“America’s greatest quadriplegic, recovering alcoholic cartoonist” (prev.) has died at 59. John Callahan drew irreverent cartoons (some too irreverent – scroll down), created one cartoon series for kids and another for adults (plus animated versions of many of his comics), wrote and performed songs, and collected his hate mail. He was a local celebrity in Portland, Oregon, the subject of a Dutch documentary and an unlikely role model. “The odor of mortality (was) hard to avoid around Callahan,” and now it has caught up with him.

as seen on MetaFilter

Two things I love about the long line of cameo appearances in Sunday’s “My Cage” comic: the extremes in variety of comic styles (all rendered at least pretty well) and the comics they came from, some successful and/or familiar (not always the same thing), some cult or special-interest favorites and some just plain obscure, but all web-based; well, it is an Internet Cafe, even if one character is reading a newspaper.

The other thing I love is I was able to identify ALL of them, proving that I am indeed qualified to write a blog about webcomics (which Tooned.In will at least partly be, after it gets out of Beta).

From left to right:
Skull, the Troll from “PvP” by Scott Kurtz
The Space Pig from “The SuperFogies” by Brock Heasley
Steve (a guinea pig raised as a moose, therefore the artificial antlers) from “Pinkerton” by Mike Witmer
Dr. McNinja, eponymous star of “The Adventures of Dr. McNinja” by Christopher Hastings
Agatha Heterodyne, title character of “Girl Genius” by Phil and Kaja Foglio
Woo the Raccoon of “Sandra & Woo” by Powree and Oliver Knörzer
Clango Cyclotron, robot from “Diesel Sweeties” by R.Stevens
Coney, carnivorous bunny from “Kevin and Kell” by Bill Holbrook
Teenage Girl President, title character of a recurring TV show within “Medium Large” by Francesco Marciuliano
Max Terrier and Norman Platipus from “My Cage” by Ed Power and Melissa DeJesus (the host comic, ironically distributed by the Internet unfriendly King Features Syndicate who only let you see comics over 30 days old IF you pay $15 a year for ‘DailyInk’)
Gill, obvious star of “Gill” by Norm Feuti (which ended a 14 month run last year and deserved better, I agree)
and Zorphbert, space alien disguised (poorly) as a dog in “Zorphbert and Fred” by Dawn Griffin

Now you can critique the choice of specific characters (“Where’s Biff/Brock/Charles/Clovis/Clue/Cornfather/Dick/Digger/Emily/Ferd/Flaco/Fuzzy/Gav/Hannelore/Herman/Jinx/Kimiko/McPedro/Monica/Pip/Roast Beef/Schlock/Scott/Slick/Speedy/T-Rex/Tip/Weedmaster P?” [yeah, like King Features Syndicate is gonna let HIM in])

The above in no way is supposed to represent an even halfway-definitive list of Beloved Characters in Webcomics, but is just the result of a little obsessive behavior while doing my nightly ‘Webcomic Surf’. Which makes this as good a time as any to announce that when Tooned.In is officially released into the Wild Wild Web, it will include a pseudo-comprehensive catalog of comics online, organized in a way to make it more convenient for ME than my dozens of browser bookmarks and which should make it easier for other comics-obsessed web surfers. Stay tooned!

One thing I love about the media of comics and cartoons is the ability to identify the stupidity and absurdity in real life and allow you to laugh at them (derisively, of course) instead of rage against them. In this vein, today’s XKCD is a masterful take-down of the gross medical fraud that is Homeopathy, as well as the funniest XK in weeks (I was starting to worry you might be losing it, Randall). Of course, if you are also moronic enough to deny the theory of evolution, you probably won’t get the joke.

As important as the art in a webcomic is, sometimes you can come up with a gag good enough that it can be expressed in dialogue balloons in a pitch black panel. And sometimes you can come up with a gag ‘theme’ that allows you to reuse the same panels with new dialogue over and over. And if you can do BOTH, you have the lazy cartoonist’s nirvana.

Which Jennie Breedon has accomplished in The Devil’s Panties with her “What Not To Say In The Bedroom” theme. Wisely, she has limited these single panels to the weekends, when she usually has other ‘filler’ content, to avoid giving the impression she’s ‘phoning it in’. But when you have comic content that needs no pictures, you know that some @$$#Ø!£ is going to do what I am doing right now:

The Collected “What Not To Say In The Bedroom”

“♫We all live in a yellow submarine♫!”
“So what where you gonna make me for dinner?”
“Look! No hands!”
“I’m a squirrel!”
“I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m over here.”
“Did I mention that I’m allergic to latex?”
“I know “ow” wasn’t the safe word, but I figured it was sorta obviouse (sic)!”
“Passion and spontaneity are all well and good, but you need a shower first.”
“Hi, I’m Mike.”
“Is that guacamole?”
“HONK! HONK!”
“What do the instructions say?”
“Did you wash this after you got it from the kitchen?”
“Inappropriate use of lawn equipment!”
“Think fast!”
“Turn it off! Turn it off!”
“The Internet is watching.”
“Are you KIDDING?”
“♫Autobots wage their battle ♫To destroy the evil forces ♫Ooooof the Deceptocons♫!”
“That explains SO much.”
“I can’t feel my hand.”
“Slacker!”
“♫Gummy Bears, ♫Bouncing here and there and everywhere, ♫High adventure that’s beyond compare, ♫We are the Gummy Bears!♫”
“Taste like chicken!”
“CHAAARGE!”
“…I think I’m STUCK.”
“COLD!”
“I’m offended, yet strangely aroused…”
“Okay, where am I taking this?”
“♫Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down…♫”
“♫Getting to know you, ♫Getting to know all about you…♫”
“The Island’s not through with you yet!”
“No, I’m pretty positive it’s not supposed to do THAT”
“Is that my STAPLER?”
“Hold on, let me draw you a diagram.”
“But I have to PEE!”

Yes, the links were pretty superfluous, but necessary for legal reasons.