Saturday, January 31, 2009

Stripped: Village Voice Media Drops All Comics in All Papers Nationwide

Posted By on Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 10:19 AM

Our good friend Max Cannon, the twisted genius behind "Red Meat," brings us the news that alt-weeklies around the country are cutting comic strips from their pages. This week, Village Voice Media--the folks who own the Phoenix New Times and a bunch of other alt-weeklies around the country--"suspended" publication of all their comics, according to Editor & Publisher.

This is, obviously, lousy news for cartoonists, since they depend on wide circulation of their work to (a) make a living (since they don't make a lot from each individual paper) and (b) reach an audience. If too many papers drop the strips, then cartoonists will stop drawing them, which would suck.

If you're in a market where alt-weeklies are dropping comic strips, why don't you write a quick letter to the editor explaining that you like reading the comics? It's more effective than faxing a picture of your butt.

Here's hoping The Suits reverse course.