Cartoonretro is an interesting subscription site at $5 a month. It's a new project from Shane Glines, creator of the Cartoon & Illustration Paradise website. Cartoonretro is devoted to celebrating and exploring the largely forgotten work of great artists, cartoonists, illustrators, photographers, filmmakers, actors, musicians and industrial designers from approximately 1925 through 1939.

Also of note is the Cartoon Brew blog which covers in depth animation in America. Most recently they had an interview with John Kricfalusi.

The Kingdom of Loathing is quite addictive. It's free and the funniest RPG since Zork.

The first webcomic to host its own large-scale convention, Penny Arcade's Penny Arcade Exposition (PAX) opens its doors tomorrow morning. 1,337 gaming aficionados have pre-registered for this massive event taking place in Bellvue, WA. Attendees can expect two days packed to the gills with games! Role-playing, board, card, and of course, video games will be well represented.

Or, more straight-forward: how long does it take the average reader to read a single comicstrip?

In an interview, the late Charles Shultz gave the figure of eight seconds.

In a recent interview here on Comixpedia, "Tallying Up a Sheep's Accolades: An Interview with Adrian Ramos," the figure of four seconds is given.

I've always assumed Shultz's figure was probably created by some number-crunching by United Features (how long ago, I'm not certain). I'm pretty sure Ramos is just giving an off-hand guestimate.

In both cases, the comic format in question would be a three-to-four panel gag-a-day variety.

It has gotten me thinking: does ANYONE have any "authoritative" statistics on how long the average reader takes?