Uclick LLC was an American corporation (a division of

Andrews McMeel Universal Andrews McMeel Universal (AMU) is an American media corporation based in Kansas City, Missouri. It was founded in 1970 by Jim Andrews and John McMeel as Universal Press Syndicate and was renamed in 1997 to AMU to reflect the diversification tha ...

) selling "digital entertainment content" for the desktop, the web and

mobile phones A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This radio ...

. Uclick operated several consumer websites, including the

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

and

editorial cartoon A political cartoon, also known as an editorial cartoon, is a cartoon graphic with caricatures of public figures, expressing the artist's opinion. An artist who writes and draws such images is known as an editorial cartoonist. They typically co ...

site

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. However, in 2006, the site was redesigned and expanded to include online st ...

and the

puzzle A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to find the solution of the puzzle. There are differe ...

and

casual game A casual game is a video game targeted at a mass market audience, as opposed to a hardcore game, which is targeted at hobbyist gamers. Casual games may exhibit any type of gameplay and genre. They generally involve simpler rules, shorter sessio ...

sites ThePuzzleSociety.com and UclickGames.com. Uclick content included comic strips, editorial cartoons, puzzles, casual games,

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

comic books A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...

, syndicated columns,

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

and

illustration An illustration is a decoration, interpretation, or visual explanation of a text, concept, or process, designed for integration in print and digitally published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, vi ...

. Uclick content was distributed online through consumer and news web portals such as

Yahoo! Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...

, MSNBC.com,

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

, washingtonpost.com, CNN,

USA TODAY ''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...

, and AOL. Comic strip and cartoon content from Uclick was available online and on mobile phones through the company's website, Uclick.com. In July 2009, Uclick merged with Andrews McMeel's Universal Press Syndicate (UPS) to form

Universal Uclick Andrews McMeel Syndication (formerly Universal Uclick) is an American content syndicate which provides syndication in print, online and on mobile devices for a number of lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and cartoons and various oth ...

(now known as Andrews McMeel Syndication).

History

Universal New Media was formed in 1996 by

; it was renamed Uclick a year later. Beginning in January 2009, Andrews McMeel Universal suffered a series of layoffs due to department consolidation and corporate restructuring. These layoffs led to Uclick's July 2009 merger with UPS to form

Comic strips and panels

As the digital entertainment division of Andrews McMeel Universal, Uclick was the official online distributor of all comic strips syndicated by Andrews McMeel Universal's newspaper syndication division, Universal Press Syndicate. Uclick also owned and operated

, 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'' is a daily American comic strip created by cartoonist Bill Watterson that was Print syndication, syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. Commonly described as "the last great newspaper comic", ''Calvin a ...

'', '' The Boondocks'', and '' Bloom County'', original works like ''The New Adventures of Queen Victoria'' and '' Bleeker: The Rechargeable Dog'', and a selection of syndicated comic strips from

Creators Syndicate Creators Syndicate (also known as Creators) is an American independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns to daily newspapers, websites, and other digital outlets. When founded in 1987, Creators Syndicate became one of the few suc ...

and Tribune Media Services. In October 2008, Uclick launched a GoComics

gadget A gadget is a machine, mechanical device or any ingenious article. Gadgets are sometimes referred to as ''wikt:gizmo, gizmos''. History The etymology of the word is disputed. The word first appears as reference to an 18th-century tool in Glass ...

for iGoogle which allowed users to read comic strips on their iGoogle pages.

Puzzles and games

Uclick distributed daily puzzles and crazy games through consumer and news web portals as well as through its own puzzle and game portals, The Puzzle Society and UclickGames. Uclick products included crosswords and other word games, number placement puzzles like Sudoku and Kakuro, jigsaw puzzles and other casual games.

Syndicated columns and text features

Uclick-syndicated columns and text features were 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'', '' The Five Fists of Science'', '' Gødland'', '' PvP'', and '' Too Much Coffee Man''. 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 later added titles from

Devil's Due Publishing Devil's Due Publishing (often abbreviated as DDP) is an independent comic book publisher in the United States. Based in Chicago, Illinois, DDP is best known for its wide selection of genres, including licensed and original creator-owned proper ...

Image Comics Image Comics is an independent American American comic book, comic book publisher and is the third largest direct market comic book and graphic novel publisher in the industry by market share. Its best-known publications include ''Spawn (comics) ...

IDW Publishing IDW Publishing is an American publisher of comic books, graphic novels, art books, and comic strip collections. It was founded in 1999 as the publishing division of Idea and Design Works, LLC (IDW) and is recognized as the fifth-largest comic ...

, and independently published books such as Jeff Smith's ''Bone''.

References

External links

* {{Universal Press columns Online mass media companies of the United States