The Riffys: Old-Media Picks for a New-Media Site

For this week, we award one big fat collective Riffy to four strips that satirized the current state of affairs in print journalism and the comics industry. Most every comic stripper we talk with these days is feeling the pinch; readers may eventually tire of it, but so far, 'Riffs is still relishing it...

BREWSTER ROCKIT: This was a weeklong tour de force on new media vs. old media. As the cartoonist Tim Rickard told 'Riffs this week he waited a while to tackle this topic because it's right where he "lives" (as a gifted print journalist himself who's exploring multimedia). Glad he got around to it, because he nailed it.

BREWSTER ROCKIT (UPS)Enlarge Comic

MOTHER GOOSE & GRIMM: Intriguing week for Mike Peters -- as Colombian coffee growers threatened to stir up a frivolous lawsuit over his Jan. 2 Juan Valdez strip (and really -- how often does a comic-stripper field a multimillion-dollar lawsuit from a half-million java farmers?). But this week, "Goose" laid a golden egg with this strip.

MOTHER GOOSE & GRIMM (KFS) Enlarge Comic

NON SEQUITUR: So funny, it hurts. Or perhaps it just hurts so much that it's funny. Either way.

NON SEQUITUR (UPS)Enlarge Comic

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE: Stephan Pastis draws a bull's-eye. (And had he drawn an actual bull's-eye -- filled with fields of black ink -- the newsprint cost would have been astronomical.)

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE (UFS)Enlarge Comic

Elsewhere, we also issue a special Riffy to "TANK McNAMARA," for its University of Bourbon good-ol'-boy satire this week. When one realizes how absurdly askew the current NCAA hiring practices are concerning football head coaches -- the near absence of African American coaches is appalling -- then the true sharpness of "Tank's" cutting edge can be appreciated. As Charles Barkley (his extracurricular vehicular practices aside) said recently on "Costas Now," the trend is simply scandalous.

TANK MCNAMARA (UPS)Enlarge Comic