The Death of the Newspaper Strip - Bad News for Comics Generally?

[John Freeman]

With the credit crunch biting hard on US newspapers - some even going into administration - it's perhaps no surprise to know that among the cost cutting measures, many are dropping some of their comic strips. The UK dailies haven't treated comics kindly either down the years although there are some that are now seeing their value as part of their Unique Selling Point (USP). Newspapers in Europe have also been killing off their strips.

Given the quality of some of the US syndicated strips, some of the creators could be accused of resting on their laurels, pushing out sub standard material for a long time. Perhaps some are well past their sell by date and should have been dropped long ago. But from my experience at ROK when we were trying to sell mobile comics, you may be surprised to hear just how visible newspaper strips are to the non comics audience, and how I think, subconsciously, they keep comics in the public eye.

As we pitched mobile comics to potential partners, one of the things the sales people did was change their tack and pitch the product as 'cartoons' rather than comics, and compare mobie comics with newspaper strips. Customers would say things like we don't read comics but we read Garfield, for example.

So anyway, my feeling is that the decline of newspaper strips isn't a good thing (and given the huge number of peope who voted to keep their favourites in just one paper, see below, it seems I'm not alone!) But at the same time I can't help feeling newspapers - particularly US newspapers - haven't been very innovative in recent years and neither have the syndication companies that supply strips to those newspapers. Yes, there have been some new strips but how long can you keep strips such as Popeye going?

Anyway, some newspapers let the readers vote for their favourites before cutting strips and this is the result of the poll in the Florida Times-Union:

"A little more than a month ago, the Times-Union announced that it would have to eliminate eight comic strips from the Sunday and daily newspaper for economic reasons," the paper notes in announcing the winners and losers. "We offered readers a chance to vote for their favorite comics from a list of 16. We received some 7,700 ballots, and now have the results.

"Even after announcing we would eliminate eight comic strips, we continued looking for options that would allow us to save at least some of them. The good news is that at this time we will not be eliminating any comic strips Monday through Saturday. All of the strips you have come to know and love will remain.

"Sunday, however, is a different matter. The good news here is that we have found a way to eliminate only four strips - Prince Valiant, Watch Your Head, Cathy and Brevity. (Some of you may have noticed we were running the strip Mutts the last few weeks. That was a temporary comic, replacing Opus after it was discontinued in November.) Marmaduke will also temporarily disappear but will be back soon.

"While Prince Valiant was not part of the list from which readers could vote, its elimination helped us save extra strips because of its sheer size."

COMIC STRIP SURVIVOR VOTE TOTALS

Hi and Lois: 6,166
Beetle Bailey: 6,068
Lockhorns: 5,128
Hagar the Horrible: 5,104
Family Circus: 4,715
Middletons: 4,676
For Better or For Worse: 4,217
Andy Capp: 4,183
Snuffy Smith: 4,171
Dennis the Menace: 4,112
Luann*: 3,956
Marmaduke: 2,929
Marvin*: 2,350
Brevity: 1,917
Cathy: 1,598
Watch Your Head: 322

* Does not appear in the Sunday Comics section.

What do others think about newspaper strips? In the UK both The Times and the Guardian have been at the forefront of publishing news strip material - longform as well as shortform -- with Nick Abadzis telling us reaction to his 'Sober Dog" strip was very positive.

"The biggest fan being Mr Editor-of-The Times himself, James Harding," Nick told us earlier this month. "Basically, he's happy because his readers are and my immediate editor (of T2) told me that she thinks they've turned the readers of The Times onto comics which is cool. That's nearly a million people!"

The good news is, they're going to do more, too.

[McScotty]

I enjoy newspaper strips and would miss my favourites if they were taken out of the papers I buy - but to be honest I do not base my paper buying on a comic strip in anyway its all about the news for me. Even when "Calvin and Hobbes" was being published (my favourite strip ever) I never bought the UK paper it was in- I purchased the books only, I now read most of my newspaper strips on line via King's syndicate webpage and other similar sites. One positive thing is that in Scotland newspaper strips seem to be growing; the Sunday Mail has a full page colour " Hot Shot Hamish" strip (ok its a reprint but its great and it spawned an annual) plus some other strips, the Glasgow Evening Times has a page of daily strips in colour and The Sundasy Post still has full page strips of Oor Wullie and the Broons etc. I do agree that a lot of the strips now are not as good/fun as previous strips, where the new "Far side" "Garfiled" "BC" etc ? however the papers have been reducing the space given to the strips for many years now, and that can't help the creators (and I think that was also one of the reasons Gary Larson and Bill Watterson packed in doing their great strips).

[John Freeman]

I don't think some papers do enough to make their strips part of their Unique Selling Point along with their news coverage and growing 'Opinion" sections. While The Sun has its faults, it was quick to recognise the value of bring Striker back into the paper after the comic folded, and the editor of The Times has been delighted by response to Nick Abadzis "Trial of a Sober Dog" and it's led to more strip material.

I agree, some comics have a limited life and some have outstayed their welcome, particularly some of the US syndicated strips. It's a shame some of the dailies here don't feature more home grown material and even more of a shame that local papers don't seek out local talent and use them to help "USP" their publications

[Harry Markos]

I think the decline is sad, but to be honest I think that these strips have evolved now and moved online. It's not so much that people are reading less comic strips, just reading less in newspapers but much, much more online.
It would be good if some of the papers took note of this and realised the potential of the medium. I think if they saw the kind of viewing figures that some comic strips attain they would probably do something about it.
There are many online strips that would appeal to a younger audience, for example, which may tempt a few thousand of them to buy their first newspaper as they enter adulthood. If that were to happen then that paper would secure an audience that they maybe wouldn't have without the strips. Little things like that work. In the case of comic strips it is a low cost method of securing an audience which should not be ignored.

Harry