St. Louis Cartoonist Michael Pohrer Celebrates 25 Years in Syndication

Michael Pohrer with FIDDLESTIX© feature cartoon strip

Michael Pohrer (MJ) is a St. Louis, Missouri animator, cartoonist and illustrator who has been spilling ink on drawing boards since 1979. Currently a member of CAPS, Comic Art Professional Society, I.C.C. International Cartoonist Conspiracy, and The St. Louis Gateway Arts, he has been delivering daily funnies to the masses since 1988 through the printed pages. He is the creator of the internationally syndicated cartoon strips FIDDLESTIX©, and Welcome To The Jungle©. Images produced by Michael Pohrer at PC Studios can be seen throughout various media sources internationally. The material created is featured on nbc, through Google News, in "Best Editorial Compilations", Comic books (U.K., Britain), and Anthologies, newspapers, magazines, as well as featured in exhibitions through galleries, and museums across the United States.

Michael Pohrer initially created FIDDLESTIX© during 1979. The anthropomorphic strip always featured a core cast of three main characters. Grizzle and Irving, a misguided bear along with a sidekick snake respectively. The third character PINHEAD is rarely seen throughout the strips existence to date, (Due to an unknowing coincidence to the characters likeness with another syndicated feature. Referenced as Bill Griffith's Zippy the Pinhead at Mike Rhode's ComicsDC, coauthor of the Comics Research Bibliography, Editor of Exhibition and Media Reviews of the International Journal of Comic Art.) The first couple of digital examples that were provided for the article over at Mike Rhode's ComicsDC, were twenty plus years old and were from the time that the strip was originally being worked up through King Features Syndicate for its initial newspaper run. The strips eventually alternated story lines between the three main characters at its peak of dailies.

FIDDLESTIX© first appeared as a one-shot daily panel newspaper cartoon strip in June 1988 and has been syndicated to publications from California to Germany. The strip remained in this initial panel format through 1990. Pinhead never appeared during the first three years of the strips daily run. Here's a look at *FIDDLESTIX©* as it appeared during its first three years. (Image Courtesy The Paper Chase)

Michael Pohrer presenting original FIDDLESTIX© cartoon strips from 1991, for Library Archives. Accepting Susan M. Robison NBCT / Francis Howell Union School Librarian

In 1991 the strip moved into a three panel horizontal format continuing with this daily feature format until 2007. Here's a look at one of the final strips from the daily run in this format. These are the strips that alternated heavily between the three core characters which also featured PINHEAD. (Image Courtesy Spoon Magazine)

In 2008 the dailies were pulled from publications and the feature moved to a Full Color Sunday Only format for the 20th Anniversary. Here's a look at how the syndicated full color funnies originally appeared. Gemstone Publishing, Inc. / Diamond International Galleries were the first to release the full color feature. During the strips run in this format Michael's daughter, Brittany debuted her work at the cartooning helm for this format's initial run. (Image Courtesy Gemstone Publishing, Inc.)

Here's a look at a Sunday formatted cartoon from the printed pages presented in B/W which was a rare occurrence, as all the strips were created in color. Sentinel Publishing presented the cartoons in B/W only. As a bonus a peek at the splash page art inks and colors created for the core characters exclusive strip work for Sentinel. The original art work from the splash pages eventually made it to exhibition at the Altered Esthetics Galleries located in Minnesota. (Image Courtesy Sentinel Publishing)

In 2011 the cartoon strip reverted back to its original roots as a one-shot panel format. This is how the feature currently appears as a single panel full color Sunday Only format. FIDDLESTIX© is currently syndicated internationally through Hill Communications Canada, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.