I don’t know what’s dumber: the idea that kids still read the comics pages, the notion that this week’s Doonesbury is edgy or vulgar, or the belief that putting the strip in your online edition somehow absolves a newspaper of the responsibility of “printing” it.
What I do know is that an industry that treats their online edition the way a dog treats a favorite pooping spot isn’t taking the Internet seriously and will die because of it.
Poopyman
Feature, not a bug.
dmsilev
Doonesbury this week is only vulgar in the sense that it’s an accurate depiction of an incredibly vulgar situation.
In other words, better news coverage than what you would find in the alleged “news” section of many papers.
losgatosca
The mission of the press is to . . . . . surely some one must know.
dr. bloor
This. The notion that my kid is more likely to open a newspaper than he’s going to stumble upon this strip on line (which is A-OK w/me, btw) is laughably naive or disingenuous. The utter absence of critical thinking skills amongst media types never ceases to amaze me.
Schlemizel
@dmsilev:
BINGO!
If Doonesbury is vulgar then they really need to call out the GOP wingnuts that are push this vulgarity in their legislation.
LittlePig
Ah, the ‘What About The Children?’ gambit. A classic.
George Carlin had the right answer to that one.
Cermet
In the time of the overlords – also known as the entitled pricks of the 1% – the only way truth can be printed for the masses is when carefully wrapped in humor.
cathyx
My 13 year old never understands the Doonesbury comic when she reads it. I suspect most kids don’t. And because of that I’m not sure she bothers to read it any more. I quit reading Prince Valient when I was a kid because it was never funny.
Linda Featheringill
@cathyx:
Is the Prince still around?
I enjoyed the stories for a while but guess I outgrew that phase. Fun while it lasted, though.
And yes, this was a few million years ago.
dmsilev
@Linda Featheringill: Yeah, Prince Valiant is still around. A lot of the serial comic strips are still running, albeit at fewer and fewer newspapers. Brenda Starr shut down for good a couple of years back, but that’s the only one that comes to mind in recent years. Hell, Dick Tracy just recently got an entirely new art/writing team and is actually interesting now.
cathyx
@Linda Featheringill: I doubt it’s still there, but my main point is that even if kids read Doonesbury, they don’t understand most of it. If they do understand it, then they’re not too young to get the message.
John M. Burt
Trudeau ought to have a stash of bunny strips.
Comrade Javamanphil
@dr. bloor: They aren’t interested in keeping the strip from the eyes of the kids. The are interested in keeping the strip from the eyes of the old people who worry a great deal about “the kids today.” Generational concern trolling is all this is.
dmsilev
Speaking of dying media forms, this has got to be the most pathetic headline of the week: “New Internet TV Network to Feature Larry King”.
(Link)
Schlemizel
@dmsilev:
Sadly, almost all of there dreadful old strips are still running somewhere. One thing that can make them funny is reading them at the comic curmudgeon (joshreads.com)
She skewers them very nicely & even has a weekly comment contest.
dporpentine
As Comrade Javamanphil already noted: they say “kids” but they mean “old people”–i.e., the people who still get print newspapers and complain their heads off about what’s in there.
Lee
Obligatory
Mister Papercut
I have it! Paywalls! [/print media company execs]
Bridgier
@Schlemizel: Wait, Josh is a she? So confused…
Paul in KY
@cathyx: Do you try to explain it to her or is it just a waste of time (have to give character’s backstory, talk about issues, etc)?
SBJules
The L.A. Times put it on the editorial page. Old women, & I’m one are worried about the erosion of women’s rights if the Republicans win. Who do you think supports Planned Parenthood? We do.
middlewest
Thank god they’ve moved the strips to the obscurity of the internet. No one will find them there.
Cermet
Considering Tarzan is still running I guess anything can.
Terry
The old farts who read only print won’t see it; and won’t complain. D’oh!
Terry
@Comrade Javamanphil: This.
Dan
@Poopyman:
I don’t follow you.
ThresherK
“B-b-b-but it’s online” is a wonderful affront to the people who don’t use smartphones. (And I mean smartphones! not clunky old desktops.)
Tweak that group and we get “people who won’t spend money on a smartphone”, a nearly-invisible group in advertising or the media. I guess those papers are just trying to scrub the last few folks who’ll pay for the dead tree edition away.
Jay C
@Schlemizel:
Umm, Schlemizel: the warped genius behind The Comics Curmudgeon is Josh Fruhlinger: who is, AFACBD, a guy.
While his site (like his subject) can get a bit repetitious over months/years, it’s still worth the occasional look-in.
But yeah, comics can live on WAY past their sell-by dates (“Gasoline Alley”, frex. was first published in 1918) Garry Trudeau, at least, makes some sort of attempt to keep his strip vaguely relevant. A few years ago, Josh F. once reprinted a page of daily comics from 1958: astonishingly, something like 40% of them were still being run….
Cris (without an H)
I’m please to see Doonesbury taking on this subject and not pulling any punches, but as somebody who hates Mallard Fillmore with a passion, I’m sympathetic to the “keep politics out of the comic section” attitude. (Some papers run Mallard Fillmore and Doonesbury on the editorials page, which is a perfect solution in my opinion.)
@Schlemizel: the Comics Curmudgeon is the only thing keeping me reading daily strips. I hadn’t looked at The Family Circus or FBOW or any of those in years before Josh came along.
moonbat
What I find hilarious about this is that if they had just run the damn strip relatively few people would have known about it, except for those who regularly read Trudeau (I am not one of them). But now that they have gone to all the trouble of “burying” it on the internet or banning it from their pages a whole lot more people are now going to hunt it down to see what the fuss is all about. Banning something is the first step to making it go viral even in the days before the internet. Don Wildmon’s banning/boycotting of “The Last Temptation of Christ” made that movie a success.
Ken
@losgatosca: The mission of the press is to . . . . . surely some one must know.
To deliver advertisements to an audience. The content is a way to attract enough of an audience to interest the advertisers. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably also surprised by the slow and agonizing death of print newspapers.
Dan
@Cris (without an H):
Mallard Filmore’s problem isn’t the politics. It’s that it’s horribly unfunny and poorly drawn. Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie was unapoligetically right wing, but it’s a masterpiece.
shortstop
@dporpentine: And constantly write snail mail letters rumbling about “canceling their subscriptions,” believing that this is a dire financial threat.
muddy
@Dan: They put Doonesbury in the editorial section, so they had to add Mallard Fillmore for “balance”. Sadly the quantity and quality of humor is not balanced, but then one seldom finds actual humor amongst conservatives, whether they be cartoonists, pundits or rabble.
rlrr
I bet many of the papers refusing to run Doonesbury are still running the criminally unfunny Mallard Fillmore….-+
rlrr
@Dan:
Apparently somebody once put forth a convincing argument that Atlas Shrugged plagiarized a Little Orphan Annie story line.
cwlbud
My 13, 11, and 9 year old kids go straight for the “funnies” whenever there’s a paper around. Mind you that’s only when we’re enjoying a weekend breakfast at a local diner or at Grandma’s. I don’t think they even have access to print media at their school library. Comics are great for pithy insight and anyone who is afraid of them has something to hide.
cwlbud
My 13, 11, and 9 year old kids go straight for the “funnies” whenever there’s a paper around. Mind you that’s only when we’re enjoying a weekend breakfast at a local diner or at Grandma’s. I don’t think they even have access to print media at their school library. Comics are great for pithy insight and anyone who is afraid of them has something to hide.
redshirt
My sarcastic, ironic enjoyment of “The Family Circus” has strangely somehow turned to sincere enjoyment. I’m not sure what’s happened.
Ziggy too!
muddy
@redshirt: Advancing senility?
trollhattan
@rlrr:
“Apparently somebody once put forth a convincing argument that Atlas Shrugged plagiarized a Little Orphan Annie story line.”
The clue was a chapter titled, “Little Orphan Aynie.”
trollhattan
@redshirt:
Assume you’re familar with The Nietzsche Family Circus?
http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/
Chet
@JayC: We got “Gasoline Alley” in the Detroit Free Press when I was growing up in the ’80s, and I remember actually kind of enjoying it…at least in part, I think, precisely because it was sort of nifty to realize it was something that had actually been around in my great-grandparents’ day.
It’s probably been 20 years since the Freep dropped it, and I can’t believe that it’s still around. Walt Wallet’s got to be, what, 120 years old by now?
bjacques
@Chet:
“Skizziks” spelled backwards is “Skizziks!”
One good thing about daily strips hanging on for decades is that the parodies of them in the old MAD comics (or paperback collections, or HELP, for that matter) are even better when you know what they’re lampooning.
“Starchie” is still one of my favorites.