Contact: Bob Sturm, 703-396-6974; after 6 PM Eastern & on weekends, Cynthia Chambliss, 307-8176, 703-930-5148; ConservativeHQ.com
MANASSAS, Virginia, Feb. 6 /Christian Newswire/ -- ConservativeHQ.com is launching a new daily comic strip that is the conservatives' answer to political comics like "Doonesbury" and the strip-turned-animated-cartoon "The Boondocks."
"Liberal comedians and cartoonists have expressed great anguish at the rise of Barack Obama to the presidency, because having a perfect president makes it impossible to make fun of Washington," says Richard Viguerie, chairman of ConservativeHQ.com. "'The Gentleman from Lickskillet' is conservatives' response."
"The strip is for people who can't help but laugh at the politicians in Washington," says Viguerie.
"The Gentleman from Lickskillet" is the first conservative comic strip to interweave humor and satire with continuing storylines and a large cast of characters. The strip runs daily, Monday through Saturday. A Sunday version is set to launch next month.
The strip stars Randall Dill, a member of Congress; his family, including his wife (an assistant district attorney) and their young daughter; his congressional staff; his friends and constituents back home; and the politicians, bureaucrats, and politically correct people that they encounter in the course of their adventures.
The strip, which appears at ConservativeHQ.com, began unofficially three weeks ago with a sequence satirizing the inauguration of the new President. The current week, with a link to the complete archive, can be found at http://conservativehq.com/lickskillet/.
The strip's creators are Steven J. Allen, a journalist and longtime Washington insider, and cartoonist Kevin Tuma.
Allen was raised on a chicken farm--like his main character--in the Appalachian foothills of Alabama. A former newspaper reporter and radio news director, Allen served as senior editor of Conservative Digest magazine, as vice president of a think tank on Washington's K Street, and as press secretary to a U.S. Senator. His commentaries have appeared in such publications as Newsday and The New York Times. He has a Juris Doctorate from Cumberland School of Law and a PhD from George Mason University.
Tuma is an editorial cartoonist and comic book artist from Texas. He penciled such comic book series as Tales of the Green Hornet, The Twilight Zone, and Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective, and was a regular contributor to Cracked magazine. His political cartoons have appeared on the CNS News Web site and in such publications as The American Conservative and the Cato Institute journal Regulation.
For material for the strip, Allen and Tuma say they will scour canonical sources such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Blagojevich transcripts, the written works of Caroline Kennedy, and the Army Field Manual section on interrogation. "This will be the most accurate, thoroughly researched comic strip ever to feature time-travelling historians and Dutch-speaking cows," the cartoonists promised.
For more information on "The Gentleman from Lickskillet," contact Allen & Tuma at editor@lickskillet.org.
NOTE TO EDITORS: Richard A. Viguerie pioneered political direct mail and has been called "one of the creators of the modern conservative movement" (The Nation magazine) and one of the "conservatives of the century" (The Washington Times).
