No Jokes: Newspapers Cutting Comic Strips

BINGHAMTON, N.Y., March 13, 2010— -- No matter how bad the news, no matter how grim the headlines, you could always count on a smile from at least one corner of the daily newspaper: the comics.

But in this day when we could use a laugh more than ever, the reality facing the comics section is anything but funny.

With the newspaper business hemorrhaging readers and money, newspapers are slicing the number of strips they carry.

Artist and filmmaker Mark Tatulli said he has seen 30 newspapers drop his strip "Lio" in the last 18 months.

"Newspapers are saving money wherever they can, and they are doing it by cutting the comics. It's affecting cartoonists across the board," Tatulli said.

"'Lio' was growing, closing in on 300 newspapers -- and then the market just went crazy," Tatulli said, adding that "Lio" is now in 270 papers.

The roll call of newspapers shedding comic strips is growing, from the Portland Oregonian, which shed 10 strips last year, to the Washington Post.

The cash-strapped Washington Times recently went a step further, eliminating its Sunday comics section entirely.

The savings can be enormous. The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., told readers that reducing the comics section by one page would save $300,000 a year.

"Sometimes change isn't funny, but it is necessary," the paper told readers. However, after an enormous outcry -- more than 1,200 reader complaints -- the Star-Ledger backed away from the reductions.

Some newspapers are trying to mask the cutbacks by holding "Survivor"-style contests asking readers which strips to jettison, and which to pick up. The number of strips dropped usually outnumbers the strips added, although sometimes papers will continue providing the eliminated cartoons online.

Newer strips are often the ones cut first, but even so-called legacy comics are feeling the pinch.

Mason and Mick Mastroianni draw and write "B.C." from a studio on the outskirts of this upstate New York city. The strip, filled with cavemen and slapstick humor, was handed down from their late grandfather, John Hart, who created it in the late 1950s.