Uclick
Encyclopedia
Uclick LLC was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 corporation (a division of Andrews McMeel Universal
Andrews McMeel Universal
Andrews McMeel Universal is an American corporation based in Kansas City, Missouri. It was founded in 1970 by Notre Dame alumni Jim Andrews and John McMeel as Universal Press Syndicate and was renamed in 1997 to AMU to reflect the diversification that had taken place since its founding...

) selling "digital entertainment content" for the desktop, the web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...

 and mobile phones. The company owns and operates several consumer websites, including the comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 and editorial cartoon
Editorial cartoon
An editorial cartoon, also known as a political cartoon, is an illustration containing a commentary that usually relates to current events or personalities....

 site GoComics
GoComics
GoComics is a website launched in 2005 by the digital entertainment provider Uclick. It was originally created as a distribution portal for comic strips on mobile phones, but in 2006, the site was redesigned and expanded to include online strips and cartoons...

 and the puzzle
Puzzle
A puzzle is a problem or enigma that tests the ingenuity of the solver. In a basic puzzle, one is intended to put together pieces in a logical way in order to come up with the desired solution...

 and casual game
Casual game
A casual game is a video game targeted at or used by a mass audience of casual gamers. Casual games can have any type of gameplay, and fit in any genre. They are typically distinguished by their simple rules and lack of commitment required in contrast to more complex hardcore games...

 sites ThePuzzleSociety.com and UclickGames.com.

From January thru July 2009, Andrews McMeel Universal had a series of layoffs due to consolidation of departments and corporate restructuring. This decision affected the uclick division which was later consolidated into the syndicate unit.

Uclick content includes comic strips, editorial cartoons, puzzles, casual games, manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

, comic books, syndicated columns
Syndicated columnist
This list of syndicated columnists comprises columnists whose recurring columns are published in multiple periodical publications .*Ghaith Abdul-Ahad*Yasmin Alibhai-Brown*Timothy Garton Ash*Lucius Beebe*Max Boot...

, photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

 and illustration
Illustration
An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...

. Uclick content is distributed online through consumer and news web portals such as Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...

, MSNBC.com
Msnbc.com
msnbc.com is a news website owned and operated as a joint venture by NBCUniversal and Microsoft.In addition to original content from its news staff, msnbc.com is the news website for the NBC News family, with content from the cable television news channel MSNBC, NBC shows such as Today, NBC Nightly...

, New York Times, washingtonpost.com, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

, USA TODAY
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

, and AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

. Comic strip and cartoon content from uclick is available online and on mobile phones through the company’s website, UCLICK.com.

In July 2009, Uclick merged with Universal Press Syndicate
Universal Press Syndicate
Universal Press Syndicate, a subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, is the world's largest independent press syndicate. It distributes lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and other content. Popular columns include Dear Abby, Ann Coulter, Roger Ebert and News of the Weird...

 to form Universal Uclick
Universal Uclick
Universal Uclick is an American entertainment company owned by Andrews McMeel Universal. Universal Uclick is the world's largest independent press syndicate and provides syndication in print, online and on mobile devices for a number of lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and cartoons and...

.

Comic strips and panels

As the digital entertainment division of Andrews McMeel Universal, Uclick is the official online distributor of all comic strips syndicated by Andrews McMeel Universal's newspaper syndication division, Universal Press Syndicate
Universal Press Syndicate
Universal Press Syndicate, a subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, is the world's largest independent press syndicate. It distributes lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and other content. Popular columns include Dear Abby, Ann Coulter, Roger Ebert and News of the Weird...

. Uclick also owns and operates GoComics, a comics aggregate website featuring not only comic strips currently syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate, but also webcomics, discontinued titles such as Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes is a syndicated daily comic strip that was written and illustrated by American cartoonist Bill Watterson, and syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. It follows the humorous antics of Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his...

, The Boondocks and Bloom County
Bloom County
Bloom County is an American comic strip by Berkeley Breathed which ran from December 8, 1980, until August 6, 1989. It examined events in politics and culture through the viewpoint of a fanciful small town in Middle America, where children often have adult personalities and vocabularies and where...

, original works like The New Adventures of Queen Victoria
New Adventures of Queen Victoria
The New Adventures of Queen Victoria is a daily webcomic created by Pab Sungenis. It uses the photo-manipulation technique popularized by Adobe Photoshop and other image editing programs to insert actual photographs and paintings of the characters into situations, instead of more conventional...

 and Bleeker: The Rechargeable Dog
Bleeker: The Rechargeable Dog
Bleeker: The Rechargeable Dog is a comic strip by Jonathan Mahood about ten-year-old Skip Smalls, his friend Lila and Bleeker, an electronic dog. The strip is distributed by King Features Syndicate....

, and a selection of syndicated comic strips from Creators Syndicate
Creators Syndicate
Creators Syndicate is an independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns for daily newspapers. It was founded in 1987 by Richard S. Newcombe, and is based in Los Angeles. Creators was one of the first syndicates to allow its clients to maintain creative control of their material...

 and Tribune Media Services
Tribune Media Services
Tribune Media Services is a syndication company owned by the Tribune Company.The company has two divisions, "News and Features" and "Entertainment Products"...

.

In October 2008, Uclick launched a GoComics gadget
Gadget
A gadget is a small technological object that has a particular function, but is often thought of as a novelty. Gadgets are invariably considered to be more unusually or cleverly designed than normal technological objects at the time of their invention...

 for iGoogle
IGoogle
iGoogle , a service of Google, is a customizable Ajax-based startpage or personal web portal . Google originally launched the service in May 2005...

 which allows users to read comic strips on their iGoogle pages.

Puzzles and games

Uclick distributes daily puzzles and casual games through consumer and news web portals as well as through its own puzzle and game portals, The Puzzle Society and UclickGames. Uclick products include crosswords and other word games, number placement puzzles like Sudoku
Sudoku
is a logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 sub-grids that compose the grid contains all of the digits from 1 to 9...

 and Kakuro, jigsaw puzzles and other casual games.

Photography and illustration

Uclick photography and illustration wallpapers for mobile phones include the work of such artists as Thomas Kinkade
Thomas Kinkade
Thomas Kinkade is an American painter of popular and commercial realistic, bucolic, and idyllic subjects. He is notable for the mass marketing of his work as printed reproductions and other licensed products via The Thomas Kinkade Company...

, Wyland
Wyland
Robert Wyland , known simply as Wyland, is an artist best known for painting large, outdoor murals of whales and other ocean life.-Personal life:...

, Paul Frank
Paul Frank
Paul Frank is an American cartoonist, artist and fashion designer. His creations adorn clothing, accessories, and many other products...

, and artists and program content from MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

.

Syndicated columns and text features

Uclick syndicated columns and text features are distributed online through consumer and news web portals as well as through Uclick's syndicated column and text feature consumer site, uExpress.com.

Comic books and manga

In 2006, Uclick launched the United States’ first comic book reader application for mobile phones. The introductory line of titles included Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage Studios)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is an American comic book published by Mirage Studios from 1984 to 2009. Originally conceived by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird as a one-off parody, the comic's popularity has gone on to inspire a major pop culture franchise, including three television series, four...

, The Five Fists of Science
The Five Fists of Science
The Five Fists of Science is a steampunk graphic novel created by writer Matt Fraction and artist Steven Sanders. It was published in 2006 by Image Comics.-Plot:...

, GODLAND, PvP
PvP
PvP, also known as Player vs Player, is a webcomic, written and drawn by Scott Kurtz, with around 100,000 unique visitors per day . On February 1, 2007, it became the subject of its own animated series.-Themes:...

, and Too Much Coffee Man
Too Much Coffee Man
Too Much Coffee Man is an American satirical superhero created by cartoonist Shannon Wheeler, and which has appeared in comic strips, minicomics, webcomics, comic books, magazines, books, and operas....

. In July 2006, Uclick announced the launch of a mobile phone version of Guilstein, a manga and anime title that had never been published in any form in the U.S. In July 2007, Uclick launched Thunder Road, the first comic book produced solely for mobile phone distribution in the U.S. Uclick has since added titles from Devil's Due Publishing
Devil's Due Publishing
Devil's Due Publishing is an independent comic book publishers in the United States. Based in Chicago, Illinois, DDP is best known for its wide selection of genres, including licensed and original creator-owned properties that populate its monthly comic book series and graphic novels.Though...

, Image Comics
Image Comics
Image Comics is a United States comic book publisher. It was founded in 1992 by high-profile illustrators as a venue where creators could publish their material without giving up the copyrights to the characters they created, as creator-owned properties. It was immediately successful, and remains...

, IDW Publishing
IDW Publishing
IDW Publishing, also known as Idea + Design Works, LLC and IDW, is an American publisher of comic books and comic strip collections. The company was founded in 1999 and has been awarded the title "Publisher of the Year Under 5% Market Share" for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006 by Diamond Comic...

, and independently published books such as Jeff Smith’s Bone
Bone (comics)
Bone is an independently published graphic novel series originally serialized in 55 irregularly released issues from 1991 to 2004. Bone was drawn and written by Jeff Smith....

.

Sources

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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