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Mort Walker, the creator of a comic strip that brought laughter to millions by showing the foibles of a lazy G.I., and who later founded the first museum dedicated to cartooning, has died. He was 94 and passed way from pneumonia at his Stamford, Conn. home, according to Bill Morrison, president of the National Cartoonists Society. Walker drew his daily comic strip for 68 years, longer than any other Us artist in the history of the medium. It debuted in 1950 and eventually…...

Last week's Mad Men episode didn't bother to hide its 2001: A Space Odyssey fixation; it was named 'The Monolith," for Pete Campbell's sake! The spirit of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke presided over this week's episode — "The Runaways" — as well, however, and not just the scene where Michael Ginsberg lip-reads a conversation between Lou Avery and Jim Cutler in the glassed-in box that house's the firm's state-of-the-art computer. 2001 eventually develops into a fable about a machine that, given a semblance of human consciousness, develops some of the less admirable,...

Above you'll find the first comic that artist Bill Watterson has created since he retired Calvin & Hobbes in 1995. It is actually a poster that he created for a documentary film called Stripped. The doc explores the creation of these comic strips and their transition from newspapers to digital. It features interviews with the creators of Garfield, Cathy, For Better or For Worse, The Oatmeal, Penny Arcade, and even Watterson himself, who rarely gives interviews.

Watterson spoke to The Washington Post and explained the poster he did for the movie:

“Given the movie’s title and the fact that there are few things funnier than human nudity, the idea popped into my head largely intact. The film is a big valentine to comics, so I tried to do something really cartoon-y. I had thought of having it colored with off-registered printing dots like newspaper comics, but Dave asked if I’d paint it instead,...

Last year, Calvin & Hobbes and the comic strip's creator Bill Watterson got their own documentary called Dear Mr. Watterson. Now a new documentary called Stripped goes a little more broad by focusing on Jim Davis, Cathy Guisewite, Mort Walker, Mike & Jerry, Matt Inman and Jeff Keane, the names behind comic strips like Garfield, Cathy, Beetle Bailey, Penny Arcade, The Oatmeal and Family Circus respectively. And there's plenty more cartoonists interviewed in this documentary looking into the art of comic strips. We love how it spans from the oldest newspaper strips to today's online comics. In addition, the poster below is the first comic strip illustration Watterson has made in 18 years. Check it out! Here's the first trailer for Dave Kellett and Frederick Schroeder's Stripped via The Film Stage: And here's the poster for the documentary, created and illustrated by Bill Watterson: Stripped is written and directed by Dave Kellett and Frederick Schroeder.

Our friends at Titan Books have been very good to us and give us loads of competitions for you, our lovely readers to win! We’ll no doubt have more coming in the following months but in the meantime, they’ve sent me their whereabouts at San Diego Comic Con (Sdcc) 2010.

I put up a post a week or so ago about the brand new Drew Stuzan book, The Art of Drew Struzan which is coming out September 24th. Well Stuzan fans, he’s going to be at Sdcc this year to do some book signing. He’ll be in Autograph Alley (AA19) on Saturday 24th at 11am.

There’s rather a lot more going on for Joss Whedon, Sucker Punch and Tank Girl fans, all of which will have a prescence at Comic-Con 2010.

Titan Books’ brand new website went live yesterday and you can check it out for all the movie goodness here.

Yowza Digital & Kavaleer Productions have joined forces to bring Mort Walker's well known and much loved comic strip 'Hi & Lois' to the small screen. The co-development agreement gives Kavaleer the exclusive right to represent the property in Europe, allowing them to seek distribution and broadcaster interest as well as meeting with the funding bodies based in Ireland. Yowza, a Toronto-based animation and visual effects house, and Irish animation house Kavaleer will be working closely together in the coming months. With such a large body of work – spanning fifty years and over 1,100 daily newspapers - there is plenty of inspiration at their disposal.

It's our sad duty to report that Roy E. Disney, the nephew of Walt Disney former executive for the Walt Disney Company has passed away at the age of 79 after a year-long battle with stomach cancer.

A stalwart fixture at Disney - his personal office was situated inside the magic hat atop Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, California - he oversaw many of the company's greatest successes over the past few decades. The company released the following statement:

Roy Edward Disney, son of Disney Studios co-founder Roy O. Disney, and nephew of Walt Disney, passed away today (12/16/09) at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach, California, following a year-long battle with stomach cancer. He was 79 years old.

Disney was a successful businessman, philanthropist, filmmaker and award-winning sailor, who played a key role in the revitalization of The Walt Disney Company and Disney's animation legacy. He was associated with the Company over a 56-year period,...