Serious Growth at My Comicspage.com

By: Dave Astor An old strip and a new war helped My Comics Page gain 10,000 paid subscribers this spring. MCP (http://www.mycomicspage.com) enables computer users to put together cartoons they want to read each day on the Web or via e-mail.

The service entered March with about 15,000 subscribers and now has more than 25,000. "A large part of the increase is due to 'Bloom County,'" said Chris Pizey, vice president and chief operating officer of uclick, the Andrews McMeel Universal online division that offers MCP. Reruns of Berkeley Breathed's famous 1980-89 strip became available to subscribers March 17.

That week, the U.S. invaded Iraq -- and the ensuing war drew more subscribers. "With all the stressful news, it was nice to get something lighter," noted Pizey. But some subscribers signed on for non-escapist reasons, wanting to see what comics such as "The Boondocks" and "Doonesbury," as well as MCP's editorial cartoons, said about the war.

MCP offers more than 90 comics and about three-dozen editorial cartoons. Subscribers can sign up to see as few as one or as many as all of them each day. Most features are from Universal Press Syndicate (a sibling firm to uclick), Creators Syndicate, Tribune Media Services, and the Washington Post Writers Group. Pizey reported that Copley News Service features and about a half-dozen alternative cartoons are joining the roster, too.

Cartoonists receive a share of MCP revenues, with the amount depending on how many subscribers pick their feature when building a daily page. Among the most-requested are "Adam@Home," "B.C.," "For Better or For Worse," "Doonesbury," "FoxTrot," "Garfield," "Non Sequitur," "The Boondocks," and "The Wizard of Id."

The service costs $9.95 a year, meaning it has brought in about $250,000 from subscriptions. MCP also earns revenue by accepting ads such as banners. "We don't want flashy ads or pop-up ads," Pizey said, noting it's not fair to force paying users to view "in-your-face" messages.

When asked if MCP is profitable yet, Pizey said uclick as a whole is not. "But month by month we continue to get closer to profitability," he added of the 18-person division.

Pizey said MCP shows a subscription model can succeed on the Web. He predicts online entities will make money in much the same way print entities do -- with some relying on subscriptions, some on ads, and some on a mix of both.

How many MCP subscribers might there be by year's end? Pizey replied: "We'd like to have at least 40,000."

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Posthumous Honor for Kelly

NSNC to Name Him 'Columnist of Year'

Michael Kelly will be posthumously named "Columnist of the Year" at next month's National Society of Newspaper Columnists (NSNC) conference in Tucson, Ariz.

Kelly, who was syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group, died in Iraq April 3 while embedded with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division.

Scheduled to receive the honor on her son's behalf is "Family Almanac" writer Marguerite Kelly, a syndicated columnist in her own right.

"Michael Kelly was a well-respected and award-winning writer whose insightful wit colored his columns from the battlefront," NSNC Vice President Suzette Martinez Standring said in a statement to E&P Online. "He embodied the passion, the curiosity, and quest for truth that compel the best of columnists."

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Grievance Filed Over Cartoonist's Layoff

Also, Anderson's Farewell Drawing Killed

The Minnesota Newspaper Guild-Typographical Union filed a grievance over Kirk Anderson's layoff from the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press.

The union is saying Anderson might have had some seniority in the paper's art department. Pioneer Press management reportedly felt Anderson was in a category of one as an editorial cartoonist. Union Executive Officer Mike Sweeney told E&P Online he hopes to meet next week with the paper's management about the grievance.

Meanwhile, Pioneer Press reporter Chuck Laszewski said he's still trying to set up a meeting with Harold Higgins, the paper's president and publisher, to present him with a petition urging Anderson's reinstatement. It was signed by about 250 staffers.

Higgins has declined to speak with E&P Online, and a newspaper spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

Pioneer Press readers this week are only gradually learning that Anderson has been laid off, because his farewell cartoon was killed.

The cartoon, slated to run April 25, showed an unemployed Anderson sitting with his drawing materials outside the Pioneer Press office. A thought balloon coming out of his head says: "Okay, NOW it's a recession." But Anderson thinks it was the content of a memo he sent to the Romenesko site, rather than the content of the cartoon, that got the drawing yanked.

Anderson's memo (posted April 24 at http://www.poynter.org) said, in part: "I'd probably cut the private service that comes in to water and dust and turn the plants in the publisher's office before I'd cut a local cartoonist. In other words, I'd cut something only the privileged few who enter the publisher's office see, before I'd cut something 190,000 readers see." He also criticized Pioneer Press executives who would not comment about his layoff to the media. "Our business demands openness of others...," Anderson wrote. "Were we not hypocrites, we would honorably hold ourselves to the same standard."

In a letter to Romenesko the next day, Anderson said Higgins responded to the cartoonist's memo "less enthusiastically than the rest of the staff; he promptly killed my last cartoon. Also, he killed a little boxed editor's note saying this was my last day and why I was leaving."

Steve Dornfeld, Anderson's editor at the paper, couldn't be reached for comment.

Anderson, who had been a thrice-weekly staffer for the paper since 1995, told E&P Online: "It wasn't a stunner that the [memo to Romenesko] would have negative consequences for me." The cartoonist was initially thinking he might lose several thousand dollars in severance, but that apparently will not be the case. Severance or no severance, Anderson said it's important for people in the media to speak frankly in situations like this. "I didn't want to live as if someone's money controls what I say," he said. "When I look back in 10 or 20 years, I will remember that I did the right thing."

Anderson said it has been "comforting and gratifying" to receive support from fellow cartoonists, Pioneer Press staffers, and the paper's readers -- some of whom contacted Anderson after hearing about his layoff on Minnesota Public Radio.

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'X-Men' Comic in 'NY Post'

It Coincides With New Movie

The New York Post included a free "X-Men" comic book in the paper April 30 and May 1 to mark the May 2 opening of the new "X-Men" movie.

Twenty-five of the comic books randomly inserted in the Post are autographed by actress Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, who appears in the X2 film.