Mark Heath has announced the end of his feature Spot The Frog, which will come to close in early July. I liked Spot, which I thought was nice-looking and always pleasant, the kind of feature that once upon a time you grew up and had pleasant memories of it having run in your local paper even though you kind of felt that no one else remembered it. I think there a couple things we can take away from the departure of another modestly successful strip, including 1) a book collection isn't a sure sign of success, as people have believed since Garfield became a hit; Spot the Frog had I think two, and 2) it's really tough out there for work to find traction unless it break out. I think that's where the declining number of newspaper spots and the increased churn in terms of dumping and trying strips is most greatly felt. Is there no such thing as a newspaper strip middle class anymore?
