There are more dead men than living women in the funny pages

March 6, 2024 12:53 PM

Major newspapers restructure their comics pages and guess who's missing? The answer will probably not surprise you, but it's disheartening anyway.

A restructuring of comics pages for major newspapers nationwide cuts all strips by women cartoonists, except one*, For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston.

Post title paraphrased from Georgia Dunn, of the delightful Breaking Cat News (or rather, as she says, her daughter.)

I heard about this a week ago and can't stop thinking about it, which is how it's led to my very first FPP. (Hope I did it right.)

(*It's noted in the article that a couple of remaining strips have women contributing but not actually credited.)

posted by kittensyay (54 comments total)

damn that's gonna suck for my friend Dana, her strip Phoebe and her Unicorn isn't in a single one of those papers any more.
posted by egypturnash at 1:00 PM on March 6 [14 favorites]

FBofW ended how long ago now? It's in sort-of-period-updated reruns. How gd depressing.
posted by dismas at 1:13 PM on March 6 [10 favorites]

Phoebe is to my daughter what Calvin and Hobbes was to me, but I don't think I realized it was in the paper (she reads the collections). That's a real shame for people who did read it that way though.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:13 PM on March 6 [7 favorites]

Wow. I am really dismayed. That's terrible.

The Daily Cartoonist report by D. D. Degg is really well done - thorough and clear.

I did not know Sally Forth was produced by men.

I read For Better or For Worse a lot for many years but couldn't manage to remember any of the characters just now; it was blurring in my mind with Sally Forth.

egypturnash, I'm so sorry for Dana, and for all of us who love her work - Phoebe is one of the few current strips I enjoy.

I was just thinking about the massive difficulties with streaming video services today, how they're not working well for ANYONE - creators, viewers, funders - and wishing there were some way creators could build a service of their own that worked better for everyone.

I wish there were a good way for comics artists to build their own syndication service, or to find another avenue that works well to get their work in front of millions of people in a way that works well for everyone.


I'm sorry this is happening, but I'm glad to get such a well-reported glimpse into the new state of affairs.

This is a great post, kittensyay - you did a terrific job, and I appreciate it! Thank you for sharing this with us.

(By the way, for anyone who might like to explore some comics online, I posted an AskMe last year asking about good comics.)
posted by kristi at 1:14 PM on March 6 [7 favorites]

I wish there were a good way for comics artists to build their own syndication service,

They have: Patreon and TinyView. Yet the people in charge seem to think that newspapers still run the world.
posted by Melismata at 1:22 PM on March 6 [1 favorite]

egypturnash, please let your friend Dana know that my daughters are HUGE fans.
posted by saladin at 1:27 PM on March 6 [11 favorites]

Last time I read the newspaper comics page was in the 80s, when Calvin and Hobbes and whatever Bloom County turned into were still in it. There were a few other relatively contemporary comics creators at that time, I don't recall which by now, but I ignored most of them because I didn't think they were very funny. The rest were all repeats of old strips or ones that were being written (poorly) by someone other than the original creators, who were long gone. I stopped reading the comics page entirely after Watterson and Breathed quit, and didn't start following comics again until I started finding good ones online in the early 00's.

To be honest I'm surprised the newspaper comics page still exists at all - though this ridiculous maneuver may be its final (and deserved) death knell.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:35 PM on March 6 [5 favorites]

I've been following comics on Reddit, and while it's been mostly self referential humor for the past couple of weeks, there are a couple of stand outs. Pizza Cake has amusing gag comics, and Hollering Elk does interesting horror comics.
posted by Spike Glee at 1:36 PM on March 6 [1 favorite]

"For Better or Worse" was really fresh and delightful when it was first being written - and when the children were allowed to grow up and change. But it really is a zombie comic now.

But then again, I am not a good audience for newspaper comics. I have always preferred collections or webcomics, because they lend themselves to more complex story telling as well as per-strip reading.
posted by jb at 1:43 PM on March 6 [3 favorites]

this is an excellent post, depressing but informative. well done!
posted by chavenet at 1:44 PM on March 6 [2 favorites]

I see the Nancy logo on that page, but no mention of the strip. Was that carried broadly before and now cut? It's been actually pretty good after Olivia Jaimes took over (well, for a daily newspaper strip, anyway).
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:25 PM on March 6 [4 favorites]

Aw man. Phoebe and her Unicorn Is great. A new book of that coming out used to be a real event for my kids when they were smaller.
posted by Artw at 2:27 PM on March 6

Newspaper publishers: Please stop calling us irrelevant and dated!

Also newspaper publishers: Please enjoy these comic strips drawn by white men, largely in the 1980's and earlier.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:31 PM on March 6 [26 favorites]

Add my older son to the list of kids who love Phoebe and her Unicorn. I don't think he's ever seen a comic strip printed in a newspaper, though.
posted by phooky at 2:34 PM on March 6 [2 favorites]

In New York, the Daily News continues to run a one-panel strip each day called Between the Lines that is the single dumbest thing I've ever seen on a comics page. The paper is the only one running it, and I have to believe the artist has something on someone. I work with a number of Daily News alums, and none of them have any idea who signed off on it or why it runs...
posted by AJaffe at 2:38 PM on March 6 [2 favorites]

I just checked my local paper (via Advance), which just redid its page a few months ago. And while we do have Phoebe and Her Unicorn, that is the only strip by a woman on our page, out of 16.

If I’d known that the redesign was coming i would have written in to offer support for the new Nancy, which is a great strip. But now I may write the editors anyway.

(I will defend current Wizard of Id, though, which while not as great as Nancy does actually seem to be doing interesting things. It certainly makes me laugh occasionally, which is more than can be said of most of the other passed-down strips.)
posted by thecaddy at 2:40 PM on March 6 [1 favorite]

I feel like the issue is even worse than the article says. Frank & Ernest? The Born Loser? Blondie? Not only are these created by men, they're also ancient! Blondie was created in 1930. And why do they continue today? Does anyone in 2024 care about Ziggy?

I predict it's only a matter of time where human beings get pushed out of the production of some legacy comic strips entirely, in favor of some kind of "AI"-driven content generation. That seems inevitable at this point.
posted by JHarris at 2:41 PM on March 6 [4 favorites]

Here in Australia

https://www.cartoonists.org.au/blog/2023/08/17/nine

"The Australian Cartoonists Association notes with disappointment that the Nine newspapers (including The Age, the Sunday Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Sun-Herald) are ceasing to publish regular comic strips next week. It follows similar decisions by News Corp and Australian Community Media last year."

So basically - gone.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 2:55 PM on March 6 [1 favorite]

This is terrible news, but a valuable and interesting post. Good going, kittensyay!
posted by cupcakeninja at 3:13 PM on March 6 [2 favorites]

Resisting the urge to jokingly respond with "Aack!" because Cathy was always pretty lame. It was less lame than many of the other strips it ran against but not because it was fresh or good.

Fresh or good don't get very far in the world of strip syndication. There are some good strips out there but they have a hard time displacing archaic relics with a death-grip on the comics page.
posted by Nerd of the North at 3:27 PM on March 6 [1 favorite]

Mr. eirias and I were really disheartened to see this redesign. It really is like DirtyOldTown says, it is like they are saying the quiet part out loud and that quiet part is “our median subscriber age is 107.” I’m grateful that web comics still feel vibrant (though, uh, I guess I’m not as young as I used to be when they were new, either).

Also, count Little eirias in the big pile of Phoebe fans. I still remember bingeing on Ozy & Millie, and it was the most wonderful feeling to see Dana’s work in my local Target.
posted by eirias at 3:27 PM on March 6 [5 favorites]

The comics pages of most major dead tree newspapers are full of fossils. I remember my local hometown newspaper, which had a very conservative reader base, polling its readers sometime in the 1980s about what they liked in the comics pages. Most of it was grumbling from right-wingers who wanted Doonesbury nuked from orbit (despite it being relegated to the op-ed pages), but the most memorable comment for me was this little old lady who said, "I stopped reading Life With Father in 1938. It wasn't funny then & it sure as Hell isn't funny now." Prepubescent just laughed my ass off when I read that.
posted by jonp72 at 3:33 PM on March 6 [5 favorites]

Blondie was created in 1930.

Mostly forgotten now, but it was also a series of movies. I know someone who complains that like every month, there’s another Star Wars movie (eleven in nearly fifty years) yet who gets cranky if I point out there were twenty-five Blondie movies between 1938 and 1950.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:06 PM on March 6 [18 favorites]

Comics pages have been in a slow death spiral ever since the great enshrinkening began decades ago. I’m honestly surprised so many papers still have a comics page.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:08 PM on March 6

I have an online only subscription to my local newspaper and checking now it looks like it has a lot of comics but I've never felt the need to read them. If I actually had a paper newspaper I'd probably give them a try but with online I just don't feel the need for whatever reason.

I've got the first few volumes of the complete Peanuts and my kids, especially my younger one, read them quite often but I don't think they'll ever get the context that these were appearing as daily strips in newspapers, or really what newspapers were and how central they were to informing people and shaping discourse. The past really is a foreign country.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:10 PM on March 6 [5 favorites]

Who needs viagra, knee replacements, or rogaine? I've got the newspaper comics page to keep me feeling young.
posted by Sauce Trough at 4:24 PM on March 6 [2 favorites]

Add my older son to the list of kids who love Phoebe and her Unicorn. I don't think he's ever seen a comic strip printed in a newspaper, though.

May I ask how the young folk find these things, these days?
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:34 PM on March 6 [1 favorite]

Resisting the urge to jokingly respond with "Aack!" because Cathy was always pretty lame. It was less lame than many of the other strips it ran against but not because it was fresh or good.

You might find the podcast Aack Cast by Jamie Loftus interesting. It didn’t make me like Cathy better, but it made me respect Cathy Guisewite more and think a bit more deeply about newspaper comics.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:38 PM on March 6 [9 favorites]

So is the cool new Flash Gordon seeing print at all?
posted by Artw at 5:02 PM on March 6 [3 favorites]

Metafilter: Whatever Bloom County turned into
posted by New Frontier at 5:11 PM on March 6 [9 favorites]

I stopped reading comics years ago when they all started feeling like zombie comics/"new-runs." Only some of them are officially like that, like FBOFW. There's no funnies in the funnies and it's depressing that both possibly good comic strips and political comics have become financially dead ends, like so many other damn things.

(Don't even get me started about Lynn Johnston's creator breakdown and the character assassination of all of Elizabeth's boyfriends but Granthony, who turned into a total wanker and yet her only choice left. I hate-read that comic the last few years.)
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:12 PM on March 6 [5 favorites]

I’m honestly surprised so many papers still have a comics page.

I’m not in the journalism biz anymore, but my understanding from people who still are is that newspapers can cut their local news, their international news, and their op-eds down to basically nothing and there are few complaints. If there is any hint of cutting the comics, the horoscopes, the Jumble, or the bridge column, there is a mighty expression of fury and rage from the readers.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:43 PM on March 6 [2 favorites]

jenfullmoon: (Don't even get me started about Lynn Johnston's creator breakdown and the character assassination of all of Elizabeth's boyfriends but Granthony, who turned into a total wanker and yet her only choice left. I hate-read that comic the last few years.)

Comics Curmudgeon always called him Blandthony and I can’t seem to call him anything else.
posted by dr_dank at 5:48 PM on March 6 [3 favorites]

Tfp, there are something like seventeen collections of Phoebe and her unicorn books published, I imagine most libraries have at least one.


gocomics has the strips as well.

I actually first saw it in the only newspaper I've picked up in several years. And of course word of mouth.
posted by Jacen at 6:04 PM on March 6 [3 favorites]

Cathy is a great comic for what it was trying to do and I'm not going to tolerate any arguments otherwise.

Brenda Starr, Reporter had a good long run (started in 1940 and ended in 2011!) and was only ever written and drawn by women.

I used to work at a daily paper more than 20 years ago and we used to dazzle the kid tours with the next day's comics page. I doubt that's the case anymore.
posted by edencosmic at 6:12 PM on March 6 [12 favorites]

So many of these comics were already woefully outdated when I was a kid in the early 80s. It’s pretty astounding that so many are still around. I hope there are still eight year olds eating cereal and wondering what the fuck is supposed to be funny about Andy Capp.
posted by snofoam at 6:26 PM on March 6 [11 favorites]

The people who liked those comics who are still alive are still...old in a way where this content resonates with them. Ie, the generational reference hasn't changed, so they're still connected to this stuff. They're also the key demographic for print that's left. So, even from a marketing standpoint, it kinda makes sense.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 7:03 PM on March 6

I'd be more offended if there was an audience for this format outside the nursing home. Of course they're all stale old comics by men, the only people who read them were well into adulthood before women could divorce and get credit in their own names.
posted by kingdead at 7:06 PM on March 6

We still get a daily paper delivered, and both my kids read the comics page over breakfast every day. I think it is less that only old people care about newspaper comics and more that very few people still get a daily paper.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:29 PM on March 6 [3 favorites]

There are about 100 houses in my neighborhood. Three people get the local Gannett paper, which is mostly reprints of USA Today. They're all over 80 years old. It's still a dick move but if their overall customer base resembles my neighborhood you can imagine they figured it just made sense.
posted by tommasz at 4:10 AM on March 7

Tfp, there are something like seventeen collections of Phoebe and her unicorn books published, I imagine most libraries have at least one.

No idea what "TFP" means, I googled and everything. I have never heard of Phoebe so I was curious. It's not really a given a kid these days find a book in a library either but I sure hope so.
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:59 AM on March 7

Someone who's an actual librarian will have to back me up on the details, but graphic novels/manga are wildly popular with kids and they're also popular with parents as a way to get kids to read, so if there's at all a decent kids' collection of books at the local library they'll come into contact with comic strip collections. Phoebe and Her Unicorn is basically the girls' equivalent of those Dog Man and Captain Underpants books, it'll be fine.
posted by kingdead at 5:08 AM on March 7 [3 favorites]

It'll be fine? I'm lost as to what people think I'm implying or asking here.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:28 AM on March 7

No idea what "TFP" means, I googled and everything.

I sincerely can't tell if this is just an oblique way of asking people not to abbreviate your username, but I'm pretty sure they meant "tiny frying pan"?
posted by jacquilynne at 6:09 AM on March 7 [5 favorites]

I get the daily paper (my kid is reading the comics as we speak) and I wonder if it's deliberate that nobody has mentioned Wumo, the worst comic ever made. I've written to my paper asking them to drop it and I think they did for a while, but it's back. I swear, I would rather have Andy Capp, or Nancy during its religious era, than this.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:45 AM on March 7

Georgia Dunn's Breaking Cat News is cute. The art is lovely (watercolors). The longer stories are not for me but I would sure as shit rather have BCN and Phoebe and her Unicorn in newspapers than gag-a-day strips that have been running for a century or whose creators have been dead for decades.
posted by dismas at 7:33 AM on March 7 [7 favorites]

(aside, although not all written by by women, if you are interested in other good strips still being published, only some mentioned in the thread:
-- I like New Nancy pretty well
-- Will Henry's Wallace the Brave I think is my favorite strip being written and published right now. It has a lot of the imaginative elements of Calvin and Hobbes but is much gentler (This is not intended as a criticism of C&H, for the record). I would happily share it with a kid who was starting out on comics, alongside Phoebe and BCN. Also, like BCN and Phoebe, the art is good and not lazy!

A few zombie serials that have good current iterations:
-- The new Flash Gordon is...weirdly good? Like, I don't care at ALL about Flash Gordon but it's fun
-- Prince Valiant is still good. Like, I know we all bounced off it as kids. We were fools.
-- Gil Thorp is strangely good now, mostly because it doesn't fall into the trap that other soap strips do of dragging out a single story thread for eight months (looking at you, Mary Worth)
posted by dismas at 7:42 AM on March 7 [3 favorites]

This is not the first time, and I'm certain not the last, that I'm missing oneswellfoop's comforting presence in a thread.
posted by JHarris at 8:52 AM on March 7 [2 favorites]

Cathy is a great comic for what it was trying to do and I'm not going to tolerate any arguments otherwise.

Cathy was one of the victims of the early internet's tendency to pick easy targets and mock them mercilessly, as it hadn't been fully realized by as many people that not everything had to be for them personally, and many of those early net users were aggrieved young men. See also: Barney, Twilight. That, and peer pressure, resulting in a whole lot of misplaced hating. I miss a lot of things about the early internet and web, but I don't miss that.
posted by JHarris at 8:57 AM on March 7 [4 favorites]

> Georgia Dunn's Breaking Cat News is cute. The art is lovely (watercolors).

I read it daily in the paper and am a big Lupin fan but it's definitely harder to comprehend in black and white.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:12 AM on March 7 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I read it online. I imagine it the art doesn’t read quite as well in newsprint.
posted by dismas at 10:07 AM on March 7 [1 favorite]

I hope I didn't miss this in an earlier comment.
Georgia Dunn just did an interview with Glenn Fleishman. Talk about syndication and women cartoonists in newspapers starts at 1:02:55.
posted by the_dreamwriter at 12:25 PM on March 7 [2 favorites]

tiny frying pan: For what it's worth, most of the comics I read (semi-)regularly I initially found on social media. Comics are as easy and common to post as memes, I find, and unless someone's been an asshole and cut off the credit, they usually have a URL or at least a comic name so you can find more. I'm not a kid, though.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:46 PM on March 7 [1 favorite]

I am archaic enough to still read the newspaper every day, and the comics are my favorite part, there I said it and I meant it. Just a few weeks ago my newspaper sent out a notice that they were changing up some of the cartoons, naming the ones they kept, the ones they cut, and the ones coming in. One of my favorites, "Curtis" was cut in favor of... Ziggy and Marmaduke. Ziggy and Marmaduke. I didn't find them funny decades ago and I don't find them funny now. I'm trying to get into reading comics online, but I just can't yet.
posted by annieb at 5:56 PM on March 7 [3 favorites]