Thinning The Herd at GoComics

D. D. Degg August 24, 2020 1 minute 4 comments

As is my habit on Sundays I turn to Steve McGarry’s Biographic to check if the new page features Ray and Dave Davies and The Kinks. (A futile exercise that has habitually disappointed me for years.) Yesterday I was disappointed because there was no Biographic at the GoComics site. Looking around finds that other features have also gone missing:

First thing one notices is that none of the above features are comic strips as usually defined, though a couple would fit my definition of the term.
Second, as far as I know, all remain in syndication as none have been dropped from the Andrews McMeel Syndication list; yes, all the above are AMS features.
Thirdly all the features are being updated as per their regular schedule, about which later (well, Health Capsules hasn’t been updated for today, yet).

Diving deeper we find that GoComics has been cutting other comics from their website of 500(!) comics this month. Among the missing are formerly syndicated strips that were being rerun at Gocomics, these would be Clear Blue Water, Committed, Kit ‘n’ Carlyle, Meg Classics, The Sunshine Club, and That’s Life.

Also are a couple of webcomics: Alex Hallatt‘s Doodle Diary, that hasn’t been updated since I don’t know when, and Dude and Dude which ended August 13, 2020.

Then there are a few currently syndicated strips/panels that are no longer on the GoComics site: Fort Knox, Reply All, and Reply All Lite. As well as editorial cartoonists/caricaturists Tom Stiglich and Kerry Waghorn.

Now, about the comics and cartoons being updated … the GoComics service being syndicated to newspaper websites still carries all the above features (excepting Tom Stiglich and Doodle Diary). And all, except the discontinued Dude and Dude (and Health Capsules, so far), are being updated on their regular schedules.

Check them out at the Oregonian comics page on the web. Or the Florida Times-Union.

Comments ⁴

Alex Hallatt

I discontinued Doodle Diary to focus on some upcoming books. But thanks for missing me! ?

Brett Mount

I anxiously await updates on what has happened!

Some of those strips bemused me with their existence, but others I enjoyed.

Bill Dollar

I once checked to see if Oregonlive had any comics that weren’t also on Gocomics and found there were none, I think.
Well, now there are five I’ll want to check in on once a month, since thatbis how far back they keep them.

Thank you for the heads up.

More to come (go)? Why?

D. D. Degg (admin)

Bill – My guess is that 500 comics on a website was getting to
be more than could reasonably be controlled (only a guess).
The surprise for me is that what’s being dropped are syndicated features and not the web-only comics with few “followers.”

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