Marooned

A couple years ago Norm Feuti developed a comic called “Gil,” in hopes of selling another strip to the syndicates (he has already been quite successful with his strip “Retail.”) He began posting it as a webcomic in hopes of building a following. I at once absolutely loved it. Here’s what Gil is about from the creator himself:

Meet Gil. He’s an 8-year-old kid. Gil is a bit of an underdog. He’s a little on the chubby side, and he’s usually the last kid picked at school to play dodgeball. He doesn’t have the newest toys or live in a fancy house. His parents are split up – his single mother supports them with her factory job income and his father isn’t around as often as a father ought to be. But none of these things seem to have an adverse effect on Gil’s relentless optimism and upbeat attitude.

GIL is a realistic and funny look at life through the eyes of a young boy growing up under circumstances that are familiar to millions of American families. And cartoonist Norm Feuti expertly crafts Gil’s world in a way that gives us all a good chuckle.

The strip immediately grabbed me on many levels. The art is beautiful, the writing is funny, touching and real, and the premise is unique and well done. Gil is likeable and easy to identify with, even if you didn’t grow up like he did. The strip reminded me of Peanuts in many ways, even though it’s quite different. I guess in a way it has that same type of “feel” where you are reading some special. One of my treasured comic books is the Gil book I got from Norm when he was still trying to publish as a webcomic.

Well, the great news is that King Features has made a smart move and picked up Gil. Norm is currently working with them to launch the strip in January of 2012. Whether or not the strip will be readable online is still not decided yet, I guess. But Norm indicated to me that he hoped so – and so do I, because I don’t buy newspapers! In any event, you can follow the development of the strip leading up to the release date at King’s blog “Gil Comics – The Road to Syndication.”

I would point you to some of the old strips, but it looks like they had Norm pull them down (which makes sense.) But trust me, this is one to watch.

On the business end of things, this is a very interesting case of a webcomic that was awesome, but failed as a webcomic. People have been bugging Norm for a couple years now about Gil, but he gave it a go as a webcomic and for whatever reason, it couldn’t succeed. (I should mention, he initially tried to sell it to the syndicates before trying it out as a webcomic, but nobody wanted it!) I don’t know what happened behind the scenes to make King see the light on this, but my guess is that they realize that it’s time to start doing things differently. (And kudos to them if that’s the case.) People are tired of seeing the same old garbage. Gil is different. Gil is great.

So check out the blog and mark this as one to watch, you won’t regret it!