> Probably the most famous examples are the strips where the creator said, "Okay, I'm done." Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes, Far Side, Boondocks... They said what they wanted to say and decided that they wanted to move on. In Charles Schulz's case, that was after after fifty years; in Bill Watterson's case, that was after ten years. Regardless of the timing or the reasons, the creator decided they didn't want to work on the strip any more.
Peanuts and Charles Schultz isn't a good example here. Schultz wrapped up Peanuts because he had terminal cancer. He died shortly afterward.
Yeah, there was not a lot of insight in this article. “Comic strips fail when they can’t adapt” is the deepest idea here, closely followed up by “people used to be pretty racist.” (paraphrasing)
I find it amusing once in a while. It's a daily strip in syndication, which means that it's sold by subscription (to newspapers rather than individuals), usually as part of a package deal. It isn't funny every day.
A more interesting question-- perhaps this is the actual question posed by TFA -- is, "Why are daily comic strips still like this?" Or, "What does syndication even mean anymore, and who the hell is subscribing?"
It's interesting to see analyses of comic strips, because the medium itself is suffering as well. I'm in my twenties; until my teenage years, I never would have had a smartphone or anything with me, so the comics page from the newspaper was my entertainment in the morning before school. But I haven't read a comic strip regularly in years; I might read the occasional webcomic, but even those I don't check out very often.
Many of the strips weren't even ones I liked a ton, but I read them because they were there and there were only a few. Now that we have unlimited latitude to choose what we read, and it's trivial to start a new webcomic (and they're not seen as institutions so much), we're probably looking at the end of the era of the long-running comic strip. Or maybe not — what do I know?
On the other hand, there are definitely still people like my dad who care about comic strips. But the audience is probably getting older and older, which I figure is a departure from a medium once popularly associated with children.
I think that's very much the case. I stopped reading the paper daily about 15 years ago and my comic strip habit has dried up since then. I used to read them all, and even had a daily blog to take down Mallard Fillmore, but now I occasionally remember to look at xkcd and that's about it. I kind of miss the daily comics habit.
I’ve found instagram to be a good format for comics, and in theory following some good comics would be similar to reading the regular comics page. And yet, I haven’t followed any regular comics. Is it lack of discoverability? Maybe there’s no money in making an insta comic?
If I had the option to convince any one artist - present or past - of any creative medium, whether books, movies, TV or whatever else, to produce just a bit more of a certain work, it would definitely be Bill Watterson for Calvin and Hobbes.
Peanuts and Charles Schultz isn't a good example here. Schultz wrapped up Peanuts because he had terminal cancer. He died shortly afterward.