Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Infobox Webcomic
title = Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal


caption =
author = Zach Weiner
url = http://www.smbc-comics.com/
status = Updated Daily
began = September 5 2002 [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=480] (an earlier incarnation debuted January 28 2002 [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics_old&id=1] )
ended =
genre = Bizarre humor
ratings =

"Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal" is a single-panel webcomic by Zach Weiner. Like many single panel comics, there are few recurring characters. The humor often comes from leading the reader to think they understand the situation when they look at the picture, but then throwing them off with a punchline-esque caption underneath. Some main elements in the layout of the web page are characters or items from earlier SMBC comics in the top right hand corner, a comment for most comics under the comic panel, and links to submit the comic to [http://www.reddit.com/ Reddit] , [http://www.digg.com/ Digg] , [http://www.delicious.com/ del.icio.us] , and [http://www.technorati.com Technorati] , as well as a link to the comic's source for posting on personal web pages or forums.

History of comic and author's works

The comic was multi-panel and character-based in a previous incarnation, focusing on the romantic and academic endeavours of several college students. That strip (referred to as "Classic SMBC" on the site's archives) ran from January 28, 2002 to September 3, 2002. The comic went through three other renderings between Classic SMBC and the current version. The current, single-panel version of the strip began on September 5, 2002 and has updated daily since.

The first 480 comics were originally removed from the main SMBC archives; however, they could still be found on a hidden section of the site [http://www.smbc-comics.com/zachcave/] that was linked to in the SMBC forums by Zach himself. He recently made them officially publicly available on September 22, 2008. He did this by stating it in the comment he made about the [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1294 comic for that day] (every comic has a comment for it by the staff under the panel itself):

"FOLKS--"

"I'll have a longer post later (I'm typing this from Optics class, to which I really need to pay attention), but so you know, I've opened up the first 480 comics for your viewing enjoyment. The art's a little rough, but I think the jokes hold up okay. For old readers, it's a chance to browse the stuff from long ago. For new readers, consider this the day I updated with 481 comics."

"Love,"

"Zach"

Other Projects

While the mainstay of the "Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal" comic is the archive of over 1000 strips, Weiner has also branched into numerous side projects, often related to the comic. Some of these are available on the "SMBC" website's [http://www.smbc-comics.com/bonus/ bonus section] and [http://www.smbc-comics.com/movies/ movies section] .

* "Vince Invincible" [http://smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics_vince&id=1] is a multi-panel adventure, which ran from September 26, 2003 to November 13, 2003, with three later installments in April 2005. It was a departure from Weiner's previous work, both in that it was entirely hand-drawn on lined, yellow paper, and in that the storytelling techniques for each strip didn't always conclude with humor. The comic was about a boy named Vince, who as seen in the title, is impervious to any form of harm. He is shown doing dangerous things, such as smoking, getting an axe thrown at his head, and having a ruler cracked over his head. The comic is shown as a few panels with subtitles for some of the panels. The story remains, presently, unfinished at 25 strips.

* "Baby Moloch" [http://smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics_moloch&id=1] is a six-part mini-series. The work is an origins story for the character Moloch, who featured in several of the earlier "SMBC" single-panel strips. Five of the six strips have currently been completed.

* "Chason", a character from the multi-panel days of "SMBC", has been expanded into an independent comic called "Chason!" [http://www.smbc-comics.com/?db=comics_chason&id=1] , also written by Zach Weiner, but illustrated by a new artist since the 20th episode.

* "Captain Excelsior" [http://www.captainexcelsior.com/] is the latest comic project written by Weiner. The comic is about a superhero (Captain Excelsior) who was recently divorced from his superhero wife, Mrs. Mind. Thus far, he has tried going on a blind date, but failed after listening to his friend's advice. His ex-wife is getting remarried to a regular non-hero guy, causing strife with her mother. The last comic shows the Captain acting grumpy and aloof towards his kids, showing the irony in Mrs. Mind's mother's statement that the captain was good with the kids. It launched to the public on 19 January, 2007, and features Chris Jones (who also runs his own webcomic [http://www.grumps.ca/ Grumps] ) as the illustrator. Now it has its own website.

* "The Jerry Simpiro Project" is a four part mockumentary of a fictional webcomic creator. The eponymous main character of the series is the subject of unspoken derision for his lack of commitment to updating, and lack of originality. The series provides commentary on common complaints with modern webcomics. It can be found in the movie section of SMBC, along with another movie titled, "Brushing Teeth".

*Weiner is apparently working on another comic project. On July 3rd 2008 he was looking for an artist for a sci-fi script he had. [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1227] A couple of days later he said he had found an artist [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1229#comic] but there has been no developments since then.

Awards and controversies

"Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal" has twice been nominated for Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards and won in 2006 for "Outstanding Single Panel comic" [http://ryanestrada.com/wcca/ceremony/singlepanel.htm] (in 2003, it was nominated for "Outstanding Short Form Comic").

In a YouTube video on the SMBC website, Zach Weiner addressed accusations [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-7IG_x0ZUg&eurl=] that the comedian Sarah Silverman stole a joke from one of his strips at a Spike video game awards ceremony. In the satirical video, he claimed that the joke must have been stolen because he was "the only humorist ever to write on the topics of Africa, AIDS, or video games." Despite the ridiculous claim, many responders to the video did not realize that he was being sarcastic.

Impact

Screenwriters Andy Fleming and Pam Brady began writing the script for the film Hamlet 2 in 2003 after viewing the [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=8#comic eighth] Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic by Zach Weiner.

External links

* [http://www.smbc-comics.com/ Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]
* [http://www.captainexcelsior.com/ Captain Excelsior]

References

* [http://www.smbc-comics.com/archive/ Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Archive]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-7IG_x0ZUg&eurl= Weiner's "accusation" against Silverman]
* [http://ryanestrada.com/wcca/ceremony/singlepanel.htm The 2006 Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards ceremony for "Outstanding Single Panel comic"]
* [http://cereales.lapin.org/ Les Céréales du Dimanche Matin : Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal in french]
*David M. Halbfinger (2008-01-23). "Done Deals Finally Start To Appear At Sundance", The New York Times.