Local Comics Getting Even More Scarce as Ed Stein's 'Denver Square' Nears End

By: Dave Astor One of the few remaining local comic strips will end May 21 when Ed Stein halts "Denver Square" after 10 years.

Stein is with the Denver Rocky Mountain News, for which he's also a staff editorial cartoonist syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association. His comic -- named after a popular house style in the Mile-High City -- stars a fictional family.

Writing in his blog, Stein said: "Denver and Colorado have changed dramatically since I began drawing the strip. Our politics are more complicated and more interesting.... The strengths of 'Denver Square' are also its weaknesses. In sticking to a policy of not including politicians in the strip, I haven't been able to caricature [a number of] fascinating and complex figures ... and there are issues I haven't been able to fully explore.

"Other reasons are more personal. When I started drawing 'Denver Square,' my children were in elementary school. They are now college students, and I've lost my insider knowledge of Denver public schools. My father-in-law and my father, two models for the irascible Irv, are no longer with us."

He added: "Many of the strip cartoonists I know tell me that, despite the longevity of 'Blondie,' 'Beetle Bailey,' and 'Peanuts,' 10 years is the functional lifespan of a comic strip. I'm beginning to understand why. The grind of producing a daily strip is starting to tell...."

And Stein said he'll now have more time to look into doing other projects, including Internet ones.

Daily Cartoonist blogger Alan Gardner, in a post today, lamented the loss of local comics such as "Denver Square" and the San Francisco Chronicle's "Farley" -- whose creator, Phil Frank, died last year.

Gardner wrote: "In addition to the inherent qualities of storytelling and humor that are innate to a comic strip, the local comic has characteristics that may not be recognized or appreciated. It's a recorder of community history, it's a visual voice in a community's dialog, and it's an opportunity for a newspaper to offer something completely unique to its readers."

Below is a Feb. 5, 2001, E&P story about local comics. Following that are links to today's blog post by Gardner, and to Stein's blog post about "Denver Square" ending.

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Some strips are designed to appear in only one newspaper. These unsyndicated features are popular, but not plentiful.

"Denver Square," "Brewed on Grant," "Picayune 'Toons," and "Maumee Dearest" are popular comics. But unless you live in and around Denver, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, or Toledo, Ohio, you've probably never heard of them. That's because they're local strips -- four of an unsyndicated group that may number fewer than a dozen nationwide.

Why aren't there more local comics? Some space-strapped newspapers don't want to devote room to them. Also, these multipanel features can be labor-intensive for creators who may already have a full plate as editorial cartoonists. And creators of local comics don't always get paid a lot for their troubles.

But local comics can have advantages for cartoonists and papers. Each is unique to a particular paper -- and a potential circulation booster. "Readers seem to like them," said Walt Handelsman, who does "Picayune 'Toons" for The Times-Picayune, along with editorial cartoons for the New Orleans paper and Tribune Media Services.

"Denver Square" creator Ed Stein of the Rocky Mountain News gets "100 times" more reader response to the strip than to the editorial cartoons he also does for the paper. "I thought it would be a good feature, but I had no idea it would be as popular as it is," he said.

"The way it usually works with political cartoons, you only hear from people who are angry," noted Rob Rogers, who does "Brewed on Grant" and editorial cartoons for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "But with a local comic, you hear from people who like it a lot. Some say it's their favorite thing in the newspaper."

One reason for this is that some creators make their comics a little kinder and gentler. "If I want to get really nasty, I do it in an editorial cartoon," said Stein.

Strips also give editorial cartoonists more flexibility. For instance, "Brewed on Grant" has enough room for Rogers to use throwaway gags yet still make a point. And comics lend themselves to continuing stories. "You can expand on a subject over a few weeks," said Kirk Walters, who does "Maumee Dearest" for The Blade in Toledo. He recalled a two-month sequence he did on the impact of cross-burning in the city.

"Denver Square," named after a popular house style, features a fictional family living their lives and reacting to real events and issues in the area. One series that drew huge reader praise focused on the family's response to the massacre at Columbine High School in nearby Littleton, Colo.

The comic runs six days a week on Page 6. Stein usually works a week ahead, but can plug in a breaking-news strip a day before publication -- a much shorter lead time than for a syndicated comic.

To handle the strip, Stein works 50-plus hours a week (including at home) and does three editorial cartoons rather than his previous five. And Stein, whose cartoons are syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association, negotiated somewhat higher pay when "Denver Square" started in 1997.

The color, big-format version of "Brewed on Grant" also began in 1997. Rogers' weekly strip is set in a fictional diner on Pittsburgh's Grant Street, where the mayor and courts are based. The cast features real politicians as well as a fictional waitress and other made-up characters, including a rabid fan of football's Pittsburgh Steelers. "It would be hard to have a character like that in my political cartoons," said Rogers, who's distributed by United Feature Syndicate.

"Picayune 'Toons" stars a guy and a dog, but rarely real people. The weekly Op-Ed page strip includes political/topical humor and slices of New Orleans life.

Handelsman brought his comic to The Times-Picayune in 1989 from The Scranton (Pa.) Times. "I thought it was a good selling point," said the Pulitzer Prize winner, who of course revised and renamed the strip. But Handelsman will not do a local comic when he moves to Long Island, N.Y., Newsday in March.

Walters has done "Maumee Dearest," named after the river running through Toledo, since 1988. The weekly, Sunday-size strip stars a fictional bureaucrat and real-life politicians.

"I'm absolutely blessed with one of the greatest mayors in the world to [satirize]," said Walters, adding that he often gets grateful messages from people working under the mayor.

Walters' editorial cartoons are part of a package from King Features Syndicate, which also distributes The Miami Herald's Jim Morin individually. The Pulitzer winner did "Magic City" for the Herald's "Tropic" magazine until the Sunday publication folded about two years ago. "It was one of the most popular things in the magazine," recalled Morin, whose strip featured some of the Miami area's colorful characters as well as fictional people.

Of course, creators can do multipanel editorial cartoons rather than comics. "But editorial cartoons work better with a memorable single image," said Morin.

Editorial cartoonists aren't the only ones going local. In 1985, Phil Frank ended a decade of comic syndication to start the still-running "Farley" for the San Francisco Chronicle. And columnist Dave Lieber and Senior Graphics Editor Tim Bedison do "NETroplex" for the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram's Northeast edition.

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To see Gardner's blog post, click here.

To see Stein's blog post, click here.