My Tech Talk

I love reading the comics in the newspaper. However, I have one slight problem: I don’t subscribe to a newspaper. And, I’m not alone. Newspaper subscriptions have plummeted and some comic strip creators have taken notice and taken action, most notably, Berkeley Breathed.

Sadly, he has chosen to end his beloved “Opus” comic. You can read about the end of the Opus comic in a letter Mr. Breathed posted on his web site. Here’s what was written in a San Francisco Chronicle article by a reporter who interviewed Breathed recently:

After he brought Opus back in 2003, he noticed that his core audience - readers 13 to 30 - was no longer reading the newspaper. “It wasn’t just that the market had shrunk and some readers had left,” he said. “They had virtually disappeared. “I hadn’t appreciated that until I came back and realized that if I strolled into a college campus after three years of doing my strip, no one had ever read it….Breathed thinks comics will be left behind when newspapers go “fully digital.”

(You can click here to read the full article by Regan McMahon, published on 10/27/08: Berkeley Breathed’s Opus Bows Out.)

Comics.com has helped carry the comic strip torch into the online world. Recently, the web site received a Web 2.0 makeover which will help comic strip fans share their favorite funnies via social bookmarks and RSS for free.

With web sites like this, I hope that comics continue to tickle the funny bone long after newspapers have gone “fully digital.” We could all use the laughs, especially in these dreary economic times.

Below is one of the final Opus comics, courtesy of the new Comics.com web site.