Media Bistro is reporting that the L.A. Times has dropped Home and Away and Brewser Rocket and used the space for more advertising.
The LAT Reader?s Representative put a positive spin on things, letting readers know that the Newspaper?s website now features an assortment of comics previously only available in the print edition. So if you comic strip lovers have the interwebs, you?ve nothing to complain about.
Earlier in the month, two to other comics were dropped. Cathy (whose creator Cathey Guisewite retired), and Rex Morgan, MD
Could the Los Angeles Times drop Classic Peanuts next? That would leave a newspaper in a U.S. major city with Peanuts or Garfield in any L.A. newspaper!
I meant Los Angeles with Peanuts or Garfield in a major newspaper! The other city I know that doesn’t carry Peanuts or Garfield in their newspaper is Montreal, Quebec, Canada (home of the Montreal Gazette).
Yeah, why would people want to read a friendly comic when they can read another boring ad?
Hey, if they sell the space, more power to them. But if it turns into a house ad begging advertisers to advertise there, well, now what have you gained?
But it’s wise for a newspaper to point out to readers that there’s more interesting stuff available on the web.
Next, Burger King will put a message up on their signboard, “Have it your way — cook at home tonight!”
Oooh! I love reading the ads! It’s the only reason I buy the paper anymore! *sarcasm*
This is why I went from a daily subscription to Sunday-only. As soon as I could find all my comics online I had no need for the rest of the days. (We still need the coupons, though.)
The Times initially used a former-comics space for a big honkin’ house ad. Then they shrank the paper’s width to save money and used the now-extra-vertical space to run a daily ad for an auto body shop; that ad incorporated a tiny, amateurish gag cartoon too small to read easily. Now, the space for four comics is occupied by wide entertainment-related ads.
They keep giving readers fewer and fewer reasons to pick up their newspaper, and it shows: the Times, which once boasted a million-plus daily circulation, is barely above 600,000.
The L.A. Times comics section makes me sick.
The strips are printed so tiny that one needs a
microscope to read them….the whole mess is an
INSULT to cartoonists and their fans. I’ve grown up with
the L.A. Times, for better or worse, and it’s been painful
to watch the Comics section deteriorate in this way.
That section used to cheer me up. Now, not as much.
Personally my main concern is newspapers without Peanuts and Dennis the Menace. Two of my favorites. Both are well older than Garfield (I’m 30 BTW). I have the St. Petersburg Times which still has both comics. The Tampa Tribune only ran Dennis on Sundays until they cut Dennis in 1997. The Tribune dropped Peanuts in 2005. Garfield is in both the Times and Tribune. The St. Pete Times has Garfield in black and white while the Tampa Tribune has Garfield in color.
While this was never brought up, both the Times and Tribune still run “For Better or For Worse” which has been mostly recycled the last two years. Assume the LA Times still has Better or Worse?
BTW on a technicality, the New York Daily News cancelled Peanuts a few years ago. They never ran Garfield which belongs to the NY Post.