Tribune Media Services has quietly closed down their Comicspage.com service. The homepage now instructs visitors to read their favorite comics over on Universal Press Syndicate’s GoComics.com. They’ve also created Facebook groups pages for all their features.
No reason is offered for the abrupt change, but they are offering an email address for readers to sign up for updates regarding their comics and also another email address for readers to send comments regarding the change.
Hmm … Does this explain why they haven’t replied to submissions recently?
Recently? I’ve never gotten anything more than a xeroxed rejection letter from them, usually sent about a week after they received my packet. I stopped wasting postage money on them about a year ago.
As Flavor Flav would say…
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!
They shut down the Comicspage.com service!
They tell readers to go to OTHER sites to read comics,
are you kidding me!!!!!! TMS is lazy or stupid…..or both.
TMS is most likely going to stop syndicating cartoons.
They are going to a user content model.
TMS had a comics page?
TMS has never treated its comics line-up like it really mattered to them, always as an afterthought. Just further evidence of their mentality.
Well, historically Tribune treated its comics very well, especially back in the day when Publisher Joseph Patterson was working hand in hand with creators to develop the strips — which you would never see today. In the modern era of TMS, they have treated them a bit shabby. Of course, according to news reports, parts of TMS may be for sale, and you can bet the changes made in their web presence are most definitely cost-cutting measures. I wish King Features would bid for TMS comic properties, because while no syndicate today treats the comics like they once did, King seems to be the one syndicate that would actually know what to do with their classic properties (Tracy, Annie, Gasoline Alley, etc.).
A new itineration of the website is planned. There were problems transferring the strips over to the new site from the previous servers. A lot of changes are happening in every part of the Tribune company…who knows there might be a greater push for strips again…
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/departments/syndicates/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003826637
Quoting from comment above: “They are going to a user content model.”
Sigh. It’s true — heaven forbid they pay for any content. Letters to the editor become editorials, reader polls replace reviews. I’ll bet the next step is caption contests for clip art so readers can draw their own cartoons as well.
Man, TMS did not hire programmers/DB people to keep the site going? That was dumb. TMS should have just asked for the server. The hosting company could have shipped those boxes(servers or hard drives) to TMS and not missed a beat. Someone at TMS REALLY dropped the ball on this one. They should be fired for bringing down that site. Dumb.
“King seems to be the one syndicate that would actually know what to do with their classic properties (Tracy, Annie, Gasoline Alley, etc.).”
What they would do with “classic properties” is preserve their slots in newspapers at all costs, nothing more. Apart from selling any related swag, or the rights to make the properties into movies, it’s a case of “what we have we hold”.
Having said that, I do anticipate a merger of two syndicates pretty soon.