that dream pretty quickly, but still. This was a cool throwback for me – and a surprise. I never thought  in a million years that the creator of either song would see the strip … And yes, I also didn’t relize that Bobby “Boris” Pickett hasn’t needed to pay rent since 2007. Old article. My bad.

At any rate, you can learn more about the very talented Dr. Elmo at his website www.drelmo.com. I highly recommend his “Bluegrass Christmas” album – one of the CDs he sent. It’s classic Christmas music with a bluegrass twang. Very nice.

Thanks, Dr. Elmo! You made my day!

From the SvD Kickstarter page:

‘Santa vs Dracula’ is full color graphic novel about Count Dracula invading Santa Claus’s workshop with an army of monsters (Frankenstein’s Monster, Mr. Hyde, Invisible Man, the Wicked Witch of the West, etc) in order to gain Santa’s ability to enter people’s homes at will. Of course, Santa has his own allies and they aren’t about to give the big-guy up without a fight!

Created by Melissa DeJesus and Ed Power, who also did the comic strip ‘My Cage’ for King Features Syndicate (http://www.gocomics.com/mycage) , ‘Santa vs Dracula’ started as an idea for a side-project web comic, but soon grew past that.

Melissa and Ed soon decided to submit the project to comic publishers as a pitch for a self-contained graphic novel.

The feedback was great. Publishers were interested, and there was even casual interest from a major film studio to hear a pitch once the project was further along. (IMPORTANT NOTE: This is only a casual interest. Nothing definite. The project/graphic novel should be taken on it’s own merit)

This led Melissa and Ed to decide this needed to be more than a side project.

The two of them do some really cool stuff. If you want to see more, click HERE to visit their Kickstarter page and get more information.