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On his blog yesterday, cartoonist Derf announced the end of his strip THE CITY after 24 years. It’s a miracle any alt-weekly cartoonist was still going, but Derf’s humorous look at Cleveland life had a good run, outlasting most of the papers that once carried it. He wrote:

I know some of you will lament this decision, and I thank you.

It was never my plan to produce The City this long. Nearly a quarter of a century? How the hell did THAT happen? But I’d be nothing without this cranky, quirky, little comic strip. Still stuck in a lame daily newspaper job, or, more likely, laid off and lamenting the end of my career. The City by itself is a minor blip in the comix landscape, but I look back with pride at a body of work that was consistently good, and, for a few periods, even exceptional. But it’s time to putThe City to rest. This strip means too much to me, and I owe it too much, to let it wheeze on as an afterthought.


BY his own admission, Derf is now better at graphic novels, such as his classic Dahmer, than he is webcomics. However, he’s still doing a biweekly strip called The Baron of Prospect Avenue. And next year, his graphic novel about trash collection will be out from Abrams.
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