Houston Chronicle Announces Intention To Drop An Entire Page of Comic Strips

They're blunt about why, too: to save money. Alan Gardner found a list of the strips going from print to on-line only status:

Arctic Circle, Buckles, Cathy, Cleats, Crock, Dennis the Menace, Diesel Sweeties, The Dinette Set, Drabble, Gasoline Alley, Heathcliff, Judge Parker, Lockhorns, Marmaduke, Mary Worth, Mr Boffo, My Cage, Real Life Adventures, Rubes, Shoe, Spot the Frog, Sylvia and Wizard of Id.

A few observations. First, that's a pretty broad list of features, and includes several new offerings for whom this has to hurt a little bit more: Diesel Sweeties, Arctic Circle, My Cage and Spot the Frog jump out at me as comics in that category, although I'm not sure when Spot was launched and there are a few strips with which I'm unfamiliar that might be just as new. Second, this is a blow because it's paper costs and syndication fees, which aren't things likely to roll back any time soon. In other words, if other papers follow, uh-oh. Third, and I don't think this is entirely clear from the linked-to posting, but the Chronicle is an enormously friendly newspaper to comic strips and cartoonists, so to have this drastic a move come from that particular publication has more power than if a paper with a different reputation had announced it.

from Spot the Frog
 
posted 1:02 am PST | Permalink
 

---

 
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
 
Full Archives