Diesel Sweeties | |
---|---|
![]() Diesel Sweeties number 1 | |
Author(s) | Richard Stevens III |
Website | dieselsweeties |
Current status/schedule | Ended |
Launch date | April 2000[1] |
Syndicate(s) | United Features Syndicate (January 2007 – August 2008) |
Genre(s) | Humor |
Diesel Sweeties is known as a webcomic and former newspaper comic strip written by Richard Stevens III (R Stevens). The comic began in 2000, [2] originally hosted at robotstories.com. From January 2007 until August 2008 it was syndicated to over 20 United States newspapers, including major daily newspapers like The Detroit News and Houston Chronicle . [3] [4] [5]
Material from Diesel Sweeties appears in Ted Rall's Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists, along with other webcomics such as Cat and Girl , Dinosaur Comics , Boy on a Stick and Slither , Fetus-X , and The Perry Bible Fellowship . [2]
Stevens is a co-founder of the Dumbrella alliance of webcomic artists. Stephens is one of the few professional webcomic artists, who has since 2002 supported himself through online sales of merchandise related to his comics. [6]
In late 2006, Richard Stevens announced that Diesel Sweeties would be syndicated to newspapers through United Features Syndicate. Some newspapers began running the strip on January 1, 2007, to replace FoxTrot by Bill Amend, which had ended its daily run, . [7] The regular distribution began a week later, on January 8. On June 26, 2008, Stevens announced that the print run of Diesel Sweeties would end on August 10 of that year. Stephens had doubled his comics workload by creating separate strips for the newspaper and web versions of Diesel Sweeties, and had produced about 600 strips specifically for the newspapers. Stevens cited exhaustion from doing a dozen strips per week, as well as the fact that the majority of his income remained tied to the website. Stevens estimated that "about 50 papers ran DS at one point or another." [8]
For the first several years, the comic consisted of four square panels of dialogue in a two-by-two grid, with a punchline (often a non sequitur, pun, or pop culture reference) in the final panel. In 2005 Stevens abandoned this traditional form and began consistently publishing strips with more panels in slightly more varied configurations. Single panels of the strip are occasionally animated. The comic depicts a world where robots exist alongside humans, with human-robot romantic and sexual relationships commonplace. Although there is some character development and the occasional story arc, most strips are largely self-contained. Recurring themes include annual Halloween strips, featuring characters from the comic in costume.
Diesel Sweeties incorporates many characters from other fictional works, from the real world, and introduces many original characters.
The main characters in Diesel Sweeties are:
Diesel Sweeties often shows pixelated versions of real people in the strip. Some of these people include:
Comics.com described the strip as "reformatted" for family newspapers.
Other new characters for the newspaper version included TV, Coffee Maker, and Kitten. Together, they rule the household.
A comic strip is a sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with daily horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in newspapers, while Sunday papers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. With the advent of the internet, online comic strips began to appear as webcomics.
Charles Alfred "Al" Taliaferro, was an American Disney comics artist who produced Disney comic strips for King Features Syndicate. Taliaferro is best known for his work on the Donald Duck comic strip. Many of his strips were written by Bob Karp.
Webcomics are comics published on the internet, such as on a website or a mobile app. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books.
Monty is an American comic strip created, written and illustrated by cartoonist Jim Meddick. The strip began as Robotman starting February 18, 1985. The title changed to Monty in 2001.
Achewood is a webcomic created by Chris Onstad in 2001. It portrays the lives of a group of anthropomorphic stuffed toys, robots, and pets. Many of the characters live together in the home of their owner, Chris, at the fictional address of 62 Achewood Court. The events of the strip mostly take place in and around the house, as well as around the town of Achewood, a fictional suburb.
Fetus-X was a weekly romantic horror comic written and drawn by Eric Millikin and Casey Sorrow. Millikin is an American artist and former human anatomy lab embalmer and dissectionist. Sorrow is an internationally known American illustrator and printmaker.
Questionable Content is a slice-of-life webcomic written and illustrated by Jeph Jacques. It was launched in August 2003 and reached its 5,000th comic in March 2023. The plot originally centered on Marten Reed, an indie rock fan; his anthropomorphized personal computer Pintsize; and his roommate, Faye Whitaker. However, over time Jacques has added a supporting cast of characters that includes employees of the local coffee shop, neighbors, and androids. QC's storytelling style combines romantic melodrama, situational comedy, and sexual humor, while considering questions of relationships, sexuality, dealing with emotional trauma, and artificial intelligence and futurism.
King Features Syndicate, Inc. is an American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles, and games to nearly 5,000 newspapers worldwide. King Features Syndicate also produces intellectual properties, develops new content and franchises, like The Cuphead Show!, which it produced with Netflix, and licenses its classic characters and properties.
VG Cats is a webcomic written and drawn by Canadian cartoonist Scott Ramsoomair. Published on its own website, it follows the adventures of a pair of anthropomorphic cats, who both have an interest in video games, and often play the roles of characters in popular games that are parodied in the strip.
Brad Guigar is an American cartoonist who is best known for his daily webcomic Greystone Inn and its sequel Evil Inc.
Sheldon is a comedy webcomic created by Dave Kellett. It centers on the odd family unit of 10-year-old Sheldon, his grandfather guardian and his talking duck, Arthur. Much humour is character-based, often joking at traits such as Sheldon's geekiness, Gramp's old age or Arthur's over-inflated ego. Kellett's other webcomic, Drive, had appeared on the Sheldon site each Saturday, before moving to a site of its own.
David M Willis is an American web cartoonist currently living in Columbus, Ohio. He is best known for his interconnected series of webcomics Roomies!, It's Walky!, Shortpacked!, and Dumbing of Age. Willis is also known online for his chatrooms and forums including "ItsWalky". KUTV in Salt Lake City calls him a satirist who is "a little bit edgy."
Watch Your Head is a webcomic and former daily syndicated comic strip written and illustrated by Cory Thomas, focusing on the lives of six students at a fictional historically black university. Based upon Thomas' experiences as a student at Howard University, Watch Your Head was first published in Howard's newspaper, The Hilltop.
Maura is a female given name primarily used in English, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Scots Gaelic, and Irish. It appears as the feminine form of the Roman given name Maurus and as an Anglicisation of Máire, the Irish form of Mary.
Sluggy Freelance is a long-running webcomic written and drawn by Pete Abrams. Starting in 1997, it is one of the oldest successful webcomics, and as of 2012 had hundreds of thousands of readers. Abrams was one of the first comic artists successful enough to make a living from a webcomic.
The business of webcomics involves creators earning a living through their webcomic, often using a variety of revenue channels. Those channels may include selling merchandise such as t-shirts, jackets, sweatpants, hats, pins, stickers, and toys, based on their work. Some also choose to sell print versions or compilations of their webcomics. Many webcomic creators make use of online advertisements on their websites, and possibly even product placement deals with larger companies. Crowdfunding through websites such as Kickstarter and Patreon are also popular choices for sources of potential income.
Brian Gordon is an American cartoonist, and creator of the webcomics Fowl Language, Frankie Fearless, and Chuck & Beans.
Donald Duck is an American comic strip by the Walt Disney Company starring Donald Duck, distributed by King Features Syndicate. The first daily Donald Duck strip debuted in American newspapers on February 7, 1938. On December 10, 1939, the strip expanded to a Sunday page as well. Writer Bob Karp and artist Al Taliaferro worked together on the strip for more than 30 years. The strip ended in May 1995.
... will run through Feb. 24. ... Stevens started Diesel Sweeties in April 2000 and has built a thriving Web merchandising site He's one of the few Web cartoonists to make the jump to print
this year it became available also in print
entered into a contract with United Feature Syndicate, which will allow his strip Diesel Sweetiesto appear alongside Peanuts, Dilbert, and Get Fuzzy in newspapers nationwide.
In February Diesel Sweeties, a 7-year-old webcomic by Richard Stevens was picked up by United Feature Syndicate and now appears in at least 20 newspapers, including the Detroit News and Houston Chronicle.
I've been making my living online selling merchandise since 2002 ... How long did you do the strip for the papers? ... a year and eight months, so about 600 comics ... I made less money than the last year that I wasn't syndicated