From funny pages to web pages

As a recession, shrinking subscriptions and declining ad revenues combine to deal an economic blow to newspapers, news outlets are scrambling for cost-cutting measures in their print editions.

One popular method of increasing the bottom-line – among publishers, if not readers – is cutting back on or eliminating comics from the print edition of newspapers.

Washington D.C.'s alt-weekly City Paper has done away with all but one strip. The Portland Oregonian had to scrap plans to cut their comics page by up to a third of its size after receiving thousands of reader complaints.

And last month, when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer switched to an online-only format, the paper's staff shrunk from 170 to about 40. The comics section fared much better – the print version of the paper had 32 black-and-white strips; P-I's Web site has 55, all in full-color.

The transition from print comics to the Web is an uncertain one. Comics fans are no longer dependent on their local newspaper, and are able to read their favorite syndicated strips online, follow strips that a local newspaper has dropped.

Syndicated comics are facing new competition in a new medium from cartoonists of web-only comics that operate at little to no profit.

"I think there's a temptation to cut comics because it costs papers in a very concrete way without having a measurable result," said Josh Fruhlinger, the writer of the award-winning Comics Curmudgeon blog. "But that's emblematic of the problem with newspapers in general; It's harder to put out a good product when you're cutting content."

Fruhlinger, a subscriber to The Baltimore Sun, began writing his blog commentating on daily comics in 2004, inspired by the Sun's three full-page comics section.

As the paper's comics shrank, Fruhlinger kept in touch with the disappearing strips online. Like many readers, he switched to only reading comics online three years ago.

But as readers choose an online format more frequently, comic artists are feeling the impact. Smaller comics sections and online readership has combined to deal a blow that makes it difficult for some comic artists to keep their strips alive.

Max Cannon, author of the alt-weekly comic strip Red Meat for the last 20 years, summed up the difficulties many cartoonists face in a Jan. 28 note to his Web site's readers.

"The stark reality is that, very soon, there won't be any of your current favorite alternative comic strips for you to read at all – not even online," Cannon wrote. "Here's why: none of us make our living from our Web sites."

While established artists are feeling the pinch, the Web is providing a unique, albeit unprofitable, opportunity for artists to break into the field.

"Webcomics are drawing out a younger talent who don't have syndicated deals," said Fruhlinger.

"It used to be that if you wanted people to see your comic you would just show it to your friends or leave photocopies in a coffee shop," he said. "Now you can have a few hundred or a few thousand people seeing your work. You can have a huge audience."

Francesco Marciuliano, the writer of the syndicated comic strip Sally Forth, sees a web presence as a valuable asset to new and experienced comic artists.

"Webcomics are about building a loyal fan base where the artist is available to the readers," Marciuliano said. "For some people, webcomics can serve as a means to getting a syndicated comic, but even if syndicates are aware of it, that doesn't mean they can use it."

Marciuliano said that webcomics are a way to publish works that just wouldn't work in a newspaper. Medium Large, Marciuliano's own webcomic, started as a comic that was rejected by syndicates.

"The strip started out as a character talking to his appliances who talked back to him, and everyone passed," Marciuliano said of the strips first incarnation. "It was like Best Buy catalog written by Gabriel García Márquez."

Although Marciuliano makes no money off of Medium Large, he has found it attracts some readers to Sally Forth. He is also exploring merchandising opportunities or independently publishing a collection of the comics.

It is not clear whether newspapers will continue to be a primary source for comics, whatever form they take in the future. Some artists suggest that papers are already obsolete to their field.

"If, indeed, the humble $10 to $20 that I generally get paid for a Red Meat strip is going to bring the whole operation tumbling down, then the alt-weekly industry is already dead on its feet – it just hasn't fallen over into the dirt yet," Cannon wrote on his Web site.

Ben Tinsley, a Fort Worth area journalist who was recently laid off from a newspaper, has a similarly bleak view of the industry.

"Newspapers are done with, dude," said Tinsley. "I think comics are always going to be safe, but I don't think newspapers are."

Tinsley, a comic book writer and publisher, started Wham Bang Comics, a small publisher, with his 14-year-old son Jake, one of the country's youngest published comic book artists. He started it as means to publish Jake's comic book series about a superhero named Night Owl.

Ben Tinsley said that the internet has changed the way comic artists and writers have to work. The comic briefly ran in a newspaper where Ben worked, but he abandoned the idea when readers weren't receptive.

"The field is just so crowded you have to find new ways of introducing yourself," Ben said. "With any kind of art these days, you have to be working on Facebook, Twitter, even TV. You almost have to go national before you go local."

The days of breaking into a national audience via newspapers may be gone, but the internet allows artists the choice to pursue a target audience.

"It used to be that you could know that everyone in the country or the city was reading the same comic," said Fruhlinger. "But webcomics can be more fragmented, built around a specific audience. They don't have to pander to a wide audience."

Marciuliano sees parallels between newspaper comics and other transitional media.

"Recently everything has shattered and put it all in the hands of the consumers," said Marciuliano.  "Do I think syndicates will immediately fold? No. When the internet came along, people predicted that TV was done. No, it just wasn't the primary source of entertainment anymore.

"It's the same with comics. They'll survive, but survive in a different way. As things are right now, they can continue for   a little while, but they're going to have to change," he said.

The survival of the industry and its profitability are not necessarily one and the same.

"Most artists probably won't be able to make a living off of comics online," said Fruhlinger. "But most cartoonists don't make a living from their work anyway."