Comics Lose an Advance Paper
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Newspaper readers in Jersey City, New Jersey are losing their local paper come February 1, 2025, and with that comes comic strip cartoonists losing a six-days-a-week (which is about as daily as they come in most places these days) outlet. Slice of Culture reported The Jersey Journal’s shuttering last year with the closing of its production facility in Montville, N.J., declining circulation of newspapers, rising costs and lower demand for physical print publications being the given reasons.
With the eminent loss of their newspaper The Journal has been advising readers where to get the newspaper features they will be missing (mostly subscribing to sister Advance Publications/Newhouse newspaper The Star-Ledger in nearby Newark or to their website). This past weekend they informed how to keep reading their favorite comics.
So where can you go for a daily chuckle after The Journal ends publication on Feb. 1? Here’s news that’s definitely worth a grin: Many of your favorite comic strips also appear every weekday in the online edition of The Star-Ledger.
Star-Ledger comics that run in The Journal include:
- “Beetle Bailey”
- “Blondie”
- “Crabgrass”
- “Frazz”
- “Hagar the Horrible”
- “Jump Start”
- “Momma”
- “Mother Goose & Grimm”
- “Over the Hedge”
- “Pearls Before Swine”
But the comics The Journal and The Star-Ledger have in common are only about a third of the comics carried on The Journal’s two tabloid pages, so they provide links to the rest of the lineup:
Unfortunately, for legal reasons, some comics that appear in The Journal are not also published in The Star-Ledger. Most of these comics have dedicated web pages and are available elsewhere online, including:
- “Baldo,” https://www.gocomics.com/baldo.
- “Big Nate,” https://www.gocomics.com/bignate.
- “Bizarro,” https://comicskingdom.com/bizarro.
- “Brewster Rockit,” https://www.gocomics.com/brewsterrockit.
- “Close to Home,” https://www.gocomics.com/closetohome.
- “Daddy’s Home,” https://www.gocomics.com/daddyshome.
- “For Better or For Worse,” https://www.gocomics.com/forbetterorforworse.
- “Garfield,” https://www.gocomics.com/garfield.
- “Get Fuzzy,” https://www.gocomics.com/getfuzzy,
- “Lio,” https://www.gocomics.com/lio.
- “Luann,” https://www.gocomics.com/luann.
- “Marmaduke,” https://www.gocomics.com/marmaduke.
- “Mutts,” https://mutts.com/.
- “One Big Happy,” https://www.gocomics.com/onebighappy.
- “Sherman’s Lagoon,” https://www.gocomics.com/shermanslagoon.
- “Zits,” https://comicskingdom.com/zits.
Adding a note about a recent comic strip in the news:
“Candorville,” a comic by the Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Darrin Bell, has been suspended by The Journal after Bell was arrested in California and charged with possession of child pornography, some of which allegedly was created using artificial intelligence. The comic’s future is uncertain.
The unfortunate fact that we like to point out is that comics posted on the internet pays a pittance to cartoonists compared to printed and published hard copy comics.
Staying with Newhouse’s Advance Media we travel 3,000 miles west to Oregon where The Oregonian is giving up on its 11 year experiment as a tabloid newspaper and is returning to the broadsheet format.
The Oregonian’s print editions return to the traditional broadsheet format this week. The newspaper that lands on doorsteps Wednesday will be more of a long rectangle than the squarish compact format we’ve used for the past decade.
The switch involves quite a bit of changes in layout of pages and positioning of features.
We will skip to the part relating to their comic strips:
We are not dropping any daily comics with the move to broadsheet, but the layouts will change due to the different page size. You might have to look around to find your favorites; some will move from print to the online newspaper.
“not dropping any daily comics” – just moving some from print to online.
On Sunday, between print and online, the paper will carry 40 of the most popular comics, including those with seven-day storylines. We will lose some of our current comics, although they will appear on OregonLive.com/comics/ or OregonLive.com/comics-kingdom/.
The Oregonian carries no continuity strips in their daily editions which are printed on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays. The Sunday comics include Prince Valiant and Mark Trail, at least did in July of 2024.
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