Concerns about space in print media? That’s locking the barn door after the horse has boarded the Titanic.
They like money just like anyone else.
Yes, Peanuts should be buried with a stake thru it’s heart.
Tank McNamara. Bloom County. Fox trot.
Oh, and Blondie has to go also. It’s changed tone a lot. Now Dagwood is a goof-off that never does any good work, and Mr Dithers is right.
The revived Bloom County is web-only, and Foxtrot is Sunday-only. The daily Peanuts isn’t keeping those out of your paper.
Just to note that the recently-revived Bloom County is, AFAICT, only appearing on Berke Breathed’s Facebook feed, and that FoxTrot became a Sundays-only strip at the beginning of 2007.
Also, Tank McNamara is terrible.
They make money.
That’s my feeling, too. I don’t think there are really any up-and-comers who want to be in newspaper comics anymore. I think the fact that Peanuts runs like this is a testament to that.
I imagine they also like the editorial freedom that comes from, you know, not having an editor.
Obviously, the comics editors are trying to maximize interest and readership. If We The People are more likely to buy a paper that has Peanuts in it, over some new strip, the editor is making the right choice.
Mary Worth is actually pretty good. I started paying attention back in 1983, and, while it’s had some ups and downs, it’s really a pretty good dramatic story, with better-than-average art.
I actually subscribed to my local newspaper when they started running “Walt Kelly’s Pogo” by Sternecky and Doyle. It was a remarkably good counterfeit of Kelly’s original style. I honestly think, if you performed a double-blind test, a typical reader would not be able to tell which strips were S&D and which were Kelly.
ETA: when that strip ended, I cancelled my subscription. The San Diego Union-Tribune is a rotten newspaper.
No way! Tank is great! It’s the “Doonesbury” of sports. I learn more about sports controversies from Tank than from any other news source! And the ongoing soap opera plots – can Tank ever find and keep a girlfriend? – are fun. I’ve loved this strip from the very first. “Another Day, Another $11,247.63.”
(I think this was the first Tank collection. I still haul it out, dust it off, and re-read it now and then!)
Bloom County 2015 is also available at Comics.com. Also, Tank is great!
They do matter and being syndicated means the Gravy Train. Not to mention, publishers interested in printing your collections.
The two most recent additions to my local paper’s comics page are both Scandinavian imports, oddly enough: WuMo and Carpe Diem. I have a hard time telling them apart, as both are gag-a-day strips featuring similarly rotten art and lame jokes.
Man, that’s the truth. I grew up with it (actually, I grew up with the separate Union and Evening Tribune papers before they merged), but now when I visit San Diego I’m shocked at what reads like the Fox News of newsprint. At least they have a pretty generous comics selection.
Didn’t even know Tank McNamara was still running, but I used to enjoy it a lot, even though I didn’t get some of the jokes that relied on actual knowledge of sports.
I used to have a comic in the newspaper until last year. It’s a near impossible environment for new, young artists to succeed. Legacy strips are one of several problems.
Gravy train?
Frank Cho and Richard Stevens both walked away from syndicated newspaper gigs. In Stevens’ case, he said it was for monetary reasons - his online model made him more.
Cho? The guy who as a judge nominated *his own work *for a prize? (and won). he pulled his as his cartoon was adult and had to be censored.
Taking the OP at face value, exactly how many new cartoonists are being kept out of the field because Charles Schulz remains in print? The newspaper strip medium employs, at most, about 200 artists. The biggest menace to strips is that newspapers are dropping dead, cutting back, replacing the comics page with Suddoku (which actually happened at the last newspaper I worked for).
As one of the most popular draws to the comics page, Peanuts probably does more good than harm to up-and-coming cartoonists, kind of like Marvel Comics keeps comic shops afloat and able to stock any indy comic books at all. A newspaper that cancels Peanuts reprints wouldn’t think twice about cancelling Mutts, Lio or any other strip with artistic or humorous merit.
I know Frank Cho. He did that incredibly tacky thing to protest the generally low quality of new comics being nominated, not to pocket yet another prize. It wasn’t a cool thing to do, but he kind of had a point.