Over at the official For Better or For Worse website, they released the results of their recent “Which Patterson are you most like?” poll.Top three in the poll were Liz with 3546 votes, Elly with 2501 votes, and April with 1003 votes.See the rest of the poll results here.

Diesel Sweeties - A comic features Clango Cycolotron, a robot who dates Maura Glee an internet boom survivor.   Other characters include Indie Rock Pete, Red Robot #C-63, Metal Steve, and Lil’ Sis (Maura’s little sister).The interesting thing about this comic strip is it’s unique style.  The entire comic looks like it’s been drawn on a computer.  Now, many comic strips are drawn on computers. but in this particular case it’s part of the strip’s style.The artist, Richard Stevens draws the strip on his Macintosh computer, and has had the strip syndicated through United Feature Syndicate since January, 2007.You can view the latest Diesel Sweeties strip at Comics.com.

CNBC is going to turn CEO Dad into an animated series.

Johnny Hart, the creator of the “B.C.” comic strip, died on Saturday. He was 76.

Scott Adams has started a new website, Dilbert4Sale.com.   You can purchase signed original Dilbert framed art there.   Scott has five up so far, and they’re going for $1,500 each.

The Toronto Star is reporting that “For Better or For Worse” is going to be changing direction in 2007. Instead of the “real time” storyline the strip has always had, it’s switching to the more common “frozen in time” aspect that most comic strips have. It will also revisit old storylines.

Whether this takes hold or not… well, we’ll see. Lynn Johnston is doing this instead of completely retiring the strip as was previously planned for this coming September.

If you’re a “For Better or For Worse” fan, check out Lynn Johnston’s page on how a comic strip is drawn and written from start to finish.

I have a collection of “Day-to-Day” calendars on my desk so I can be sure and see my favorite comic strips every day. Here’s what I have:

#4 - Dilbert 2007 Day-to-Day Calendar

This year’s calendar is “This Week I Achieved Unprecedented Levels of Unverifiable Productivity“. It picks up right where the 2006 calendar left off, and that’s in the move that Asok is attempting to organize. Dilbert is a must see comic for anyone that works in an office.

#3 - FoxTrot 2007 Day-to-Day Calendar

The FoxTrot Calendar is a must have, because there aren’t any daily strips anymore. You read the announcement about FoxTrot discontinuing the daily strip didn’t you? FoxTrot has always been a great comic, and this is the only way to get your daily dose. Fortunately, the strip will be continued on Sunday, so you’ll still get a new color comic every week.

#2 - Get Fuzzy 2007 Day-to-Day Calendar (Quality Time).

“Get Fuzzy” is an excellent comic strip. You’d think that the “Guy and Dog and Cat” comic strip has been done to death by “Garfield”, but “Get Fuzzy” throws it into a whole new dimension. Rob,
Satchel and Bucky…. Not to be missed!

#1 - The Far Side Gallery 2007 Off The Wall Page-a-Day Calendar

Well, I have to say that my jaw hit the floor when I found out that Gary Larson came out with a calendar for 2007, after not having any for the last few years. Welcome back all the cows, scientists, cave men, and just plan weirdness that is “The Far Side”. The author’s proceeds are going to a charity (Conservation International).

With these words:

“After spending close to half of my life writing and drawing FoxTrot cartoons, I think it’s time I got out of the house and tried some new things,” said Amend. “I love cartooning and I absolutely want to continue doing the strip, just not at the current all-consuming pace. I’ve been blessed over the years with a terrific syndicate, patient newspaper clients, and more support from readers than I probably deserve, and I want to assure them all that while I’ll be now a less-frequent participant on the comics pages, I’ll continue to treat my visits as the special privilege they are.”

Bill Amended and Universal Press Syndicate announced that FoxTrot will be going to Sunday’s only. FoxTrot is one of my favorite strips, and I get the FoxTrot Calendar every year (although they didn’t publish one a couple of years ago.

I’ll miss the dailies.

Every day your local paper delivers to you the work many cartoonists. If you’re thinking of trying to become the next Scott Adams or Jim Davis, what exactly can you expect? There are two books that do a great job of explaining how syndication works: Your Career in The Comics, and Successful Syndication: A Guide for Writers and Cartoonists.

The first, and my favorite is Your Career in The Comics. The author, Lee Nordling, interviewed many people from the industry. Not only cartoonists, but also people that work in the syndicates that distribute comics, newspaper editors and even agents. The book has is broken down in to three main areas: “The Players”, “The Process” and “The Product”. Just about everything is covered, from the submission process, to how comics are actually sold, what contracts are like, and a lot more.

How each person in the process views themselves, and each other are pretty interesting. For example, agents consider themselves pretty important, while the cartoonists see them as cutting into the bottom line (and most recommend NOT to use an agent, since you don’t really need them).

I was pretty surprised about a couple of things. First, to see how little newspapers pay for comics each week ($7-$15), and that the weekly rate is generally the rate for the Sunday comic alone. (Which may explain why Opus only runs on Sundays). I was also surprised to find out that when a syndicate says that a comic is carried in “500 papers”, they count the dailies and the Sunday comic seperately. So, if you read Peanuts in your paper Monday-Saturday, and on Sunday, that counts as two newspapers.

Your Career in The Comics is well worth getting if you’re interested in becoming syndicated, or if you have an interest in the comics business itself.

Successful Syndication: A Guide for Writers and Cartoonists deals much more with the syndication process itself. Perhaps the best thing about this book is that it has a very detailed explanation of a sample syndication contract in one of the appendices. It covers the things in the contract that the syndicate would be likely to be flexible about, and what they probably wouldn’t budge on. It also gave tips on how to make some very vague clauses in the contract become more percise and helpful to the cartoonist.

Both books are well worth reading.