'Slylock Fox'.
Bob Weber Jr. is an American cartoonist, best known for creating the syndicated children's feature 'Slylock Fox & Comics for Kids' (1987-). He also co-created the newspaper gag strip 'Oh Brother!' with Jay Stephens, and assisted his father Bob Weber Sr. on the 'Moose Miller' strip.
Early life and career
He was born in 1957 in Baltimore, Maryland as the son of cartoonist Bob Weber Sr. Bob Jr. studied Biology, but eventually followed in his father's footsteps and pursued a career in cartooning himself. He began assisting Weber Sr. on his family daily gag comic 'Moose Miller' in 1978. In the 1980s, he became a staff artist with King Features Syndicate.
Slylock Fox & Comics for Kids
Since 1987, the syndicate distributes Weber's feature 'Comics for Kids' to newspapers worldwide. This entertaining feature contains riddles, trivia, puzzles and other activity content, as well as the Sunday gag strip 'Bonnie and Boo Boo'. The educational segments teaches children about nature, pet care, conservation, the environment, history, geography, safety and self-esteem. The main character in the Sunday and Monday logic puzzles is the anthropomorphic detective Slylock Fox, whose name was later included in the feature's title. Together with his assistant Max Mouse, Slylock has to escape dungeons, locate stolen goods or solve a whodunit puzzle with the help of the readers. One of his main adversaries is the mad scientist Count Weirdly.
'Bonnie and Boo Boo'.
Success
Weber's feature quickly became so popular with the younger readers, that King Features distributed it to 400 newspapers worldwide. It gave Weber the opportunity to quit his dayjob and work on his strip on a fulltime basis from his Tucson, Arizona home studio. In 1997, 'Slylock Fox and Comics For Kids' was awarded a Parent's Choice Approval Commendation by the Parent's Choice Foundation, the first comic strip to receive this honor. The series is known in Sweden as 'Sherlock Räv och kul för knattar' and in Finland as 'Nuori Kettu'.
Book collections
Several thematic book collections with elements from Weber's feature have been published throughout the years, including a 'How to Draw Cartoons' book and 'Find the Six Differences', 'Mystery Puzzles', 'True or False' and 'Trivia' booklets. In later years, Andrews McMeel Publishing released the collections 'Go Fun! Slylock Fox Mystery Puzzles' (2015) and 'Go Fun! Spot Six Differences' (2015). Weber has been assisted on the feature by his father Bob Weber Sr., who got a credit byline in 2014. Diego Jourdan was an assistant-inker between 2012 and 2014.
'Slylock Fox'.
Multimedia
'Slylock Fox and Comics for Kids' is nowadays a multimedia product. In 1997, the Great American Puzzle Factory released a card game called 'Slylock Fox Brain Bogglers'. By the end of that decade, the original 'Slylock Fox' website went online, offering much additional content. It was voted an "Educational Best Bet" by USA Today and won awards for "Best of the Net" and "Showcase Site of the Week" from About.com. The online presence is enhanced by a popular Facebook page, the iPhone game 'Slylock Fox Spot the Differences' (2011) and a host of fansites and fan blogs.
Oh, Brother!
In addition, Bob Weber Jr. has published cartoons in Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal and Reader's Digest. Together with the Canadian cartoonist Jay Stephens, he created the short-lived newspaper gag comic 'Oh, Brother!', about the sometimes troubled and sometimes loving relationship between the bratty Bud and his older sister Lily. It was distributed by King Features between June 2010 and August 2011 as both a daily and a Sunday comic. The Sunday strips had more experimental panel lay-outs and an operning panel that often paid homage to classic comics or other pop culture phenomena. Andrews McMeel Publishing released the book collection 'Oh, Brother! Brat Attack' in October 2015. Internationally, 'Oh Brother!' ran as 'Brrroertje' in the Dutch girls' weekly Tina for several years.
'Oh, Brother! '(30 June 2011), drawn by Jay Stephens.