It’s a new semester which means new classes, new books and new friends. Most importantly, it means new comic strips! I’m fortunate enough to have a new strip and a new artist, the fabulous Sara Jahn.

illus. Sara Jahn

Capes & Cowls is proud to announce Hot & Cold, the next generation of free college newspaper humor! Hot, a demon from Hell, and Cold, a penguin from the ever-melting Arctic, star in this neverending romp of tomfoolery. They go to the U of I for some reason, and are pretty much Cape & Cowl, only they are a demon and penguin, not super heroes. Yay for creativity!

I figured these first two issues of the DI needed to address the transition from Cape & Cowl to Hot & Cold, so I unartistically axed Cape. It was funsies.

Tune back every week for the complete run of Hot & Cold for those five days!

Hot & Cold © Matt Knicl 2008

Cape In The City

A few weeks ago I went to New York City for the NYCC. Like most comedians/writers, I see the humor in everything and while traveling to the city and in it, I witnessed probably an entire semester of material. But, I refined my top picks to four ideas. The last strip was the mandatory graduation one, because in a week’s time I’ll have my BS in English!

Cape & Cowl © Matt Knicl 2008
www.shanesmithart.com

Cape’s Anatomy

Yes, I’ll admit, I watch Grey’s Anatomy. The LOSTian rule of the most dramatic thing that could happen happening is present, but the writing is solid and I love the character interaction. But there are a lot of things that piss me off, and this is true of other medical shows like House, ER, and Scrubs.

This is why I helped some students at my former high school write a sketch parodying these medical dramas, showing how they are all similar and pointing out their hilarious flaws. Five of those jokes needed to make their way into Cape & Cowl - I felt like I needed to apologize to female readers after two weeks of Spider-man strips!

Cape & Cowl © Matt Knicl 2008
www.shanesmithart.com

I Sell Out So You’ll Buy Me Out

There are always gimmicks associated with every character-based franchise. Cape & Cowl is no exception - I’ve got to diversify them like Disney, Marvel, and Warnes Bros if I want to make a buck!

Some of the biggest sell-outs by American companies is the mangazation of American properties. And of course, you need giant robots and collectible creatures to do that!

Read the rest of this entry »

Cape & Cowl Get LOST

I really like LOST. Get me talking about it, I’ll have theory discussions for hours. But, even though I love it, I recognize the utter stupidity of the show, it’s predictability, and the “brilliant” writing that is actually just a removal of information and then presenting really simple things at dramatic points in the show. This week I wanted to poke fun at the show, plus give you kids a fix during this unbearable month-long hiatus.

The opening scene of the pilot episode.

Also an important LOST moment, only this time taking a moment to stop and think about the absurdity of what is going on. Read the rest of this entry »

Please Don’t Sue

Cape never got off his Man With Spider-like Attributes kick. These two weeks were sort of a “why not?” idea, and I figured if they were going to “crossover” with any hero, it might as be the one hero in comicdom who has teamed-up with the most heroes (including all the DC ones, too). I wanted to stretch this out as much as I could, so I threw in a Scarlet Man With Spider-Like Attributes and a Scrooge McDuck reference. Read the rest of this entry »

27 Capes (Minus 22)

Something anyone in retail wishes they could do when some of the more customer customers call.

Yeah I made fun of the men’s basketball team. We did well in the tournament, up until today’s game, but I want to think I played a small part in their sudden mini-winning streak. See, I imagine Bruce Weber standing in the locker room, the players looking at the floor, and good old Bruce holds up the DI and says, “Do you see this garbage comic strip? Do you want to wear dunce caps, or do you want to shove those words back down that ignorant cartoonist’s mouth?” And then the players cheered and rushed onto the court to win some. Yeah, that’s probably how it went down. Read the rest of this entry »

One-drous One-Shots

A week late and a dollar short (as per usual). These were last week’s strips.

This is a derivation of my Unofficial comic strip.

I kid you not, based on true events. Now, I don’t know if the girls were in a sorority, that is fictionalization on my part, but I was at a movie theater when it was announced that 27 Dresses was sold out. There were a group of 3 to 4 girls in North Face jackets. One turned to the others and said, “On a scale from 1 to 10, I’m pissed.” Now, this was not entirely the hilarious part. What made this episode was the other girls seriously nodding and agreeing with the first girl, not realizing what she had said made no sense. Read the rest of this entry »

Cape & Cowl Book It

Before the silliness commences, I wanted to say that NIU’s Northern Star resumed publishing and classes started again, on Monday. This is after a week hiatus due to the shooting tragedy. The students and staff of NIU are still in our prayers.

As we saw with last week’s strips, Cape doesn’t have powers and needs something to occupy his time. So this week I gave him a job as a cashier at the Illinois University Bookstore, a completely unique place I invented and certainly not based on any actually location. *ahem* If I’m lying, may lightning strike me right n—— Read the rest of this entry »

Champions United!

Wow, so this is a week late - there were site issues and as you can see, the images are still presented funky. Oh well, England prevails.

This was a week of cameos and the formation of Champaign’s first (and last) super team. Muffy returns from earlier this year and Dan Dougherty’s Beardo and Adam Foto’s Dragon and Goat stopped by.

Plus, we learned a bit about the enigmatic Cowl and her powers, and Cape with his lack thereof.

Cape & Cowl © Matt Knicl 2008
www.shanesmithart.com