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Last summer, after a fishing trip on Cape Cod, Ann Gryboski and her sister Ellie were in the kitchen talking with their husbands when Ann's husband, Patrick Lancaster, described how he'd gotten into a fight with a co-worker. He wanted to demonstrate what he'd done, so he grabbed Ann tightly around the neck and held her in a near-chokehold until she told him to stop. "We were shocked that he did it, but to him it was a joke," says Ellie, who lives in Maryland. Though Ann's family knew how verbally abusive Lancaster was -- they had all suffered his barbs over the years -- they never knew that he was physically abusive, too. Few people apparently knew much about what was happening at 11 Coach Lane in Barnstable until Ann Gryboski shot and killed Lancaster on Easter Sunday.
Web team plans global gallery for comics artists
Maines creative economy is about to acquire a new element from an obscure source: The world of comic art on the Web. Two men who founded some of the most popular and influential comic art sites on the Internet, places like ComicSpace.com and WebComicsNation.com, are teaming up and setting up shop in Portland. Joey Manley and Josh Roberts were in the city last week, scouting office space downtown and reviewing resumes for a programmer to add to their staff. Their effort, funded by an infusion of venture capital from investors in Web development, is set to launch in the spring under the ComicSpace.com name. When it debuts, the site will strengthen Maines connection to the world of Web comic art, in which artists and writers publish and sell original work on the Internet.
'Whimpy Kid' bullies its way to big success
His readers (Kinney says he's most popular among fifth-grade boys) would disagree. They've embraced his creation, a bullied but wisecracking middle-school student named Greg Heffley. (Rodrick is his slacker older brother.) Kinney, 36, the father of two sons, ages 5 and 2, lives in Plainville, Mass., and says he "was a regular kid who had my wimpy moments." He dreamed of being a syndicated cartoonist like Bill Watterson ("Calvin and Hobbes"). But after drawing a popular strip for the student newspaper at the University of Maryland, he collected nothing but rejections. He became a Web designer. He also persisted and thought about getting his cartoons published as a book, "sort of through the back door." Coincidentally, his company was seeking content for one of its educational websites.
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