The decline of the comic strip

I've been a fan of comic strips for a long time now. I collect old comic strip book collections and at one time entertained the thought of trying to make a career out of cartooning. (I've given that dream up, at least for now, for two reasons: I don't have the time to do it, and more importantly, I don't have the sense of humor to do it.) In my bookshelves you'll find everything from "B.C.," "Crock" and "The Wizard of Id" to "Peanuts," "Calvin and Hobbes," "FoxTrot" and classic "Dick Tracy."

Unfortunately, the comic strip is another area where the newspaper industry has screwed itself over royally. The comics page is one of most beloved, popular parts of the newspaper. Some comic strips -- "Peanuts," for example -- become enduring examples of American culture, and characters like Charlie Brown and Snoopy and Calvin and Hobbes become cultural icons. In fact, comic strips played an important role in the very development of American newspapers, and are in essence a distinctly American form of art. I actually wrote a paper about this in high school, which I may or may not post on here later (depends on if I can find it).

A "Little Orphan Annie" Sunday full-page comic strip from 1924

The purpose of this post, however, is to point out that comic strips used to be given much more space than they are today. Daily strips today are given only half the space they had as late as the 1950s (i.e., they're run only half the size). Back in the 1920s and '30s, Sunday comic strip sections would frequently have only one comic strip per page. Today four or five strips are squeezed together on a single page in the Sunday comics section. The strips are run smaller and the cartoonists are given fewer panels with which they tell a story or a joke.

It's no coincidence that the comics are only a shell of what they used to be. It's virtually impossible to tell a joke or an interesting story in such limited space, much less illustrate anything interesting. The Star Tribune, for example, today runs its strips so small that one can barely read the text in the dialogue balloons. Cartoonists, who were once subject to bidding wars between newspapers desperate for their services, are now merely an afterthought, with their work displayed in stamp-size boxes next to the horoscopes and crossword puzzle. It's truly a travesty.

Why newspapers decided to neuter one of their staple products is a mystery to me. Today, of course, it's a moot point, since the Internet has provided a new outlet for both established and aspiring cartoonists -- an outlet where space and newsprint isn't an issue. But it's still an interesting point to ponder.