Zach Weinersmith

Zach Weinersmith
Weinersmith with a sketch at San Diego Comic-Con, in 2011
Born Zachary Alexander Weiner
(1982-03-05) March 5, 1982
Nationality American
Occupation Webcomic writer and illustrator
Known for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Spouse(s) Kelly Weinersmith
Children 2
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic #1127, published on 25 March 2008

Zachary Alexander Weinersmith (né Weiner; March 5, 1982) is an American cartoonist, who is best known for his webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (SMBC). He is the author of two other webcomics, the completed Captain Stupendous with artist Chris Jones, and Snowflakes, co-written by James Ashby and also illustrated by Chris Jones. He also founded the sketch comedy group SMBC Theater with James Ashby and Marty Weiner in 2009.

Weinersmith has been involved in writing and drawing comics since his high school years, but he first published on the internet in the late 1990s. His early comics usually had three or more panels, but after 2002, he switched to drawing predominantly one panel comics.[1]

Weinersmith's webcomic was recognized in 2006,[2] and 2007 with the Web Cartoonists' Choice Award for Outstanding Single Panel Comic,[3] and received nominations in 2003,[4] and 2008.[5]

He also cohosts the science podcast "The Weekly Weinersmith" along with his wife Kelly, a parasitologist, the first episode of which was released on October 5, 2011.[6] As of October 2013 the podcast is on hiatus.[7]

Background and personal life

Weinersmith graduated from Pitzer College in California with an English degree in 2003.[8][9] He then worked in the film industry for around two years, including at The Asylum, and later a talent agency.[8][10] With the success of his web strip, Weinersmith returned to college at San Jose State University in order to satisfy personal interests while also creating topics and creative ideas for his comics; initially planning on biochemistry, he opted to pursue physics.[1][8]

Weinersmith's great-grandfather emigrated to the United States in 1925, and much of his extended family was killed in the Holocaust.[11] Weinersmith was raised Jewish but describes his personal philosophy as "pragmatic" and "probably" agnostic.[9] In Northern California he met Kelly Smith, then a graduate student at U.C. Davis.[12] They married, and both took the combined surname Weinersmith.[13] They have a daughter, Ada Marie,[13] and a son, Ben. The Weinersmiths reside in Texas, where Kelly is an adjunct professor at Rice University.[12]

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Weinersmith authors Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (SMBC) a popular webcomic that is updated daily. It features few recurring characters or storylines and has no set format. Recurring themes in SMBC include atheism, God, superheroes, romance, dating, science, research, parenting and the meaning of life.[14]

Other projects

While the mainstay of Weinersmith's work is the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic and its archive of over 4000 comic strips, Weinersmith has also branched into numerous side projects, often related to the comic. Some of these are available on the SMBC website's bonus section,[15] and movies section.[16]

  • Vince Invincible[17] is a multi-panel adventure, which ran from September 26, 2003 to November 13, 2003, with three later installments in April 2005. It was a departure from Weinersmith's previous work, both in that it was entirely hand-drawn on lined, yellow paper, and in that the storytelling techniques for each strip didn't always conclude with humor. The comic was about a boy named Vince, who as seen in the title, is impervious to any form of harm. He is shown doing dangerous things, such as smoking, getting an axe thrown at his head, and having a ruler cracked over his head. The comic is shown as a few panels with subtitles for some of the panels. The story remains, presently, unfinished at 25 strips.
  • Baby Moloch[18] is a six-part mini-series. The work is an origins story for the character Moloch, who featured in several of the earlier SMBC single-panel strips. Five of the six strips have currently been completed.
  • Chason, a character from the multi-panel days of SMBC, has been expanded into an independent comic called Chason!,[19] also written by Weinersmith, but illustrated by a new artist since the 20th episode.
  • Captain Stupendous[20] (formerly Captain Excelsior until the name was changed for legal reasons) is a comic project written by Weinersmith. The comic is about a superhero (Captain Stupendous) who was recently divorced from his superhero wife, Mrs. Mind. Thus far, he has tried going on a blind date, but failed after listening to his friend's advice. His ex-wife is getting remarried to a regular non-hero guy, causing strife with her mother. He has three children, a gawky teenage daughter, a superhero son and an ordinary son to whom he acts totally indifferent, at best. It launched to the public on January 19, 2007, and features Chris Jones, who also runs his own webcomic, Grumps,[21] as the illustrator. It was completed after 95 pages in 2008.
  • The Jerry Simpiro Project is a four-part mockumentary of a fictional webcomic creator. The eponymous main character of the series is the subject of unspoken derision for his lack of commitment to updating, and lack of originality. The series provides commentary on common complaints with modern webcomics. It can be found in the movie section of SMBC, along with another movie titled, "Brushing Teeth".
  • SMBC-Theater is the latest project taken up by Weinersmith. With the help of Marty Weiner and James Ashby, Weinersmith has been producing and acting in short films that release every Monday.[22] There has been no recurring plot line within the films, though many of them are labeled as "part 1".[22]
  • Snowflakes[23] is a webcomic from Weinersmith, James Ashby, and Chris Jones. Ashby and Jones provide the story/plot and art respectively, while Weinersmith writes the script.
  • Augie and the Green Knight: A Children's Adventure Book[24] is a children's book by Weinersmith and Gilles Roussel (known as Boulet). The book features an adventurous and scientifically-minded female protagonist in a retelling of the medieval romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The project is currently being financed on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter, with 954% of the initial $30,000 goal funded. Some criticism has been levied as a number of project backers did not receive their promised copy of the book.[25]
  • Festival of Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses (BAHFest)[26] is a festival, started in 2013, where people present humorous incorrect scientific theories before a panel of judges who award a prize to the winner. Cities that have hosted BAHFest include Cambridge, Massachusetts; London; Sydney; and San Francisco.[27]
  • Soonish. In 2017, Weinersmith and his wife collaborated on the book Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything.[28][29]
  • Law and Sausages is a webcomic co-written by brothers Greg Weiner and Zach Weinersmith, and drawn by Dennis Culver[30].

Awards and nominations

Year Award Work Category Result
2003 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Outstanding Short Form Comic Nominated[4]
2006 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Outstanding Single Panel Comic Won[2]
2007 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Outstanding Single Panel Comic Won[3]
2008 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Outstanding Single Panel Comic Nominated[5]

Filmography

Year Work Role Director
2005 Intermedio Production assistant; Actor (Intermedio) Andrew Lauer
Way of the Vampire Actor (Vampire) Sarah Nean Bruce, Eduardo Durão
War of the Worlds Actor (Garysville Policeman/Townsperson) David Michael Latt
2006 Girl with Gun Set production assistant Russ Emanuel
2007 Foul Shot Production assistant Danilo Mancinelli
2009-2012 SMBC Theater Writer, Actor Jason Axinn
2010-2012 SMBC Theater Director Directed episodes: "Orientation", "Working from Home", "The Tale of James", "Just Friendship" and "Heaven"
2012 The Ghastly Love of Johnny X Production assistant Paul Bunnell

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Mason, Tom (January 18, 2009). "Q&A: Zach Weiner and Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal". Gearlive.com. comics.gearlive.com. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  2. 1 2 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards; Presenter: Josh Rosen (2006). "Outstanding Single Panel Comic by Josh Rosen of Edwitch". 2006 Ceremony. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
  3. 1 2 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards (2007). "The 2007 Cartoonist's Choice Awards". 2007 Ceremony. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
  4. 1 2 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards (2003). "The 2003 Cartoonist's Awards". 2003 Ceremony. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
  5. 1 2 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards (2003). "The Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards - 2008 List of Winners & Finalists". 2008 Ceremony. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
  6. ↑ "Episode 1: Manuscripts, mushrooms, and methylation". WeeklyWeinersmith.com. October 5, 2011. Archived from the original on October 8, 2011. Retrieved December 29, 2013.
  7. ↑ "Twitter / TheWeinersmiths: Weekly Weinersmith is on hiatus ..." Twitter. October 13, 2013. Retrieved December 29, 2013.
  8. 1 2 3 Shrum, Glenn (October 18, 2011). "Author and illustrator shows Penn students they aren't too old for cartoons". The Daily Pennsylvanian. Retrieved 8 June 2014.
  9. 1 2 McKeegan, Dave (July 18, 2009). "Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal – an interview with Zach Weiner". The Freethinker. freethinker.co.uk. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  10. ↑ Lynley, Matt (March 4, 2012). "This 29-Year-Old Entrepreneur Built A Hugely Popular Website By Reading Textbooks And Drawing Geeky Comics". Business Insider.
  11. ↑ Weinersmith, Zachary Alexander (January 30, 2017). "Libertas Shrugs". Medium. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
  12. 1 2 Kuchment, Anna (31 October 2017). "This Texas couple predicts 10 emerging technologies, from space guns to 3D-printed organs". Dallas News.
  13. 1 2 Silverman, Justin Rocket (June 9, 2015). "More men taking wives' last names". New York Daily News.
  14. ↑ Brin, David (June 7, 2011). "My Top Choices in Science-Oriented WebComics". Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. ieet.org. Retrieved 6 February 2012.
  15. ↑ Weiner, Zach (2012). "Bonus". Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. www.smbc-comics.com. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  16. ↑ Weiner, Zach (2012). "Movies". Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. www.smbc-comics.com. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  17. ↑ Weiner, Zach (September 26, 2003). "Vince Invincible". Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. www.smbc-comics.com. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  18. ↑ Weiner, Zach (2012). "Baby Moloch". Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. www.smbc-comics.com. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  19. ↑ Weiner, Zach (September 9, 2005). "Chason!". Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. www.smbc-comics.com. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  20. ↑ Weiner, Zach; Chris Jones (2010). "Captain Stupendous". Captain Excelsior. www.captainexcelsior.com. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  21. ↑ Jones, Chris (2012). "About". Grumps. www.grumps.ca. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  22. 1 2 Jones, Chris (2011). "About". SMBC-Theater. www.smbc-theater.com. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  23. ↑ Weiner, Zach; James Ashby; Chris Jones (2011). "The Creators". Snowflakes. www.SnowflakesComic.com. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  24. ↑ Armitage, Hugh. "Boulet, Zach Weiner launch illustrated kids book Kickstarter". Digital Spy. Retrieved 24 June 2014.
  25. ↑ "Augie and the Green Knight: A Children's Adventure Book". Kickstarter. Retrieved 24 June 2014.
  26. ↑ "About Bahfest". bahfest.com. BAHFest. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
  27. ↑ Emanuel, Gabrille (April 25, 2017). "MIT Hosts Festival For Fake Science". WGBH. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
  28. ↑ Robinson, Tasha (October 19, 2017). "Custom-Printed Cocktails On The Moon? 'Soonish' Shows Us How". NPR.org.
  29. ↑ Simon, Matt (October 17, 2017). "Soonish: The Future Is Weird and Scary and Also Hilarious". WIRED.
  30. ↑ "About Law and Sausages". lawsandsausagescomic.com. Retrieved 5 September 2018.
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