Dogs of C-Kennel by Mick & Mason Mastroianni for November 21, 2023

QUOTE: "Is this the beginning of the end for the daily printed comics page in many American towns and cities?

Some cartoonists and readers fear such a trend as Lee Enterprises, an Iowa-based media company that owns nearly 80 daily newspapers, is transitioning to a “uniform set of offerings” with its comics, puzzles and advice columns, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a Lee paper. The newspaper reported Sept. 11 that as a result, its print section would cut back to “a half-page of comics” Mondays through Saturdays.

And the Omaha World-Herald reported Sept. 13 that “to operate more efficiently, we’re streamlining the comics, puzzles and features that we and other Lee Enterprises newspapers have been providing.”

The shift made headlines when cartoonists such as “Bizarro” creator Dan Piraro and “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams said that they had lost Lee client newspapers. Adams said he had lost 77 papers. Creators are still working to determine the full impact of these changes, including how their strips’ online presence is affected.

The Lee announcement comes shortly after News Corp Australia said its scores of newspapers will drop their comic strips.

Comics sections in many papers have been shrinking for years, but Piraro says the across-the-chain changes by Lee Enterprises feel less gradual. “Seeing the dominoes begin to fall at such an accelerated pace is scary,” says Piraro, noting that he still depends on the income he receives from print newspapers. “I’ll now need to put more energy into generating income elsewhere.”

Adds Piraro: “I’m seeing this as the inevitable result of people choosing to get their news online.”

In their explanations for their comics-section changes, Lee papers such as the World Herald, the Waco Tribune and the Richmond Times-Dispatch cited the industry’s larger ongoing move to digital readership — as some outlets offer access to hundreds of strips online. "

I miss the days when we used to get 2 newspapers almost every day — the morning edition and the evening edition … twice the comics! If I remember correctly, there was just one Sunday paper.

GoComics is the best….get the comics without the doomsday news.

I quit getting the newspaper because of how obnoxiously biased they are.

OH NO!!! Why would they do such a dumb thing? We love the funny papers.

Something to look forward to in the news!!!!!

I hate it when the newspaper drops a comic I read for one that I have no interest in

but in order to get or keep online newspapers, they would still have comics to have added benefit to getting the online subscription. Now, my brilliant newspaper is by mail only and online. Mail. Brilliant. How’s THAT gonna work out

I continue to subscribe to the local paper even though they no longer have a Sunday or Monday edition. Local news and sports are well covered with just a little bit of national and international news. The comics page has a quarter of the page filled with a today in history feature which I doubt most people read.

I guess the suggestion is “We make a paper just with comics, and call it ‘comic book’”! :)

Years ago, my local daily cut the comic section in half. The next week I signed up for Gocomics.com. Both true.

So if it works good, mess it up somehow. Sounds like our Government Mandate in running the country right now……

San Diego Union Tribune has two pages of comics — appreciate them

I went to online comics because the editor’s opinion of what was a good comic didn’t seem to mesh with mine. They replaced “non sequitur” with “Nancy”.

It’s 2023. Things constantly change, for good and bad. We adapt. I read one, sometimes two papers a day for decades along with news magazines. But I too slowly changed & began getting more & more news online. The paper models were simply too slow compared to online. Then I found myself facing a decision: do I keep subscribing for the comics (it was 3 pages when I stopped)? This led me to GoComics & Comics Kingdom. Now I read far, far more comics than I ever did . . . & the two annual subscriptions are much less than what I paid for the papers (although I expect these will rise in coming years to pay the comics creators as their newspaper income dries up)! There are only 9 other comics I like in neither, so I just use hyperlinks to these. In some ways this could be the best years for comics, at least in terms of numbers & quality. There likely will be fewer creators, while the online comics costs will be greater.

Sounds like how our government operates. Bring on the changes!

As more and more newspapers continue to be unbalanced in their news coverage and left-leaning editorial pages continue to marginalize conservative ideology, the destruction of the comic section is just another nail in the coffin for these tunnel-visioned rags.