Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

SMBC comic #1127, published on 25 March 2008
Author(s) Zach Weinersmith
Website Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Current status / schedule Updated daily
Launch date September 5, 2002[1] (an earlier incarnation debuted January 28, 2002[2])
Genre(s) Humor

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (SMBC) is a webcomic by Zach Weinersmith. It features few recurring characters or storylines, and has no set format; some strips may be a single panel, while others may go on for ten panels or more. Recurring themes in SMBC include atheism, God, superheroes, romance, dating, science, research, parenting and the meaning of life.[3] SMBC is published daily.

Weinersmith's webcomic was recognized in 2006[4] and 2007 with the Web Cartoonists' Choice Award for Outstanding Single Panel Comic,[5] and received nominations in 2003[6] and 2008.[7]

History

Zach Weinersmith in 2011

The comic was character-based in a previous incarnation, focusing on the romantic and academic endeavors 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 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 that was linked to in the SMBC forums by Weinersmith himself.[8] He made them officially publicly available on September 22, 2008.[9] In most comics the reader can now see a bonus joke called a "votey" by clicking on a red button with the mouse. The earliest votey released is for the comic dated November 27, 2006, however, he has since started drawing new voteys for his earliest comics, as part of a Patreon goal.[10]

SMBC receives a quarter-million visitors a day, and was notably described as one of the most popular webcomics as of 2012. [11]

SMBC Theater

Weinersmith launched a side project linked with SMBC called SMBC Theater featuring skits and short videos put up on YouTube for his fans to enjoy. This is normally updated once a week on Mondays with one or two short sketches and as of February 18, 2014 the channel had 80,721 subscribers.[12] Certain holiday clips are marked "part one," although very few have a second part yet. Despite its one-shot style there are certain characters who have received multiple storylines, such as James Ashby as president, J.P. Nickel's news stories, Jon Brence's dating shorts, and Zach Weinersmith as Jesus/James Ashby as God. All the videos are satirical.

In August 2011, a project was successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter called "SMBC Theater Goes TO SPACE!". This became Starpocalypse, a space opera webseries, which was released on 25 December 2013.

Reception

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal was recognized in 2006,[4] and 2007 with the Web Cartoonists' Choice Award for Outstanding Single Panel Comic.[5] It has been twice nominated for the Award, in 2003,[6] and in 2008.[7] Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal has been featured on a variety of websites and blogs, including The Economist,[13] Glamour,[14] Boing Boing,[15] Bad Astronomy,[16] Blastr,[17] Blues News,[18] Joystiq,[19] and Freakonomics.[20]

In a YouTube video on the SMBC website, Zach Weinersmith addressed accusations that the comedian Sarah Silverman stole a joke from one of his strips at a Spike video game awards ceremony, in addition to pleading with Sarah Silverman to go on a date with him. 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".[21] In response to a criticism of his focus on academia, in July 2010 Weinersmith discussed his ideas concerning webcomics in an open forum with critics.[22]

Awards and nominations

Year Award Work Category Result
2003 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Outstanding Short Form Comic Nominated[6]
2006 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Outstanding Single Panel Comic Won[4]
2007 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Outstanding Single Panel Comic Won[5]
2008 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Outstanding Single Panel Comic Nominated[7]

References

  1. ↑ Weinersmith, Zach (September 5, 2002). "1st SMBC Comic". Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. www.smbc-comics.com. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  2. ↑ Weinersmith, Zach (January 28, 2002). "First "Classic SMBC" Strip". Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. www.smbc-comics.com. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  3. ↑ Brin, David (June 7, 2011). "My Top Choices in Science-Oriented WebComics". Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. ieet.org. Retrieved 6 February 2012.
  4. 1 2 3 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards; Presenter: Josh Rosen (2006). "Outstanding Single Panel Comic by Josh Rosen of Edwitch". 2006 Ceremony. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
  5. 1 2 3 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards (2007). "The 2007 Cartoonist's Choice Awards". 2007 Ceremony. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
  6. 1 2 3 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards (2003). "The 2003 Cartoonist's Awards". 2003 Ceremony. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
  7. 1 2 3 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards (2003). "The Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards – 2008 List of Winners & Finalists". 2008 Ceremony. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
  8. ↑ Weinersmith, Zach (2012). "Hidden Archive". Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  9. ↑ Weinersmith, Zach (September 22, 2008). "Comic for September 22, 2008". Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. www.smbc-comics.com. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  10. ↑ Weinersmith, Zach (November 27, 2006). "Comic for November 27, 2006". Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. www.smbc-comics.com. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  11. ↑ http://www.businessinsider.com/this-29-year-old-entrepreneur-built-a-hugely-popular-website-by-reading-textbooks-and-drawing-geeky-comics-2012-3
  12. ↑ "SMBC Theater". YouTube. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  13. ↑ F., G. (December 29, 2010). "Online cartoons: Pease porridge hot". The Economist. www.economics.com.
  14. ↑ Stanley, Caroline (January 12, 2011). "Just a Thought About Silly Impressions During Sex". Glamour. www.glamour.com. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  15. ↑ Doctorow, Cory (August 30, 2009). "How Science Reporting Works". BoingBoing. boingboing.net. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
  16. ↑ Plait, Phil (March 18, 2009). "Always look for the mundane explanation". Bad Astronomy. Discover Magazine. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
  17. ↑ Edelman, Scott (January 24, 2011). "Image of the Day: How the Cylons were REALLY born". Blastr. SyFy. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
  18. ↑ "Out of the Blue – Blue's News Story". Blue's News. www.bluesnews.com. September 17, 2010. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
  19. ↑ Miller, Ross (November 5, 2005). "Webcomic Roundup: October 30 – November 5, 2005". Joystiq. www.joystiq.com. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
  20. ↑ Dubner, Stephen J. (June 18, 2010). "Reliably Predicting the Future". Freakonomics. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
  21. ↑ WizToast (December 18, 2006). "An Open Letter to Sarah Silverman". YouTube. www.youtube.com. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  22. ↑ Strunk, Trevor; Michael Taggart (July 19, 2010). "New Directions: An Interview With Zach Weiner". Kirby Dots. Retrieved February 22, 2012.

Further reading

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