The Morning Paper

LAST CHANCE FOR “KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF MY OVIPOSITOR SHIRTS”!!!
They are only $15! They will never be printed again, so get ’em while you can.

Here! Have an unfinished comic. UPDATE: I replaced the comic with the final inked and colored version, but if you still want to see the rough version it’s in a free post in The Vault.

Getting the book done (as in 100% done, no more changes done) has eaten my entire life away this week. In fact I am still not fully through with my part (as I assumed I was last night). I have the proofs in hand and there are some problems to address. Combine all of that with the SNOHSHITWEREALLGOINGTODIE situation going on in Dallas right now, and this week has been rather unproductive in terms of comics. I am going to try to fill in the missing comic gaps for this week with a few Lo-FiJINKS comics and get back on the horse (is that a real expression?) come Monday.

If you would like Josh to have an expletive exclamation of some kind in panel 3, feel free to post it in the comments. If I like one, I may use it in the finished (inked/colored) version. In case it isn’t clear, his breakfast consists of Vodka, fountain Big Red w/ a slice of bacon, and pancake syrup.

Apple and Newscorp are putting the final nail in the coffin of the concept of printed newspapers by releasing The Daily, an all digital newspaper for the iPad. I love this idea. I love it so much I LURV it. I never understood why big media always seemed to argue that the death of newspaper (ie newsPRINT) and the death of journalism were one in the same. I always heard the argument of, “if no one is actually reporting and writing the news, where will the bloggers get their information from?” This always seemed like a symptom of the problem. That being big media not understanding its own role in digital culture. Yes, we still need people to research, write and distribute the news in a professional and organized way. And we still need resources we can trust more than the average Livejournal. What we don’t need is someone in a ’74 El Camino throwing a bundle of paper at our door at 5am. Keep making the news, just stop printing it.

Speaking of old media and things that need to die, some motherfucker had the audacity to put a phonebook on my doorstep a few days ago. Can you believe that shit? I ran for my crossbow with the intent of putting a bolt betwixt his ribs, but he ran off before I got a clear bead on him. I just left it there. I don’t even want to touch it. It’s just this giant, 4″ thick bound reminder of wasted resources, and living in the past. I would be shocked if the power required to send everyone in America a digital phonebook equalled the cost of actually producing a single phonebook. Bluh. The whole situation just makes me sick. I feel like an idiot for putting them in the recycle bin the same day that I get them. What a waste.

Anyway, feel free to comment on The Daily or you take on the “death of newspapers” from any particular angle in the comments.

Special thanks to Joenis for making some changes to the site design of HE that should make it easier to navigate. Check out his comic, LAWLS.

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34 Comments

  5. We’ve had phone books sitting outside our door for a few weeks now. It’s gotten so I don’t notice them anymore. I suppose I should put them out with the recycling but even that just amounts to more energy being spent on them, turning them into something they should have been the first time… or worse, new phone books.

  14. You think one phone books is bad? Between Yellow and White Pages, we get about 6-10 from 3-4 companies. They're also all pieces of crap compared to the 3 we'd get 5 years ago.

    Further, at work we have a stack of about a dozen free to give away at any given time. Its great for looking up the phone number for Pizza Hut, (we don't have internet access and the people with smart phones are all kind of dim,) but otherwise I've never seen one taken or used.

  23. Without even considering the Murdoch connection, I'm not seeing anything about the Daily — or any of the paywalled newspaper sites, for that matter — that would convince me to pay 40-50 bucks a year over, say, simply going to cnn.com, or to any of my area's local TV stations for local news, or to my two local papers (out of three) that don't have paywalls. The last time I used a newspaper behind a paywall was when I was verifying the printing of my partner's obituary more than three years ago.

    When there are no non-subscription-based players left in the news game, and no cable TV news channels left in the world, then I'll revisit it. But news is not something I see myself getting passionate enough about to pay for it regularly the way I might with, say, a web comic created by an adorable nerd with comic-friendly adorable nerd friends.

  26. The problem I have with the death of priny media is with the archives. The paranoid that lives within me doesn't trust Them, (you know, THE Them) not to put there sticky little revisionist fingers all over the past. Without hard copy somewhere, what's going to keep Them honest?

  28. Yeah, the next time some jerk drops a big yellow brick of Useless on my front porch, I'm going to make them come back and get it. Or at least send them a strongly worded telegraph, since that's the level the phone book companies are apparently still at.

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