The long-running newspaper strip “Alex”, a predominantly “financial-centric” satire by Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor, has moved fully online, and away from the Daily Telegraph, after the newspaper quietly dropped it from its print edition last month.
Although the creators bear the Daily Telegraph no grudge, the “Alexit” separation is proving a painful one for the many fans of the long running strip, first published in the short-lived London Daily News, before moving to the Independent from 1987 to 1992.
There’s a bizarre twist to the move, too: Private Eye reported recently (in No. 1647) that the Telegraph’s decision to drop the strip was in part because it “didn’t get enough hits online”.
Needless to say, there was plenty of scepticism from long term readers about this claim.
“Readers had long complained this was because it was hidden away on the website and hard to find,” Private Eye reported. “Managers at the paper had shown no enthusiasm for repeated offers to fold the authors’ own un-paywalled Alexcartoon.com website, with its comprehensive archive, into the paper’s own offering.”
Comic strip fans are well aware newspaper strips are seen as an easy budget cut when their overall readership declines and revenue dips. But dropping strips comes with cost, too. The “Alex” team report many people who have reached out to say that the popular strip was the only thing they read the Telegraph for – and that they have now cancelled their subscriptions in protest.
They wrapped the run of the physical run of the British daily newspaper strip after 38 years by revealing the secret that the “entire world is just a computer simulation in the future…” and letting their city slicker return to his very start in 1986, right after bank deregulation.
The Telegraph’s last ever Alex strip appeared on Friday 4th April, just before Donald Trump’s new tariff regime caused a global financial meltdown of the exact kind that, as Private Eye noted, “had provided material for the strip, and made it a welcome bright point in the paper’s financial coverage, for decades”.
High spots (for the strip, not for bankers) have been collected on site, including “The Crash of 87” and “It’s A Wonderful Christmas” published in 2012 and early 2013.
Gone, Not Gone…
Having built a hugely successful web presence outside the Daily Telegraph paywall, online and through a dedicated app, there’s no chance Alex will get to retire just yet.
“There are still stories in our vaults and jokes we are halfway though crafting,” says his creators. “And as long as the financial world keeps messing up, plenty of subject matter to write about too.
“In the meantime, some of our unpublished and rejected ideas may appear here on this page, now that we are free from the editorial veto.”
“Many, many thanks to all of you, who have taken the trouble to write in to us about the end of Alex,” they say. “We have received literally hundreds of emails, WhatsApps and LinkedIn messages from Alex readers all over the world (plus a few commiserating pats on the back and glasses of vino down at the watering hole). We’re trying to reply to everyone individually, but if we’ve missed any of you out, apologies and we’d like to say we’re grateful to you. It makes a big difference, at this slightly low moment in our careers, to read your kind words and to feel our work has been appreciated and will be missed.”
• Head to Alexcartoon.com for the adventures of Alex Masterly
• Sign up for the “Alex Masterly” Mailing List
• Read Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor response to “Alexit” events at alexcartoon.com
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: British Comics, British Comics - Newspaper Strips, Comics, Digital Comics, downthetubes Comics News
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Wish them luck!
Alex has always been a great strip. And unique.