It wasn't so much seeing his strip, Underworld, abruptly dropped from The New York Press that bothered him, Kaz told the Journal, it was the ads that appeared in the major alternative weekly inviting submissions from fresh new cartoonists. "They even advertised for new cartoonists who could fill the same four-panel format that was my usual format," he noted.

Among the many responding cartoonists vying to replace Kaz in the coveted slot he had just vacated was Kaz himself. His submission -- four panels, each containing only a single word in the following sequence: "Kiss," "My," "Hairy" and "Ass."

Kaz was understandably bitter about losing the only venue for his strip in New York City, which had always seemed to be an appropriate home for his cast of comical junkies, whores, waterfront denizens and assorted urban freaks. Unfortunately, as he understood the explanation given to him by New York Press CEO Russ Smith, the paper had no choice but to terminate his strip due to a long-standing tradition. "He told me they have this 10-year rule," Kaz told the Journal. "No writer may work for the Press for more than 10 years. This was the first time I ever heard of this rule. I never heard anything about it until I got dumped."

If cartoonists were better at math, Kaz might have been even more skeptical since his strip had started at the Press about eight years ago and by rights should have had a couple of years to go. But there was a very good reason he hadn't heard of the rule earlier: Since the New York Press had only started up in 1988, it would only recently have had a chance to start implementing this long-standing tradition. Few have been with the Press since the beginning, anyway. Kaz is the only strip artist who even comes close. Illustrator Danny Hellman started at the Press in 1992, shortly before Kaz's strip began running. As for 10-year survivors, that would come down to, well, Smith himself -- whose conservative Mugger column gives the paper a Republican persona distinct from most alternative weeklies -- and editor John Strausbaugh, neither of whom apparently feel obliged to move on now that their 10 years are up. "I guess the publisher and the editor can make up any rules they want as they go along," said Kaz.

Adding to Kaz's frustration is the fact that he had turned down an offer from the Village Voice a couple of years ago. At the time, the Press had promised him more money to stay, but the Voice's offer would've looked a lot better if he had known his days were numbered at the Press. "It's not like they warned me when I started there that they were going to drop me after a certain period of time," he said.

When contacted by the Journal, Strausbaugh denied that such a policy exists at the Press, but allowed that the 10-year-figure may have come up in the conversation with Kaz. "Of course we don't have a policy that all contributors must die after 10 years," he said. "What I did tell Kaz, however, is that after that long we may begin to think that a writer or a column or a strip has lived out its natural life with us and needs to move and make way for something new. It's case by case. Unless you can keep expanding pages infinitely, you can't bring in fresh talent without letting go of someone. We liked Kaz's work -- that should be obvious from all the work he did for us over the years, both in illos and the strip -- but we felt it had reached a natural end-point in NYP.... I'm sure, to many who are asked to leave (rather than leaving of their own free will), it's a sign that we're a corrupt, evil institution that wouldn't know a good comic strip (column, artist, sales rep, telephone voice) if it bit us on the balls. Currently, we've got film buffs, theater buffs and Kaz fans on our ass for letting go of a film critic who'd been here for a very long time, a theater critic and Kaz. Whenever the masthead gets shaken up, you make some enemies. Most alternative weeklies are as predictable and stodgyas the dailies to whom they think they're being alternatives. Cf. The Village Voice. Talk about a place where the masthead doesn't get shaken up enough."

Kaz may take little consolation in the clarification that Strausbaugh does not consider him to be dead -- just old and in the way. But he is not alone in his experience either among New York cartoonists or among alternative-weekly cartoonists across the country. Judging from the cartoonists with whom the Journal spoke, an attitude prevails among alternative weeklies that is diametrically opposed to that of the mainstream world of daily strip syndication. Whereas a mainstream strip is increasingly secure in its slot the longer it has been around (think Beetle Bailey or Blondie), alternative weeklies are always striving to avoid ruts, forever watching for the next cool thing on the horizon. The New York Press, in fact, has been so diligent about sweeping the cobwebs from its strip pages that it scarcely has any strips left. Only Tony Millionaire's Maakies and Neil Schwaab's Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles remain, both favorites among the Press editorial staff.

Several of Kaz's alternative cartoonist friends, who know the score, sent their own barbed cartoon responses to the New York Press ad. Millionaire told the Journal, "They make these decisions based on personal preferences. Somebody suddenly thinks that a strip has turned too old-hat or too hip." A partial list of cartoonists who have been dropped from the Press in recent years would include Carol Lay (Story Minute), Doug Allen (Steven), Mark Beyer (Amy and Jordan), Alison Bechdel (whose weekly Dykes to Watch Out For was run on a monthly basis) Debbie Drechsler (whose child molestation theme in Daddy's Girl provoked a flood of hate mail) and Mike Wartella (Nuts). Hellman said, "Folks at the Press definitely run hot and cold. For a period of time Wartella was their golden boy -- then they dropped him after only a year."

When a strip is popular with readers and editorial staff, the paper will make every effort to associate itself with the strip, often using images from the strip in house ads and even outside ads. Hellman said, "When Millionaire was the flavor of the month, you'd see Drinky Crow in all the house ads and the liquor ads. Whoever handled the sales account would work out a deal with Millionaire. Now they're sticking the teddy bear from Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles on all these ads."

To some extent, the Press reflects the changing tastes of Smith, who, according to several contributors, runs the paper like a semi-benevolent despot. (Though some say those reins have increasingly been handed to Strausbaugh since Strausbaugh's rise from associate editor to editor in 1999.) The Press has run two new strips in the weeks following Kaz's departure. One was the work of one of Smith's children, which ran with Mugger. Millionaire complained, "Newspapers are for communities. They're not just designed for an editor to run pictures of his kids playing baseball."

According to Hellman, "Smith is such a figurehead of the Press. His Mugger is an appallingly Republican rich guy's column about how he took his family to expensive restaurants last week and flew in a Concorde."

To some, including Hellman, Millionaire and former Press freelancer Jennifer Nixon, the paper has grown increasingly dry and conservative, a far cry from the atmosphere of newness and experimentation described by Strausbaugh. To Kaz, the paper has "always been conservative. It was weird being in that paper to begin with."

Millionaire, who does illustration work for the Press as well as his strip, said he has refused to do illustrations for several articles because of their conservative content. He regularly illustrates William Bryk's historical column. "Smith is steering the Press toward more conservative business people, when the only ones supporting the magazine have been the hipsters," he said.

The second post-Kaz strip run by the Press, in its ongoing search for fresh, cutting-edge material, was the 70-year-old Carl Anderson pantomime strip, Henry.

"This'll get the Kaz fans hopping, I'm sure," said Strausbaugh. "We love Henry and some of the other classic old daily strips, and have long thought it would be fun and funny for an 'alternative weekly' to run a weekly Henry or a Lulu or a Phantom. So we're doing it. These are new Henry strips we get from a syndication service, but it doesn't matter: They could be 50 years old, they're so old-fashioned. We -- I mean the editorial troika of Russ Smith, [managing editor] Lisa Kearns and me -- genuinely like it, though some of the younger troops around here are groaning. I think its sweetness and old-fashioned feel is a good balance to our other most recently added strip, Neil Schwaab's Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles -- for which, need I tell you, I caught plenty of shit from some older cartoon types when we started it. Wiggles is nasty and dirty and funny that way; Henry's cute and sweet and funny in his own doofy way. And we like that it's an 'unusual choice for an alternative weekly.'"

Some of the Press's critics date the deterioration of its comics pages from the day longtime New York Press Art Director Michael Gentile was fired a little over a year ago. Millionaire said, "The Press used to be illustration-driven, and that was due to Michael Gentile. As soon as he got fired, I said that paper's going in the toilet."

Gentile told the Journal, "I've always loved cartoons. When I came to the paper, Russ shared those feelings. Now they won't even print any of the letters from pissed-off readers when they cut a strip." Nixon (aka Queen Itchie), who had been Gentile's assistant and who took an active role in the paper's art direction, was replaced two years ago by Roxene Wu. When Gentile -- until then, the only art director the Press had ever had -- was fired, Wu was given the title of art director, but note that she is not included in the "editorial troika" identified by Strausbaugh. Everyone with whom the Journal spoke agreed that Wu, who came to the paper fresh out of school, does not wield the authority that Gentile had had. Kaz commented, "I don't think she's into comics the way Michael Gentile was."

Strausbaugh told the Journal, "I do personally have more of a hand in the choice of art and comics than before."

Lay is one of the artists whose strip was dropped from the Press when Gentile was fired. But ironically, Gentile had rejected her strip when she first approached the Press approximately 10 years ago. It was Smith, who had seen her strip in the LA Weekly, who championed her and insisted that Gentile get her for the Press. In Lay's early years at the Press, Smith was so enamored of her that he took out an ad that repeated the phrase "Carol Lay rules!" over and over. But when Lay had first approached Gentile with her 24-part serial "Now Endsville," she told the Journal, "he didn't even look at it. He took it and tossed it on a pile and said he didn't have time to read it. Then he said, 'You know who I'd really like to have in here is Julie Doucet.' I couldn't believe he could be that rude. That's like getting out of bed with someone and saying, 'You know who I'd really like to fuck?'"

Indeed the narrow market for alternative weekly strips encourages a competitiveness that is not unlike sexual rivalry. The nature of that courtship is made all the more personal by the way that each alternative weekly tends to take on a personality of its own, often the extension of key individuals like Smith, Gentile or Strausbaugh. "Every paper has its own wacky editor at the helm," Lay said. "And as soon as they leave, a new person comes in and has to change everything. It doesn't matter how many readers look forward to seeing your strip every week."

Gentile commented, "They are so dying to get the next big coolest, hippest thing - especially the 40-something editors at alternative weeklies."

For the full story, please see Comics Journal #234