Friday, October 9, 2009

Turning Over a New Leif?

Today is Leif Erikson Day, celebrating the first landing of Europeans on North American shores (meaning Newfoundland) just over 1,000 years ago. Leif was a Viking's Viking. Alternate histories sometimes toy with the question of what might have happened if the Vikings had managed to expand their colonies in the New World. It's anyone's guess there. Maybe we'd have the mighty Upchuck of the North or something.

The last known supernova in the Milky Way Galaxy appeared in the sky 405 years ago today. Closer to our own time, Entertainment Weekly named Daria Morgendorffer one of its "cartoon divas" 11 years ago. Daria gained her new status at the same time as did Tinkerbell, Veronica from the Archie comics, and... um... Foghorn Leghorn? WTF?

MTV Animation, which produced Daria and so many other wonders, closed its doors for good eight years ago today. The collage at upper right shows the major MTV cartoons 0f 1996, just before Daria appeared. Rest in peace, MTV Animation, and thank you.

GNUZ ALERT! Quiverwing has just posted the rules for the 2009 Daria Fanworks Awards on PPMB. Read over them now and start picking out your favorites!

PPMB
  • NEW! The Curse of El Smoocho, by Roentgen (Part 4): Quinn stormed over to the door. "Daria, why do you want to ruin my life?" she yelled. "I'm sorry for lacing my boots in the unapproved 'under' method. With the help of God and family, I can change—"
  • Detective Stories 4: Fledge, by NightGoblyn (COMPLETE!): Stacy leaned on her cane and, in an effort to distract herself from the constant itching of her right leg, peered over Daria’s shoulder at the computer screen. “What are you working on?”
  • Finn Morgendorffer 6: Beautiful, by HolyGrail2007 (Part 3): “I’m fat,” Finn finally moaned. Unlike his normal complaining, Finn now sounded like he was two steps away from crying. “Fat?” Daria thought. She had many choice words to cut her brother down to size. Some curse words, some normal ones, and some Finn would have never heard of. But “fat” was not an insult she reserved for him.
  • NEW! Meowlody Powers, by Richard Lobinske (COMPLETE!): The busy crowd and layout of store displays made Meowlody's job difficult as she patrolled the area. Zhreow would come in close, because, like Meowlody, she believed in the personal touch. That would be Meowlody's only chance to stop the assassination, even at the risk of being detected and forever losing her ability to be an agent. (FF.net)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Like to see a "Where are they now" section of the wiki about the artists on Daria. I do know that Karen Disher,who was an art director of Daria, went on to Blue Sky Studios and did story boards for Ice Age I-II, and was the voice of Scratte in Ice Age III. Christy Karacas went on to create and direct 'Superjail' for Adult Swim on CN, with the animation directed by Aaron Augenblick, another animator who worked on Daria and now has his own studio.
At least that's a start....

Anonymous said...

Foghorn Leghorn? I say, that magazine's about as sharp as a sack of wet mice.

Anonymous said...

My head is humming and it won't go. In case you don't know...