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Garry Trudeau and Amazon.com Launch 'The People's Doonesbury @
Amazon.com'
PR Newswire - May 04, 1998 05:00
AMZN %REA %MLM %ENT %PDT V%PRN P%PRN
Internet Users Invited to Help Write the First Doonesbury Comic Strip Created in Real Time Exclusively on Amazon.com
SEATTLE, May 4 /PRNewswire/ -- "If you've always felt that any chucklehead could write a comic strip, then here's your
chance to prove it." With these words, Mike Doonesbury, fictional namesake of Garry Trudeau's famed satirical comic, and
leading online retailer Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) today launched "The People's Doonesbury @ Amazon.com." The
interactive contest offers Internet users a chance to team directly with Trudeau to create his first-ever collaborative comic strip
and to win a personally signed lithograph of the finished strip.
Ten of the 11 Doonesbury comic strip panels, drawn exclusively for the online bookseller by Trudeau, were posted on the
Amazon.com Web site ( amazon.com ) today. Visitors to Amazon.com can compete each day to give voice to many of
Doonesbury's best-loved characters by "writing the next panel" to drive the story forward. Trudeau himself, who has been
creating Doonesbury for nearly 30 years, will choose the daily winner.
Dialogue from each winning entry will be added to the panel the following morning and posted on the Amazon.com Web site.
Over the next ten weekdays, the strip will evolve, panel by panel, until the entire 11-panel strip is finished. Trudeau himself will
pen the final frame, which will remain a mystery until created and posted on May 18.
On May 19 the completed "People's Doonesbury" comic strip, representing the creative results of Trudeau and his Amazon.com
collaborators, will debut as a special full-page feature in USA Today and appear in its entirety on Amazon.com.
Prizes for the selected daily winners include a personally signed lithograph of the comic strip they helped create, an ultimate
Doonesbury book collection from Amazon.com, and their names published alongside the completed strip in USA Today. All
visitors to the contest site can enter to win a grand-prize drawing for a trip for two to Seattle and a free 10-minute "buy all you
can" online shopping spree from the desk of Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos.
"Most people don't think of cartooning as a real job," said Trudeau. "It isn't, but that doesn't mean cartoonists don't crave
respect. This contest, while ostensibly about collaboration, is a demonstration project about the rigors of tough-minded,
deadline-driven, big-time satire. Never mind the glamorous prizes -- this little contest is to see who among the digerati has got
game, who can be witty on demand and in real time. We wish them luck."
"We have no idea how the strip will evolve, but we are incredibly excited that Garry wanted to be part of the process every step
of the way," said David Risher, Senior Vice President of Product Development at Amazon.com. "Internet users are a savvy
bunch. I can't wait to watch the strip unfold."
To thank and acknowledge Trudeau for his participation in the contest, Amazon.com will make a donation in his name to the
nation's oldest and largest children's literacy organization, Reading Is Fundamental, Inc. (RIF). Additionally, all profits from the
sale of Doonesbury books at Amazon.com from May 4 to May 18, 1998, will also be donated to RIF, as will Trudeau's creator
royalties from the sales of those books.
About Garry Trudeau
Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Garry Trudeau first debuted Doonesbury in 1968. Currently, Doonesbury appears in 1,400
daily and Sunday newspapers in the U.S. and abroad. Trudeau's work has also been collected in more than 60 hardcover, trade
paperback, and mass paperback editions, which have cumulatively sold more than 7 million copies worldwide. His newest book,
The Bundled Doonesbury: A Pre-Millennial Anthology (which includes a CD-ROM featuring more than 9,000 strips), will be
published by Andrews McMeel this fall.
About Reading Is Fundamental
Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) motivates children to read for pleasure and learning. RIF enables educators, parents, and
community volunteers to bring some of America's neediest children stimulating reading activities and challenges, with free new
books to choose and keep. More than 240,000 RIF volunteers supply 3.5 million children with 11 million books annually at more
than 17,000 locations in all 50 states. Since its founding in 1966, RIF has put more than 184 million books into the hands and
homes of America's families.
About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc., Earth's Biggest Bookstore, is the largest online retailer of books. Amazon.com offers a catalog of more than
3 million book, music, and other titles, plus easy-to-use search and browse features, e-mail services, personalized shopping
services, secure Web-based credit card payment, and direct shipping to customers. Amazon.com has virtually unlimited online
shelf space and offers customers a vast selection through an efficient search-and-retrieval interface, as well as streamlined
ordering through 1-Click(SM) technology. Amazon.com pioneered the concept of syndicated selling on the Internet and has more
than 40,000 members in its Associates Program including AOL.com, Yahoo!, Netscape, Excite, the AltaVista Search Service, the
@Home Network, the Prodigy Shopping Network, and iVillage.
This announcement contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others,
Amazon.com's limited operating history, the unpredictability of its future revenues, and risks associated with capacity constraints,
management of growth, and new business opportunities. More information about factors that potentially could affect
Amazon.com's financial results is included in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31,
1997, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Amazon.com, Earth's Biggest Bookstore, and 1-Click are service marks of Amazon.com, Inc. All other names are trademarks of
their respective owners.
SOURCE Amazon.com, Inc.
/CONTACT: Kay Dangaard, 206-694-2078, or dangaard@amazon.com, or Beth
Garson, 206-694-2105, or bgarson@amazon.com, both of Amazon.com; or Karen Peck
of The New Media Group @ Waggener Edstrom, 425-637-9097, or karenp@wagged.com,
for Amazon.com/
/Company News On-Call: prnewswire.com or fax, 800-758-5804,
ext. 121176/
/Web site: amazon.com
(AMZN)
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