HELP ME NOW: Recreate established logo and mascot graphics

The Weekly Chat

The Weekly Chat is a weekly published paper filled with jokes, puzzles and other light hearted and humourous items, is distributed locally through restaurants, coffee houses and other locations where individuals experience down time and supported by inserted business ads.

We're a family, friendly paper expanding nationwide. Our needs are two fold - appealing to the professionals and businesses who advertise with us, and inviting to our extremely diversified reading audience. The project needs a fun and relaxed look, with a professional polished touch!

We have existing logo we’d like to keep, but…
*The logo itself is an EPS file, but wasn’t created properly. Logo use for bigger needs can’t be used because of pixilation issues.
*The font is ok, but want something similar a little less “western”
*Needs to be playful and informal, not cheap
*The typeface should be clear, simple and bold, something that stands out
*The logo needs to be in grayscale, and in color (feel free to experiment)
*The logo needs to be in high resolution for printed materials
*Must be usable for large sizes (banners, billboards, etc.)

We need a new mascot with the following parameters:
*The mascot is currently ‘male’ – we’d like something different, maybe a cute animal or female, including the entire body
*Needs to be in grayscale, and in color
*Cartoon type is perfect, but needs to be credible and modernized
*Needs to be drawn in 6 different positions (See attached file with examples of mascot positions currently in use: 99Designs_images.pdf)

You can also see the existing logo and mascot here: http://www.TheWeeklyChat.com

I'm not sure of the file format I need - PNG maybe - as I said, this needs to be able to be printed and used for large sizes as well as small...

****Please do not use any stock images or clip art in the logo****