A Comic Each Day Keeps the Doctor Away
Daily doses of humor proven heart-healthy. Regular "comic breaks" recommended.
Portland, OR (PRWEB) March 13, 2006
A team of researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine has shown for the first time that laughter is linked to healthy function of blood vessels, which decreases your risk for heart disease and may help protect you from heart attack. See www. umm. edu. UMM recommends increasing your exposure to humor daily, such as by reading and collecting funny cartoons.
“Makes perfect sense to me,” says Bill Holbrook, nationally syndicated cartoonist who recently began contributing his popular web comic Kevin and Kell to www. gogags. com, which delivers comics to cell phones. “Laughter is the best medicine, right? I’m thrilled that my strip is a part of GoGags, because it makes comics available whenever and wherever you want or need a dose of humor.”
Besides incorporating frequent comic breaks into your daily routine, recommendations based on the UMM study remind that humor is subjective and people need to learn what makes them laugh. Dawn Douglass, president of Full Tilt Features, the comics syndicate behind gogags. com says GoGags’ goal is to offer a wide variety of comics from various cartoonists around the world. So far, over a dozen professional cartoonists have signed up to supply gags, from the United States, Canada and even Germany.
“I learned while working at a winery that if somebody says they don’t like wine, it’s only because they haven’t tasted enough types,” said Douglass. “It’s the same with comics. You just need to do a lot of ‘taste testing’ to discover what you love. Unfortunately, newspapers don’t give readers access to a lot of variety. We’re working hard to change that.”
“I love that GoGags offers so many different comic styles and subjects to choose from,” says Annie Taylor-Lebel, another GoGags contributor. “Besides being able to do various subject sorts and cartoonist searches from our website, soon people will be able to download gags straight from their phone via their own customized list of favorite topics, like animal gags, workplace humor or whatever it is they enjoy most.”
Douglass points out that comics are especially good for breaking up the day with laughs, because there is no time investment required, like with movies or even short stories. “We’re working to provide easy access to the world’s most pithy and instantly gratifying humor,” she says. “And not just via cell phones, but also in other exciting ways.”
One such way is a service currently being developed called “My Fridj™,” where GoGag users can collect their favorite cartoons and display them on their websites and blogs, like a personal gallery. They will be able to attach comments to each gag and get feedback from visitors to their Fridj.
“We all enjoy finding clipped cartoons on refrigerators and cubicle walls. Imagine being able to find them on countless blogs in every country, in every home and business, all over the Internet! We’ll put half the world’s cardiologists out of business!” jokes Allen Jones, technical developer of GoGags and My Fridj.
Want more opportunities to laugh so you can help protect your heart? GoGags is just getting started. Stay tooned to www. gogags. com.
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