Laugh Tracks

Speaking of Comics

Wimpy Kid creator Jeff Kinney is credited with firing up the book interest of young "reluctant readers." When the New York Times asked him about the children's books he loved he said, "Looking back, I realize my favorite stories weren't in books, they were in comics." Kinney cites Little Lulu, Frontline Combat and Classics Illustrated, but says "The works that stood head and shoulders above the rest were Carl Barks's Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge comics from the 1940 through the 1960s....Proof that great storytelling endures from generation to generation." You can read the article here.

SDCC Thursday schedule is out!

If you were lucky/crafty/conniving enough to have secured/swindled/stolen your ticket to the hottest event of the year - Comic-Con International in San Diego - there was some much-anticipated good news for you today: The Thursday schedule was released!

 

Universal Uclick and GoComics will be there. Will you?

 

White-hot Crossover Action! Doonesbury and The Spectacular Spider-Man?!

Brian Cronin at ComicBookResources.com has gathered some comic book easter eggs featuring comic strip cameos by Mike Doonesbury and Zonker Harris of Doonesbury, Calvin and Hobbes...of...Calvin and Hobbes, and more. 

 

 

Check it out!

Free Comic Book Day on iPhone and iPod Touch!

May 1st is Free Comic Book Day in comic book stores nationwide, and there are going to be some very cool books available - Shrek, Superman, Iron Man, Toy Story, Owly, Arche, G.I. Joe and the Simpsons are among the fan favorites you can grab for free at your local comic shop!

And we're getting in on the act as well, offering all of the first issues of our iPhone comic book apps for free! The Argyle Sweater, Basic Instructions, Pibgorn and Bone are just a few of the titles you'll find for free when you search "UCLICK" in the App Store.

Click here to check out our comic book app selections (clicking the link launches iTunes).

Happy Free Comic Book Day!

Stan Lee's All-New Stripperella Debuts on iPhone

There’s a sexy new comic book heroine set to reveal herself exclusively to iPhone and iPod Touch users, and this scantily clad adventurer, with a popular, familiar name, is bringing her exploits to life in this direct-to-iPhone release.

Legendary comic book creator Stan Lee, has created the sultry super-heroine stars in an original four-volume comic book series.

“Some people think Stripperella is merely a far-out fantasy featuring a torrid, whistle-bait pin-up,” said Lee. “But thoughtful readers look beneath Stripperella’s frivolous façade and recognize a scholarly, psychological analysis of today’s complex male/female relationships with cogent commentary within the sophisticated subtext. Congratulations to Universal Uclick and POW! for Stripperella, the perfect cerebral companion for the thinking man.”

Go to StripperellaApp.com for more info.

Free Eisner Awards App for iPhone and iPod Touch!

Uclick has announced the release of a free Eisner Awards app for iPhone and iPod Touch. The app gives a brief background of the Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards and their namesake, legendary comics creator Will Eisner, as well as information and images of each of the nominated works in the 26 award categories.

The app will update to note the winners shortly after they are announced at a special ceremony at the San Diego Comic Con on July 24.

To download the free Eisner Awards app for your iPhone or iPod Touch, click here or on the image below (launches iTunes).

Uclick Brings Free Comic Book Day to the iPhone!

For the first time ever, Uclick is celebrating Free Comic Book Day by making several of our iPhone apps free for a limited time. (Click here to read the official press release.)

What does this have to do with GoComics? A few of your favorite GoComics titles are part of the promotion!

Look for apps featuring GoComics favorites The Argyle Sweater, Basic Instructions and Pibgorn, as well as comic book apps starring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ghostbusters and many more. All will be available for free on the App Store starting Friday afternoon and ending Saturday night at 11:59pm PST.

 Click here or on the image below to open up the Uclick page in iTunes.

Nickelodeon Mag Comics Awards Winners: Garfield, Calvin and Bone!

The most famous feline on the comics page was the big winner in the first ever Nickelodeon Magazine Comics Awards. The award for Favorite Comic Strip went to Garfield, by Jim Davis, which beat out finalists Calvin and Hobbes, FoxTrot, Peanuts and Mutts.

Take heart, Calvin fans: While he missed out on the Favorite Comic Strip award, Calvin didn't go home empty-handed, winning the Best Hair in Comics award. (Not bad for a kid who's been enjoying retirement for more than a decade.)

And lastly, Jeff Smith's Bone won the award for Favorite Fantasy Graphic Novel. The entire Bone series, originally published in black and white from 1991-2004, was reprinted in color by Scholastic Books' graphic novel imprint, Graphix. The first nine issues of the color series have also been re-released in a series of comic apps produced by Uclick for iPhone and iPod touch.

Read the story from Universal Press Syndicate here.

CBR covers iPhone Comics from Uclick

Comic Book Resources has posted an article on the Uclick panel at New York Comic Con last weekend. The panel, which covered our rapidly growing line of comic apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch, included Uclick Creative Director Peter Maresca, President and CEO Douglas Edwards, VP of Product Management Jeff Webber, Comics Producer Shena Wolf and Comicraft President and comics creator Richard Starkings (Starkings' Elephantmen #1 is one of the most recent comics apps to join the Uclick iPhone lineup).

The Uclick lineup for iPhone and iPod Touch includes apps featuring archived collections from hit GoComics titles such as Pibgorn, Basic Instructions and We the Robots, as well as the new Uclick GoComics Web app, which allows users to read recent installments of all of their favorite GoComics strips, panels and editorial cartoons. We also have a large collection of comic books, graphic novels and manga specially formatted for panel-to-panel presentation on the multi-touch screens of the Apple devices.

If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, be sure to check out the entire Uclick lineup - go to Uclick.com on the built-in Safari browser, or visit the App Store on iTunes.

Uclick in the New York Times

The last few months have been filled with dire news of layoffs and economic difficulties within the newspaper industry, so the New York Times wonders in this article (which ran in the Sunday print edition ) what happens to comic strips when their traditional distribution channel is struggling to stay afloat. The answer: digital distribution. Douglas Edwards, Uclick CEO, is interviewed and Uclick is spotlighted, particularly for the GoComics.com comics portal and our recent comics launches on the iPhone. Click here to read the article.