The Funny Pages Move Online

Many of the best young cartoonists are moving out of newspapers and on to the web. “In many ways the migration of comic strips to the internet is a sound business decision. Reacting to the twin pressures of rising newsprint costs and dwindling readerships, newspaper publishers over the years have drastically reduced the space devoted to strips. As a result, most strips today run at about half the page size that Little Orphan Annie did 50 years ago. The diminishing importance of comic strips, combined with a reluctance to recognize new talent, has resulted in a whole generation of cartoonists who see newspapers as a fading relic. Since 2000, dozens of young cartoonists have used the web as a self-syndication scheme.”