40 Years of The Santa Cruz Comic News

September 12, 1984: The first issue of The Santa Cruz Comic News is published. In a rare moment of clarity, founder Thom Zajac had come up with the idea of using only syndicated material — primarily editorial cartoons — to create the first newspaper of its kind, and it becomes an instant hit. Over the course of the next ten years, The Santa Cruz Comic News will inspire the creation of over 100 “comic newspapers,” including The Manhattan Comic News, The Eugene Comic News, Funny Times, The Moscow Comic News, Arcata’s Comic Relief, The Boston Comic News, The No Joke News (Chico), The Oslo Comic News, The Tucson Comic News, The Boulder Comic News, Charlotte’s Comic Review, Sacramento’s Comic Press News [now Humor Times], The Amherst Comic News, and The Tokyo Comic News.

We are two months late in celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Comic News, our only excuse is that we just learned of the commemorative jubilee from the reporting of Good Times who were also two months tardy.

On April Fools Day, 1984, not-yet-a-denizen Thom Zajac was driving over Highway 17 toward Santa Cruz, when he had an epiphany.

“I was a fan of editorial cartoons,” says Zajac from his home in Bonny Doon. Zajac had just looked at an entire book of editorial cartoons, and his mind began racing as he navigated the serpentine mountains. “I knew if I could put the editorial cartoons in a chronological order, that they would tell a story,” Zajac said. And thus, the inception of the idea for The Comic News was born.

Zajac found out that Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonists were available to print, cheaply.

With a little tweaking…

… co-editor John Govsky showed up at the right time and ushered The Comic News into the digital world. Without Govsky dragging Zajac into the future, The Comic News would have been a footnote in Santa Cruz’ publication history.

and

… sometimes, something happens that the smart businessman seizes on. And in this case it happened to be an absurdist cartoonist named Gary Larson who changed everything for The Comic News.

“Distribution was down,” Zajac says. “Turns out there are a lot of people that are not that interested in editorial cartoons.”  By printing a month’s worth of The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County, readers were able to binge-read their favorite characters, and it was a boom time for The Comic News.

… The Santa Cruz Comic Times has survived 40 years as a cartoon newspaper. Congratulations!

The Comic News touts itself as “a monthly journal of progressive editorial cartoons,” but scroll down and a look at the publication’s contributors belie that as a number of conservative cartoonists appear on that list.

Maybe there are issues that both sides can agree on?

They are willing to send a free issue of the print edition for the asking.