THE NIGHTMARE GALLOPS ON: PT 2

Death of a Newspaper; Triumph of the Comics

One of the most colorful newspaper circulation wars in the nation has ended after a epic century of underhanded skirmishes and bullying battles that began October 28, 1895, when the foundering Denver Post was purchased by a pair of bandits — a con man and a carnie, Fred G. Bonfils and Harry Tammen — and concluded February 27, 2009 with the last issue of its rival, the Rocky Mountain News, just 55 days short of the blow-out celebration being planned for its 150^th anniversary. Apart from the survivor, the only victor is the comics. The Post, eager to attract the erstwhile subscribers to the News, announced even before the last issue of the News that it would pick up and publish all that paper’s comic strips in the obvious hope that their readers would follow them to the Post. Seldom do we have so unequivocal a demonstration of the popularity and power of the newspaper comics section.

Starting on Saturday, February 28, Rocky Mountain News subscribers started getting the Denver Post on their doorsteps, and the Post’s comics section was twice its usual size. The paper added the News’ 29 comic strips and 8 panel cartoons to its own roster of 23 strips and 5 panels. (In contrast, as testimony to the appeal of comics over almost every other aspect of a newspaper, the Post picked upon only 10 of the News’ star reporters and columnists.) The new combined comics section was four pages long, and the Post, that day and for several days thereafter, ran full-page ads, each a sea of white space with 52-point type touting itself to the former News readers. “No matter which paper you got last week,” said Monday’s ad, “today’s is different. ... But you’ll see a lot of familiar faces.” The Post listed the former News stellar writers and concluded by trumpeting that in addition to these columnists, readers could find “all the Rocky’s comics and many of your favorite puzzles.” Then came the punchline that would conclude every such ad for the next week: “You’ll still get the News. Only in the Post.” (My favorite scrap of ad copy, which came later in the week, is: “The Post has Zits.”)

Post readers have a daily feast of comics, a line-up of strips and panels unparalleled anywhere in the nation. Even if the Post eventually cuts back the number of strips, the initial maneuver attests to the powerful appeal of newspaper comic strips.

For the entire history of the collapse of the News, including a report the teetering dozens of other U.S. newspapers — where all comic strips live, remember — consult the usual place, www.RCHarvey.com, Opus 239, which we’ve temporarily set up for Open Access.