Back in the early years of newspapers, publishers used comics to increase their circulations. If there was ever an example that cartoons could do that again for online newspaper, this would be a good case study. The New York Times reports that for the second straight month, Newsday’s web traffic has ranked into the top five of the most visited newspaper web sites – surpassing even the Wall Street Journal. The destination for their traffic? Walt Handelsman’s animated editorial cartoons, particularly his Baby Boomer cartoon “Bored, Tubby and Mild.”
“Showing his cartoons on the blog makes it a lot easier for users to share or send his cartoons around,” said Debby Krenek, managing editor at Newsday who oversees interactive efforts.
In addition to the increase in web traffic, the “Bored, Tubby and Mild” cartoon now has generated 3203 comments.