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Lee Hopscotching Syndicates?

Published: August 4, 2026 1 minute 8 comments

Lee Enterprises seems to jump from one syndicate to another in search of lower costs.

Five Years Ago – the Tulsa World, a Lee Enterprises newspaper:

Tulsa World – October11, 2021

It’s 2021 and the Tulsa World editor, like the other 70+ Lee Enterprises newspaper editors, have a free hand in deciding which and how many comic strips and panels are carried by, in this case, his paper.

Four Years Ago – the Tulsa World:

Tulsa World – October 10, 2022

In 2022, by executive fiat, all Lee Enterprises newspapers are restricted to a half page of a specific list of Andrews McMeel Syndicate comic strips and panels. The mandate affects all 70 or so Lee papers.

Two Years Ago – the Tulsa World:

Tulsa World – October 7, 2024

Come 2024 Lee Enterprises and all its newspapers switch from Andrews McMeel Syndication to King Features Syndicate. The numbers for the half page of now KFS comics stays the same – 8 strips and 2 panels.

It seems that Lee has been signing two year contracts with the syndicates and coming “this Fall” to the Tulsa World may be a new line-up? A Creators Syndicate lineup?

From the August 3, 2026 Tulsa World is a letter to the editor and her response (or here):

I am still regretting that the World dropped “Pickles” and “Pearls Before Swine” from the comic page…

…

Editor’s note: Hi, Denny! I’m sorry you don’t like our selection of “funnies,” as my grandma calls them. I don’t choose which comic strips we publish because they’re part of our syndication package. But our deal just got sweeter. In the fall, we’ll get access to 20 additional comics, including classics like “B.C.,” “Wizard of Id” and “Archie,” and other favorites like “Scary Gary” and “Dog Eat Doug.”

The “we’ll get access to 20 additional comics” statement leaves room for uncertainty. Will the print newspaper replace the King Features comics with Creators Syndicate comics (those listed comics are all from Creators) or will some Creators comics be added to the half page making a full page of comics or will some Creators comics join the half page and so replace some of the King comics?

Or will Lee Enterprises be adding the Creators e-portal making the comics available to their e-subscribers?

And in 2028 will it be the Tribune Content Agency‘s turn to underbid?

Stay tuned.

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Comments 8

  1. Lee is banking on the fact that anyone who subscribes to a Lee paper simply does not have any other option for a local newspaper. Any reader who really feels strongly about particular comic strips will already have found a way to read them online. This means that Lee has a free hand to randomly change any comics they want, and the sheeple will read whatever they get. The only mystery is why Lee hasn’t simply deleted their comics page entirely.

    1. I wish Lee sold some papers to Advance Papers or USA Today Group or Shaw – both use a unified comics page.

    2. Don’t give then any ideas, please.

  2. Let’s break the world just a little bit more.

  3. Scary Gary and Dog Eat Doug have both ended, and Archie has been gone for like a decade and a half? Looks like Creators is mostly selling reruns. Not much to get excited about in that lineup of ‘favorites’ — so well liked that their creators can’t make a living producing them.

    1. One Big Happy, Wee Pals, and Rugrats are also rerun strips via Creators.

    2. I just saw a Norman Transcript comics page for the first time in years, and was astonished how many strips were reruns. On further inspection all of those appear to be Creators. In total there are 10 Creators strips, and the remaining 4 are King Features, which happen to be the only four that were in the paper the last time I saw it.

      1. Creators Syndicate has 36 strips and panels featured on their comics homepage https://www.creators.com/categories/comics/all. Four are weekly, one of which hasn’t been updated in five years (Doodles). Another 3 are same day Spanish translations. That leaves 29 daily comics available to newspapers, 14 of those are reruns. Adding in Rubes which splits the week between new and repeats makes the Creators’ offerings half rerun.

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