Good cartoonists are online
COMMENTARY
Josh Deitz

When Charles Schultz died, controversy ripped through the comics industry. Should “Peanuts” remain on the comics page as a tribute to an admitted master or should the spot be opened up for new artists? When would the tribute end? As “Peanuts” grew more and more outdated, how long would it take to be pulled from the comics page?

Rather than let their comics suffer from lack of creative spark, Bill Watterson and Berke Breathed chose to end “Calvin and Hobbes” and “Bloom County.” In the case of “Peanuts,” the decision was in the hands of readers and editors. For now, “Peanuts” continues to run in most newspapers around the country.

Last November, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram sent out surveys intended to give readers a formal part in deciding the makeup of the comics page. Readers were asked how often they read each comic. A few weeks ago, David House, reader advocate for the Star-Telegram, gave readers an initial look at the results of the survey. Unfortunately, these results had to be taken with a grain of salt. The response from readers age 55 and older was so great that the survey had to be weighted in order to give a more accurate look at the newspaper’s readership.

With that said, our generation’s apathy may cost us. The top 10 most read comics are absolutely embarrassing. “Family Circus” ranked number one and yes, it is the same “Family Circus” that the movie “GO” called so bad. The rest of the top 10 are “Hagar,” “Beetle Bailey,” “Dennis the Menace,” “BC” and “Pluggers.” Do any of you actually read these?

The bottom 10 were even more embarrassing. “Mutts” and “Get Fuzzy” ranked seventh and eighth from the bottom. These strips tread new ground and bring freshness into an otherwise stale genre, while most of the top 10 have not changed in decades. Today, “Family Circus” and “Hagar” are identical to what they were 20 or 30 years ago. Is it too much to ask for some originality on the comics page? The sheer mediocrity of it should be offensive to anyone with a sense of humor or a talent for cartooning.

Its tough to break into comic syndicates because of the dominance of people over age 55. Even brilliant comics like “Get Fuzzy” or “The Boondocks” have trouble finding a place. So where are our generation’s cartoonists? Where are the original voices in comics? Like most everyone else, they have gone online.

Cartoonists no longer need the syndicates. The Web-comic community is growing at an incredible rate and routinely producing better work than the syndicates. Artists such as Scott Kurtz (pvponline.com) and Tatsuya Ishida (sinfest.net) turn out daily strips that put “BC” and “Garfield” to shame. Sites like Serializer.net, Moderntales.com and Keenspot.com demonstrate the variety of the movement in their collections of comics. The online community is producing dramas (smallstoriesonline.com), personal journals (drewweing.com) and Japanese comics like manga (megatokyo.com).

There is no shortage of talent in the comics industry. There is simply a shortage of vision in the comics industry.

Josh Deitz is a junior political science major from Atlanta.