This, not surprisingly, leads in turn to fewer readers. Factors such as newspaper consolidation don't help either, but today's booming economy strips away most excuses for failure. We're witnessing an explosion of entertainment alternatives, and comics are being left far, far behind. And the audience followed. Both tend to trace the problem to the conforming influence of syndicates.
Syndicates claim they're just catering to editors.
And the death spiral continues. The first step is a commitment by cartoonists, syndicates and features editors to evolve the industry as a whole, not just defend their shrinking pieces of it.