People praising certain webcomics by saying they’re “just like old newspaper comics” is wonderful, but sad. It’s great that web cartoonists are still doing 3 and 4 panel gag comics like that, and that people appreciate it, but saying it that way implies that newspaper comics are no longer a thing.
But they are! Newspapers still exist and still run comics daily! Webcomics are great, but there are still print comic strips too!
It just bothers me a little that people don’t seem to know this.
Better to excitedly talk about how great newspaper comics are and how they’ve influenced American culture and society than to sit around bemoaning the fact that no one seems to care about them anymore.
Because when you do, you find more people actually do care than you ever thought
With how the newspaper comic landscape is now, it’s really hard to explain to rising generations how much more important comic strips were to people in previous decades.
One of the things you realize when you study the history of a thing is how much longer it has existed than people think. Sequential art has been with us for centuries. It has incredible staying power. How it’s published and consumed may change, but the medium will not die.
“…It may end being socially significant, or accepted, or whatever, but at the time, almost without exceptions, it was a way to make living. It starts that way, anyway.”
It’s interesting that cartoonists who started their careers in the 1930s, like Milt Caniff and Hal Foster, didn’t view their work as having any significance or artistic merit and was only meant to make them a living. It would take another generation before some cartoonists would see it differently.