Today’s edition is the last edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The Hearst paper closed after an unsuccessful attempt to find a buyer. The paper will continue online with a bare-bones staff in a format that has been described as a Huffington Post of mainstream media. While a couple of small papers have made the jump to electronic only, the P-I, with a circulation of 117,000, is the largest to do so.
David Horsey, their editorial cartoonist revealed last week that he is paid by Hearst and not the P-I, that he will be able to continue drawing.
UPDATE: Steve Greenberg, who used to work for the P-I, writes a farewell post on his blog.
The following comics ran in the Seattle P-I on the “Coffee Break” page as of its last edition (bylines are the ones printed by the P-I):
– Dilbert (Scott Adams)
– Secret Asian Man (Tak Toyoshima)
– 6 Chix (various)
– Lockhorns (Hoest & Reiner)
– F Minus (Tony Carrillo)
– Blondie (Dean Young & John Marshall)
– Hagar (Chris Browne)
– Stone Soup (Jan Eliot)
– Hi & Lois (Brian & Greg Walker)
– Jump Start (Robb Armstrong)
– Pardon My Planet (Vic Lee)
– Dennis The Menace (Hank Ketcham)
– Close to Home (John McPherson)
– 9 Chickweed Lane (Brooke McEldowney)
– Non Sequitur (Wiley Miller)
– Curtis (Ray Billingsley)
– Beetle Bailey (Mort, Greg, & Brian Walker)
– Mutts (Patrick McDonnell)
– Deflocked (Jeff Corriveau)
– The Knight Life (Keith Knight)
– Zits (Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman)
– Rhymes With Orange (Hilary Price)
– Pearls Before Swine (Stephan Pastis)
– Pooch Cafe (Paul Gilligan)
– Sherman’s Lagoon (Jim Toomey)
– Drabble (Kevin Fagan)
– Mother Goose & Grimm (Mike Peters)
– Retail (Norm Feuti)
– Red & Rover (Brian Bassett)
– Bizarro (Dan Piraro)
– Dinette Set (Julie Larson)
– The Pajama Diaries (Teri Libenson)
I’ll miss reading these comics over breakfast.
Sad news that all those comic strips will be cut Rob, but at least David Horsey gets to keep his job.
My father wanted me to become a pressman (like himself) rather than a cartoonist because it offered better job security, but it seems no newspaper related career is being spared during these tough times.
Again, looks like similar to Rocky Mountain News situation, but why is it not possible to run the comics/subset of the comics in some form in the online version? Contractual stuff or practical matters (formatting, processing, or COST)?
The Seattle Times picked up the following comics starting on Wed, Mar 19 (and didn’t drop any existing comics–they pushed the Jumble and some other content to the following page and added these comics):
– Dilbert
– Zits
– Blondie
– 9 Chickweed Lane
– Pearls Before Swine
On Thurs (Mar 20), the Seattle Times replaced “Adam @ Home” (written by Brian Basset, drawn by Rob Harrell) with “Red and Rover” (written and drawn by Brian Basset).
Basset was staff editorial cartoonist for the Seattle Times for 16 years. He was laid off in 1994 when the Seattle Times downsized.
Please don’t tell me that “Prince Valiant” will no longer be in the Sunday comics page. I have read that for over 60 years. I used to walk to a local market Sunday mornings in Napa, CA, and buy the San Francisco paper. Where do I find The Prince on the web?