Dissertation talkative at full speed on the crisis of comics for newspapers Hard times for the red!
After the closure of Little Orphan Annie, Brenda Starr Reporter also announced the conclusion (will be January 2, 2011).
The two authors (Mary Schmich and June Brigman) had expressed its intention to abandon the series TMS and the agency has, therefore, determined that it was useless to look for new artists and continue the adventures of a journalist, now present only 3-dozen newspapers.
The alleged Schmich: "I do not think that the character is dead. But it is the comic strip in this form that it is ... " .
Someone may find this statement catastrophic, but I think it's just the reality of the facts.
not just Annie and Brenda to be the dinosaur extinction: is the newspaper itself.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the daily newspaper was the main means of mass communication in American society.
In large urban centers, are published in several newspapers publishing groups of competitors (think of New York, where there were the World Pulitzer against Journal Hearst against ' Herald Tribune Gordon Bennett Jr. against News Patterson, etc...)
It was this situation of competition to "create" the industry of comics, language was born as an evolution of the cartoon (hence the name of "Comics", or "comic") to attract buyers.
And after gaining readers, the newspaper launched the strip in installments, because the mechanism of "continues ..." those loyal readers, prompting them to buy the newspaper every day to follow a never-ending story.
Comics And the language had evolved further, moving from humor to joke about the complex history of adventure (though not shrugged off as "Comics").
During the first decades of the twentieth century, the newspaper had resisted with determination to the rise of radio and cinema, and he was right enough also to the economic crisis of the Great Depression, but the real Great Depression began in the '40s: the shortage of paper (material interest of war during the Second World War) had shown the newspaper editor that the format of the strips could be reduced without incurring the wrath of readers (sad discovery that you will take advantage excessively).
The coup de grace came in '50, with the explosion of television, which immediately won the primacy between the means of mass communication.
Incompresibilmente, comics unions, to fight stapotere of the TV, they chose a gradual reduction in size (to put more strips in the same space) and the abandonment of the "continuity" (both on the narrative level, you could not beat the TV ...).
Probably, it was a losing battle, but in my view, a different attempt at resistance would have been wiser.
The reduction of sizes gradually put these comics in crisis who need to design a more elaborate (especially adventure strips).
If, in the '30s, a page of newspaper was usually about 40x60 cm, with wide strips usually six columns (or 30 cm), now we are left with pages of newspaper that does not even reach 30 cm in width and only 3 columns wide strips (almost half of those age aurea).
Obviously, in such limited space, authors should make good use of a design very simple and very concise dialogues.
This (albeit slowly) back to the dominance of humor strips.
But they eventually began to suffer hardship.
Indeed, other humor strips (I think the first was Frank and Ernest, in 1972) are practically a single cartoon, which, as horizontal, set back the evolution of comics, which began as the development of the stick and returned to be sticker.
To better understand, here is a page of newspaper in 1936 (yellow), compared with the 1989 (light blue):
And, for better horrified, here are two bands (from these pages) superimposed that best display the drama
Today, newspapers do not become more competitive with each other (often American cities have only one daily), but not only require further competition from all these media (Radio, Cinema, TV), was added to these the most dangerous of all: the Internet.
The most dangerous because it can provide in all respects, newspapers, only one format than on paper, but electronic.
But with the Internet, have appeared in the comic-strips and .
And these, I have seriously deluded.
In my utter naivete, I thought that the perpetrators of daily strips, free from the constraints of size, would take advantage of the new medium to continue to revitalize the strip (which, perhaps, they would bounce on the printed newspaper).
But (alas), and almost all -strips views are similar to those of today's daily paper (the authors shall conform to the model and no one dares otherwise).
The only e-comics adventurous, I was impressed (and a professional work appearance, for regularity of publication) was JAZZ AGE CHRONICLES, published in the Net 2002. It was a sort of table weekly which published Slampyak Ted for a couple of years, before moving on to design years for the TMS.
nothing else I've seen and if anyone knows tell similar work (not published various trinkets or amateur), I will be happy to be proved wrong.
This makes me love even more the authors of the syndicated comic strip in the past, because I understand how their work was highly unlikely.
If I think of Milton Caniff, who wrote and drew (even with helpers) something like 36 squares of TERRY AND THE PIRATES every week (!!!), I realize that today would not be feasible: much better, if you are good, work on books, better paid and much more relaxed pace.
So facciamocene one reason: the golden age of comic strip is finally finished and it is just to wait the complete extinction.
The only serious and reasonable prospect for fans is to work for the preservation of the heritage of the past with the reprints of the masterpieces in their golden years (and will live in BRENDA STARR REPORTER collection for Hermes in 2011 Press).
