…hold on. Couple other items first. It’s a new year and I’d like to start it off by thanking everyone that supported the strip in 2006 (and of course those of you who were around in 2005). DeD landed in 56 newspapers in it’s first year. That’s quite a number by today’s syndication standards. Actually it’s a good number for the last twenty years. And it’s all thanks to you the readers.

So onto 2007. Lot’s planned. A few surprises. I’ll be working on the site redesign soon. Nothing really dramatic yet. Also, there will be a shop section in the near future and of course the upcoming first collection. No details on that yet. And one surprise has to do with Doug and Sophie taking off into another medium…the square, paper laden kind. Ah, but we’ll save the official announcement on that for a later day. But not too later.

And so the winner is….Johnny Wang!

Thanks to everyone for participating. It makes a huge difference. I’ll be running another contest soon!

So the cat’s out of the bag. This is from Publishers Weekly today:

Neal Porter at Roaring Brook Press has acquired the picture book Nighty Night, Sleepy Sleep by Brian Anderson. The book, based on Anderson’s nationally syndicated comic strip, Dog Eat Doug, is about Doug and his dog Sophie, and their attempt to avoid bedtime. The book was sold in a two-book deal with Rosemary Stimola at Stimola Literary Studio and is scheduled for fall 2008 release. 

I’m pretty excited about the whole deal. It happened very fast, thanks to my stellar agent. The second book has yet to be determined. It may or may not be DeD related. But there certainly will be more DeD picture books in the future.

The Daily Star in New York is running an online poll for a new comic to replace FoxTrot. Head on over and give DeD a vote:

Vote for your favorite comic

Thought I’d share some my Cousins’ cartooning. Just click on the thumbnails to read them:

 

It looks like DeD is coming in second to Non Sequitur on the Daily Star poll. So hop on over there and vote:

Vote for your favorite comic

I’ll admit though, I absolutely love Miller’s drawing style and how can you not love Lucy?

powered by performancing firefox

So would you like to see some of the best webcomicers around today? And all from one site? This is my new favorite site to visit.
Head on over and bookmark this one. You will not be dissapointed:

Lunchbox Funnies

powered by performancing firefox

Hopefully this strip is not new to most of you, but if it isn’t, you can start reading today. Barkeater Lake just started up on its own website after leaving comics.com. It’s a joy to read. Great characters and a great setting. The artist is from Maine so I’m a little biased as I love almost everything in Maine. Check it out here:

Barkeater Lake -The Fake Story of Real People in a Fake Town.

Say that ten times fast. Just uploaded some new photos to the gallery. You can check them out here.

44 Union Avenue by Mike Witmer has been picked up for online syndication by Universal’s GoComics.com.  The hilliarious comic strip about a single-mother raising her two precocious children (while juggling her career as a parental advice columnist) debuts today at http://www.gocomics.com/44unionavenue

Congrat’s Mike!

MSNBC.com is looking for a new strip to replace “Fox Trot” on their site. So click on the link below and post a comment for DeD:

TestPattern : Help us choose a new comic

As far as I know this is the first time DeD has been up for a slot on a website comics page (other than sites that just use comics.com). But it’d be really cool to be one of the few comics they feature on their site, especially since DeD started out as a webcomic.

TestPattern : Help us choose a new comic