Thursday, January 7, 2010

Tiny Funnies

Sunday funnies from the Pioneer Press with six different strips crammed in
Last Sunday's Pioneer Press comics section sank to a new level of compression... all of the comics were jigsaw-puzzled into four pages, with six comics on the front page. Wasn't it just recently that the page contained only three or maybe four?

And remember, this is a newspaper sheet that is already significantly smaller than it was 10 years ago. In my recent basement cleaning, I came across some old pages and was stunned at how danged big they used to be.

There's a point where these print versions get small enough that they become hard to read, and I think the PiPress has crossed that line. Once that happens, what's the point of printing it at all? It actually would be easier to read online.

The text in the Marmaduke comic, particularly, would be very hard on older eyes:

Two panels from the Marmaduke comic
But then, maybe there's not much point in reading Marmaduke, anyway.

3 comments:

Nancy/BLissed-Out Grandma said...

About five minutes ago I mentioned this in commenting on someone else's blog! The daily comics are smaller too, and I've mostly just stopped reading them. Of course, the PP doesn't have that many good comics anyway.

David Steinlicht said...

D#3: "There's a point where these print versions get small enough that they become hard to read, and I think the PiPress has crossed that line."

So true. So very true. (I work at the PiPress and I tried to fight the smallification during the last paper chop-down. I was unsuccessful.)

Blissed-Out Grandma: "Of course, the PP doesn't have that many good comics anyway."

Hey! Not all the PiPress comics are winners, but there are some good off-beat comics. If we printed them at a reasonable size, you might even agree with me.

Ms Sparrow said...

It seems like the Strib has followed suit and started cramming more cartoons onto the page.