Denver Post underwhelmed with comic protest

This can’t be good.

Once upon a time, a newspaper cut comic strips knowing it could be unleashing the hounds by way of calls and letters from readers angered by a disruption of cherished routines. But this far, the Post hasn’t been deluged after cutting a baker’s dozen of strips, including iconic favorites like Doonesbury and Peanuts, while keeping dead wood like Beetle Bailey and Blondie. Is it an indication that most comics fans get their fix online these days?

The article goes on to say that the Post editor Greg Moore has gotten “zip” of an email response and back in 2010 when they dropped 21 features they did so “without being pilloried.”

14 thoughts on “Denver Post underwhelmed with comic protest

  1. I never understood the marketing behind the syndicates offering up their comics for free online. If they want supply and demand to work, they have to make a demand. In order to demand seeing a strip, the content must not be readily available for free.

    I may just be dumb to the marketing strategy so forgive me. I would not be offering the entire week up for free. I would tease with a strip or two so that the followers have to go buy a paper to get the entire story… or purchase the cartoonist’s collection when published.

    The other interesting point this is pointing to is the fact that if readers ARE indeed getting their fixes online, the real news is that the demographics are changing. The older readers are not the target market anymore. The target market is younger readers. This tells me it is time to roll the dice on an edgier strip. Maybe my time is coming after all!!!!…. Now that there is no market left.

  2. “I never understood the marketing behind the syndicates offering up their comics for free online.”

    If there is an opposite to “marketing” I think this is it.

  3. If tablet computers do indeed become the savior of print journalism, the comics genre can survive along with it. Comics are a daily respite from the typically bad news that surrounds them. But there should and will be a winnowing down to those panels/strips that offer consistently fresher, edgier humor. As a previous Denver Post piece pointed out, the funnies aren’t that funny anymore…al least not to younger generations.

  4. I’m just surprised Doonesbury got one complaint. You think more Democratic readers would object.

  5. Readers ARE getting their comics online, and also discovering other comics there, syndicated and not, many of them niche strips, that are new, original, and edgier – not to mention animated. Plus, yes, you can get online the comics that are cut from pint papers, if you don’t already get your comics online. And, as anyone who has moved to the ‘Net knows, the online versions are far better, providing immediate background on a comic and its characters, previous comics, comics by subject, an interactive blog by the cartooonist, plus eaders can easily and quickly view dozens of their favorite comics and discover new ones each day. So is it any wonder that reader reaction to losing print comics is diminishing? I’m sure it’s not lost on newspaper editors forced to cut costs.

  6. I agree B.J., a lot of us online strippers are better than the professional strippers. I just have to figure out a way to get paid to strip online. I hear that some people make a killing stripping online with web cams. I just somehow do not see the connection. Maybe I am not stripping the way people want to see me strip… I better go Google web cam strippers and see what all the fussin’ is about…….

  7. Someone should start a net petition to get Doonesbury back in the Denver Post.

  8. that was ME Rich… bwahaha
    no , seriously now I am FORCED to go online to see my favorites..as the Post saw fit to cut them most all of them. At work today, a woman I work with called the Post up and complained about them cutting some of them and a Crossword puzzle, I think they also cut the NY times puzzle. SHe told me she told the paper they were shooting themselves in the foot, saying stuff was online …lol

    What bugged me was when I got my response form them it was them telling me they cut certain ones not on cost factors of that particular strip, but by the READER POLL….(that we all know is not a true science..never is, and never will be )

    so I know of at least THREE of us poor Denver readers out here that complained…sooo..there ya go… sigh…

  9. I read the list of comics they cut, and honestly, I don’t enjoy any of them. Maybe it’s just that those particular strips in that area had a smaller fanbase.

  10. DAVID JONES: “a lot of us online strippers are better than the professional strippers. I just have to figure out a way to get paid…”

    Hmmm…while young David’s bravado seems to outweigh is skill, me thinks he would do well to remember the scripture:

    “Pissith not on your betters for they are aged, with long beards and memories.” -Fallopians 3:16

  11. Patty: The NYT Crossword is still in the Denver Post. Here are the puzzles that were dropped:
    Celebrity Cipher
    NEA Crossword
    Wuzzles
    Your Move (a.k.a. Chess)

    Remaining in paper:
    Cryptoquip
    Jumble
    King Crossword
    NYT Crossword
    Sudoku

  12. I think this is more of a judgment on newspapers than the comics. Newspapers did themselves in when they offered their own content free online. It’s like offering a free oil change and then complaining that nobody goes to Jiffy Lube any more.

    Plus, as much as I love newspapers, there’s been a decades-long disconnect between newspaper content and the general public. We don’t have an oldies station that plays ’50s music anymore, either.

  13. To drop Celebrity Ciphers, but retain Criptoquiz, and run two crossword puzzles doesn’t make sense. Criptoquiz is nothing but a collection of lame puns, and crosswords? For crying out loud, there are crossword dictionaries. Celebrity Ciphers quotes statements by famous people from the era of Greece up to the present. God forbid that your readers might actually learn something from your puzzles!
    When you took over the Rocky (my long-time favorite, even though I subscribed to both papers for eons) you hired my least favorite editorial columnist, and to make matters even worse, dropped the only puzzle I would spend time on. It took a couple of weeks of protests (?) until you picked it up again.
    I have searched online, but have been unable to find a source where I can download them. You have two weeks to bring CC back again before we devotees storm the battlements!

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