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Hello, Comics Lovers!
Last week, on my haiku Robot post,
left a comment that played right into one of my current creative obsessions. He mentioned how the comic reminded him of the old full-color Sunday comics section of the newspaper.That was one of the greatest compliments I could’ve received about that strip. I love comic strips, and as a kid, I eagerly looked forward to Sunday’s paper with Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, The Farside, and all the other comics.
Like so many people, I no longer have a newspaper subscription. I still love comics, though most of my current favorite comic strips are web comics.
Little did Brian know, I had just written a piece for Better Marketing that connected my early love of Sunday comics with lessons for writing effective email marketing campaigns. (Members will find an excerpt of that article below the paywall. It will be running in Better Marketing tomorrow, I’m told.)
Over Thanksgiving, my relatives had several newspapers spread out on the table as they scoured for Black Friday deals. I snuck the comics sections. All of my old favorites were there. But there were no new comics.
I realize the death of the newspaper industry is due to complex causes and forces. But, I can’t help but think that the fact with all of the talented comic artists and delightful strips in the world, the fact that newspapers are still running reruns of strips from over thirty years ago shows a resistance to embrace the new and is a significant factor in the downfall of all print media.
If I were given unfettered control of the Sunday comics pages, I would publish a mix of humorous strips, poetry comics (shocking, I know), illustrated journalism, and graphic essays.
I don’t believe that people suddenly don’t like the mix of words and pictures that have been a mainstay of society’s media diet for generations. I think many just want something a bit more modern than strips based in a post-World War II world.
I also wonder what would a Sunday comics section look like with a variety of different comic strips, all built around haiku poetry. Here is my version of that alternative universe:
Here is an excerpt from my Better Marketing article:
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