Comic Strip Pages In State of Flux?

Alan Gardner looks at comics page changes in Colorado Springs and San Antonio; Editor & Publisher talks about how they were e-mailed when For Better or For Worse was canceled; add the Minneapolis Star-Tribune to those looking for replacements for legacy strips in which they're no longer fully invested. All of these stories have interesting aspects in and of themselves, but this seems to me like a lot of papers adding and dropping strips -- the stories mentioned don't even include moves from a week ago like the Raleigh paper "super-sizing" their comics section. It could be that the bigger story is less about FBoFW or things like paper costs or syndication fees and more about a major casting around for new and better comics page solutions, including a greater willingness to change out strips if they're deemed superfluous.

I'm not sure how this might develop, but in addition to a continued increase in news about comics polls and major re-shufflings, I would look for more stories about cartoons being paired against each other in the marketplace, like Ollie & Quentin against Lio, or Family Tree as a potential gainer as papers might move away from For Better or For Worse as it moves from hybrid to full-on re-run. You also might see article on syndicates taking steps to best capitalize on a more volatile market -- here's a Piers Baker post about finding old strips to fill in a gap so that his strip could snag an open slot in Cape Town -- although I believe most of them will stay the course more than re-adjust and react.
 
posted 6:15 am PST | Permalink
 

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