According to a CNN profile, Matt Groening’s “Life in Hell” is being dropped by its flagship paper, LA Weekly, after 22 years:
CNN: To the root of animation, cartooning: You’re still doing “Life in Hell,” correct?
Groening: Um, yes, but … well, I feel like the floodwaters are rising.
CNN: Really?
Groening: Yeah, the alternative newsweeklies are really struggling. In fact, this coming week will be my final week after 22 years in the LA Weekly. I and all the other cartoonists are being dismissed because they can’t afford to pay.
We’ll see. I’m still in a bunch of other papers, so I may continue to do my strip, but it doesn’t look good. Listen to Groening talk about the poor treatment of comics
CNN: Have you considered just doing it online?
Groening: Yes! Yes, I’m toying with that. But it’s very strange. I’ve been doing the weekly comic strip for 29 years, “The Simpsons” weekly for 20 years, the “Futurama” weekly for five years and then a little break and then the four movies, and then the “Simpsons” movie, … so I have a series of ongoing deadlines. So the idea of establishing a Web presence that I’ll have to feed on an ongoing basis doesn’t give me a lot of pep. (laughs) One more treadmill.
Sadly, it’s the sign of the times. More cuts by newspapers result in less reasons to pick it up. LA Weekly has been renamed LA Weakly.
“Life In Hell” is the only reason to read the L.A. Weekly, this is a stupid, stupid decision.
I first fell in love with Hell in the Phoenix NEW Times. I know he still has the Simpsons, but Sheez, what a low water mark in the decline of print media in America!