For more than 35 years, the world of newspaper comic strips has been covered by Cartoonist PROfiles, a fine quarterly magazine produced by Jud Hurd, who is himself a practitioner of the art. (That's hm on the cover of the issue at right above.) Cartoonist PROfiles has delved into animation and comic books, but its principal focus has been political cartoons and comic strips, and I've been a happy subscriber since its inception.
Sadly, I'm hearing that this venerable magazine may be coming to an end soon. Mr. Hurd is in poor health, and you could almost sense it from the latest issue (#145), which I received yesterday. The issue is a little slimmer than I'm used to, and has the slight feel of having been assembled without Hurd's customary editorial precision. That is not a criticism. If what I've heard is true, it was a commendable effort just to get this one to press.
I hope this is not the end of this fine publication. Perhaps when Hurd is no longer able to do it, he has someone else in mind to assume command, or someone can be found. At the very least, I'd love to see someone issue the entire run on CD-Rom because even though I have 'em all, it would be a lot easier to have the issues in that format. It's been a very important magazine and there's been a lot of history in its pages.