Tag Archives: sunday strip

Sunday Fun

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As today marks the last Sunday of our Rivertown News run, we thought a formal thank-you was in order for our volunteer colorist. As previously mentioned, we didn’t do any official Sunday RN strips. But we thought it would be fun to add some color to a few regular strips to post on Sundays.

The coloring was done by Christina from studioseena.com (aka Mark’s wife) using markers on printed scans which were then re-scanned and uploaded. She turned this around in record time and we appreciate her great-looking work. Now, please understand that these “colorized” strips are not canon, and were provided for entertainment purposes only (and in a fashion much classier than when Ted Turner tried to colorize Casablanca).

You can see these colored strips at these links: week 1, 2, 3, and 4. Unfortunately, a scan of a scan of a scan loses some quality with each successive generation, and there was a little fuzziness around the edges. So today we are presenting the original strips for reference purposes (they are only a scan of a scan :)). Click any of the images below to embiggen the glorious black and white original.

RN53RN60RN67RN74

Thanks for reading! New strip Then Comes Marriage starts this week. And check out Mark’s new book The Launch which features some of these strips (release date December 8th).

Tax Lacks

Last hand-coloured Sunday strip care of studioseena, today. Tomorrow we sign off Rivertown News and wish our young couple well in the future. Stay tuned for our second strip, Then Comes Marriage coming soon.

Last hand-coloured Sunday strip care of studioseena, today. Tomorrow we sign off Rivertown News and wish our young couple well in the future. Stay tuned for our second strip, Then Comes Marriage coming soon.

Dex Morgan, M.D.

This is a parody strip about one you might have heard of starring a doctor called "Rex." Presented today in fabulous technocolor for Sunday fun courtesy of studioseena again. Sorry about the scan quality!

This is a parody strip about one you might have heard of starring a doctor called “Rex.” Presented today in fabulous technocolor for Sunday fun courtesy of studioseena again. Sorry about the scan quality!

Behind the Scenes

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behind the scenesAs today is Sunday and it’s now becoming a tradition with me, here is an alternative to a black and white “daily” strip. We didn’t complete any full color Sunday strips, as I’ve mentioned before, because the Comics Syndicates didn’t require them as part of a submission and SCENE Magazine didn’t have a Sunday edition. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t write any scripts for Sunday comics. I believed that it was only a matter of time before we were syndicated across North America and having to come up with a new one every week.

Here is a scan of the first such script I wrote. It gives you an idea of the kinds of things I routinely demanded of Tim without much consideration for the effort it would cost him. “So, I’m seeing a full color Sistine Chapel ceiling with Dexter fist bumping the Almighty, who looks like Charles Schulz.” 🙂

RN Sunday Script 1

Our only Rivertown News “Sunday” Strip

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We’ve been having a lot of fun posting these strips from our archives, stuff we worked on over twenty years ago, but which still gives us a measure of pride and a chuckle or two. But it’s been pointed out that we don’t have any full-colour, Sunday-funnies type strips, so maybe we shouldn’t post on Sunday. Then I remembered another treasure from the archives which I’m happy to share today:

RN Colour

This is the only full colour Rivertown News strip in existence and it was given to me by Tim in a frame sometime after we began working on the strip. I took it apart and scanned it so I could share it with you today as our only official Sunday strip. I believe he hand-painted it on the original Bristol board version of the strip, but I’ll let him chime in on that if he likes.

A word about the opening panel, if I may… For those of you who haven’t given James Joyce’s Ulysses a shot, this situation harkens back to the opening scene of the novel, which takes place at the top of the Martello Tower in Sandycove, south Dublin:

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

— Introibo ad altare Dei.

So, the original was about sacrilege and shaving and my version envisions the same but with added modern convenience. What more could you want from the auspicious opening of a new comic strip destined for the funny pages, than an obscure literary allusion followed up by a mall culture cliché? Look out world, here we come! 🙂

Thanks for all the likes and comments! We appreciate it.

Mark (& Tim)