Mutts Among Free-Press Strip Drops

The Detroit Free-Press announced Sunday that it would cut six strips as part of a more elaborate attempt to adjust its comics and related features page to better fit its current financial outlook. They're cutting Amazing Spider-Man, Dinette Set, The Family Tree, F-Minus, Mutts and Rose Is Rose. They're adding Judge Parker as a daily and then again as a Sunday a bit later, dropping Argyle Sweater to do so.

I think that's a fascinating bunch of comic strips to drop, and a startling one to pick up. I wanted to bring that list up here first because I feel it underlines that the current drops are taking place with strips of all ages and pedigrees. If anyone out there is assuming that the strips being cut by papers are solely relegated to marginal or legacy strips, you should probably stop right now. Where newspapers end up landing -- assuming there will be landing -- could transform the comics page in ways other than shrinking the crap out of that market. The remaining audience may have taste that favors a Judge Parker over a Mutts, the same way that CBS television has enjoyed success with a specific kind of comfortable television show over shows with quirkier appeal. That's speaking in hugely inexact generalizations, I know, but I think it's worth considering that the market is going to be different than the one that existed right now, and not just because it has fewer people in it.
 
posted 8:20 am PST | Permalink
 

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