Laugh-O-Gram’s Logan Sekulow
Saves the “Funnies”
In an age where human contact with pen and paper is all but lost, and the creative process is taking a different turn, Logan Sekulow, a Nashville-based media entrepreneur, came up with an idea to preserve the art form of comic strip “funnies.” He has recently announced the launch of Laugh-O-Gram, a weekly family friendly comic strip-only newspaper that will be delivered directly through the mail. Besides offering classic, new, and exclusive comic strips that you will only find through this outlet, every strip coming to your home will include a blank strip where you can make your own comic strip.
What made you decide to offer comic strips through the mail?Yeah, the main reason was I have a son, he is two-and-a-half, and we don’t get the newspaper at all. I haven’t subscribed to it my entire adult life personally, and it kind of clicked that a big part of my childhood and something I was brought up on was the funny pages, and it is one of those things that is really weird having an entire generation that is having kids almost forget about this. When I ask people my age about comics strips, and they immediately say, “Oh yeah, I remember Sundays before going to church we would look for the comics in the paper and everybody has their own unique story.”
What happened with mine is that my family and I were going to see “Paddington Bear“at the movies, or maybe it was “Big Hero 6,” and it showed the trailer for the Peanuts movie that is coming out next year, and I thought it was weird because yeah my son is two-and-a-half years old, but most kids are only seeing these characters for the first time. And if they have seen them before it is most likely on cartoons and never seen them on the printed page. And one day I had an idea and thought man it would be really awesome to have that experience again.What comics will we expect to see?
The classics that you are most familiar with are Peanuts and Garfield and Family Circus and Beetle Bailey. We have a whole list on our website Laugh-O-Gram. We will also have strips like Phantom, The Amazing Spider-Man, and some really cool special sections set up and our own original stuff as well as brand new content, not as broadly well known.
We have an artist on board named Tom Bancroft who is kind of one of our partners on this in some ways, and he is a legend in the field of animation. He created and drew young Simba for the “Lion King,” Jifar, and Mushu from “Milan,” and Pocahontas, and he did all these 2-D cartoons for Disney. His big love has always been comic strips, and he has been doing comic strips online for a few years now, and he is on board with us. It has been pretty fun to have new stuff, but to also be able to dive in and get the classics as well.So will you be getting exclusive strips from artists that you won’t be able to see anywhere else?
Yes, definitely. We have probably five strips that will be coming on board. Some of those we are creating in-house and some are from people that we really admire and love what they put out.
Do you consider yourself a Christian or a spiritual person?
I know that this is a Christian website you are writing for, so just so you know, a lot of us are Christians and actually just being in the comic industry it seems that Christianity seems to be fairly common because of the moral stories and stuff that happens throughout the classic comics like Family Circus and stuff we grew up on.
