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 Fletchers Cave is hosted on Keenspace, a free webhosting and site automation service for webcomics. Fletcher's Cave is © 1999-2001 Michael A. Chambers.
Comments about the comic or the site? E-mail me at crackplast@yahoo.com. June 7, 2003 Just a few updates to let you know what's going on. First, there hasn't been a new Cave in years, but I may draw up a few to give you a glimpse into what the folks are up to in their post-college days. For those of you here to read some old Cracked Plaster strips (the comic I did before Fletcher's Cave), I'm gonna see if the good folks at Keenspace will let me create a website just for CP. Click here for more background information on the strip... Also, please note that my e-mail has changed--if any of you have tried to contact me in the past year or so, my Hotmail account lapsed and they cut me off! Electronically castrated. Ouch! So please get in touch through my Yahoo! e-mail. I also got lazy and let the link to my Keenspace Forum lapse, too. So, currently, that link doesn't work, but I'll try to get that fixed soon, too! There. That should assauge my guilt... The winner is Morton, submitted by Scott Maddix Of course, there are several honorable mentions, runners-up, second-placers, and "not ready for prime time" answers. I list them here: Noshforsalto submitted by Pietor Fidget submitted by Pauly Lotswife Fan submitted by Maritza Dwidget submitted by SuperJoe Main Cave The Cave homepage Cave Archive The entire Cave library Cave Talk The readers' forum where you can post messages Ancient Cave Original Virginia Tech strips Cave Dwellers Cave characters Cave Links Sites hooked with the Cave Cave Relatives My other comics Cave Paintings Color panels Cave Relics Stuff related to the Cave Fletcher's Cave originally ran in 1986 in the Collegiate Times, the Virginia Tech student newspaper. The premise was pretty simple -- college kids doing stuff, as college kids are wont to do. The early Cave was drawn with a felt tip pen on typing paper and didn't have enough sex, drugs, or sports references to keep a college audience enthralled for very long. More recently, Fletcher's Cave ran in the University of Maryland's The Diamondback from 1999 through 2001 and ran for a short time in 2000 in The Beacon, the William Paterson University student newspaper. The strip was still about college kids doing stuff, although the art improved and the humor was more ... well, it had some sex in it. But no graphic stuff. Life isn't all about people gettin' nekked, even college life. As for national recognition, Fletcher's Cave got me as far as first runner-up for the 1999 Charles M. Schulz Award, an award that honors outstanding college cartoonists. (I didn't even get an honorable mention for the Schulz Award in 2000, dammit. But I'm gonna try again next year.) The Schulz Award is one of the Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Awards. Second place for the Schulz award isn't so bad when you look at the competition--there are some really good college cartoonists out there. To see the top ten finalists for the 1999 Schulz Award and links to samples of their work (so you can comparison shop for your best cartoon value), click here. And if you haven't gotten around to it yet, read the strips! That's the point, isn't it? To read the strips? You can access the latest Cave hot off the presses, or browse through Caves past. Go go go! Spelunking awaits! The Diamondback, the student paper at the University of Maryland, has a reputation for publishing successful cartoonists. The paper was the birthing ground of two popular syndicated strips, Liberty Meadows by Frank Cho (who won the Schulz Award in 1994) and The Boondocks by Aaron McGruder. Bill Costello, another Maryland alum, won the 1990 Locher Award for editorial cartooning and has had his work published in USA Today. Will lightning strike for the umpteenth time? I don't have a clue. Let's just say that I haven't spent much time running up outrageous credit card bills in anticipation of great riches. My first and second rounds of syndication submissions met with rejection, although I did receive some feedback and commentary from one helpful syndicate exec. Alas, dealing with rejection is part of the game, as many now-successful cartoonists constantly remind us cartooning wannabes. I am currently preparing a strip based on an older concept for syndication, because the general consensus seems to be that college themes do not translate well into wider markets. (But I haven't surrendered the chance of syndicating strictly in college papers ... if there's any money in it ... even cartoonists gotta eat, friend.) If you're curious as to what the premise for my next submission batch is, visit Suite 852 and click on World o' Java. Of course, reader feedback is ALWAYS welcome. If you have any helpful comments (or crude, unprintable comments--all responses are golden), please write me at crackplast@yahoo.com I was goofing around the other day and found out that there actually exists a place called Fletcher's Cave, and stranger yet, it's in West Virginia, my home state. The strip and the cave have absolutely nothing to do with one another, but who really knows the inner workings of the subconscious mind? Also, it appears that the Fletcher's Cave phenomenon (of which, really, there is none) has spread to the hospitality industry in Western Canada. Check out Fletcher's Cove in British Columbia, a retro 1900s bed & breakfast.
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