Farewell and Oh Hell

You've already heard, and probably read in a few other places, that My Cage has been cancelled. What you may not have seen is Ed Power's statement over in the comments of Comics Curmudgeon.

Ed is very gracious and went out of his way to compliment King Features for keeping My Cage in print as long as they did. Apparently the strip did not appear in enough newspapers to make money. So if, as Brian put it on Sunday, you think that measuring comics based on how many of the dying newspapers they run in is a accurate gauge of success, the cancellation makes perfect sense.

I have my doubts since this same measure protects stuff like Grin and Bear It, Mary Worth, and Crock.

(I know, I'm not being fair. Mary Worth is actually funny.)

Newspaper editors are trying to keep their jobs, or find new ones, or both. They are not taking chances on new strips. That's why strips like Marmaduke, that can't even come up with 365 new gags in a year, are still around and fracking Cathy is ended by the "artist," not because someone actually tried to read it.

King Features, of course, operates DailyInk.com. DailyInk.com is only major newspaper comics site that still requires a subscription fee. My Cage was very popular online. How was King Features unable to tie My Cage to revenue?

Could it be because they have no idea who reads what, even though they have their content locked up behind a "pay wall"? Could it be that their site is so screwed up and technologically out of date that more people were reading My Cage from other online sources that the syndicate that is supposed to distribute it?

It is possible that King doesn't even look at online popularity at all, and DailyInk.com is just some side project that "doesn't count?"

DailyInk.com has not been upgraded or redesigned since it was launched in 2002 (the same year we all waited in anticipation for the release of The Two Towers while playing Vice City), and is down far more often than the other 2 major sites. Like Friday, for example — whose e-mail arrived on Saturday and today, where half of my strips are missing from my e-mail. "Content not available."

It is the only site that gives you no way to share their strips via social media sites. (Ecards? Really?) After all, if we could share the strips someone might fracking read them and then become fans.

King Features' web efforts are pathetic and it looks like terrible place for a creator to have a comic that is popular online. Newspapers are going to die, and as it stands right now, King Features is going to die with them.

On the bright side, at least that would put the residents of Westview out of their misery.

Mandrake the Magician, August 31, 2010

But before they go, we may get to see some Twilight fans get killed in Mandrake. That'll be cool.

The Pajama Diaries, August 31, 2010

If you saw the extras on the "Super Size Me" DVD (which was released 2 years after DailyInk was, by the way), McDonald's french fries are actually made from an inert substance with a half-life of about 1,000,000,000 years. So the Kaplans must go to a family-owned burger-and-fry joint. Good for them.

Brewster Rockit, August 31, 2010

Thanks Brewster, I needed a laugh.