Empire of Ink and other weekend whatnots
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The history of newspapers! A Dick Tracy villain?
The History of American Newspapers
Here’s a book I’m looking forward to as much as a new history of comics. My interest in the history of newspapers grew out of my comic strip obsession.
When I was a wee tyke newspaper editor Frederic Hudson published his authoritive Journalism in the United States, from 1690 to 1872 in 1973. It would be another 50 years while I was still a youngster that I would get my hands on James Melvin Lee’s revised edition of History of American Journalism (1923).
A bit older it was nearly another 50 years when I got a “new and revised edition” of The Compact History of the American Newspaper (1969) by John Tebbel. And then another drought. Until now!
Yes we got histories of individual newspapers and other odds and ends but go look at the “70” and “71” section of your local library. It is a pitifully small group of books.
I am eager to get Empire of Ink: The Printers, Rogues, and Radicals Who Invented the American Newspaper.
In more contemporary newspaper news we have an update in the Washington Star v. NOTUS Star suit.
Scott Nover at The Washington Post is reporting (or here) a settlement has been reached:
NOTUS, a Washington-area news outlet, said on Thursday that it had settled a trademark infringement lawsuit with the Washington Star and will not change its name to the Star as it had planned. Instead, as a term of the deal, the outlet will pick a new name.
Robert Allbritton, NOTUS’s founder and publisher, is the son of Joe L. Allbritton, who owned the original Washington Star from 1974 to 1978.
Dovid Efune, publisher of the Washington Star, revived the publication as a newsletter on Substack in May after he purchased the trademark in 2024.
Dick Tracy’s Rogues Gallery
The brouhaha over The Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C. has spilled on to the funny pages. Or probably more accurately into Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy movie as the man behind the failed filtration system is being compared to a comic villain.
From Ahmed Austin, Jr. for Mediaite:
Social media roasted the looks of a top Trump donor after it was discovered his company received the contract for the botched Reflecting Pool renovation.
The Trump administration gave a no-bid contract for the project to Greenwater Services, an Ohio-based company. As noted in a report from Yahoo, the company’s owned by the J.J. Cafaro Investment Trust, which is led by John J. Cafaro.
A photo of Cafaro has been distributed and social media has been making some comparisons.
Sir this is a Dick Tracy villain
We’re looking at comic book level characters at this point.
Mr. Cafaro was also compared to Batman villains and a WWE character.
I cast him to play Big Boy or Stooge Viller.
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