By bringing up newspapers, I didn’t mean to imply that I find the industry itself blameless for its condition. Quite the contrary. However, I don’t have much stomach for kicking newspapers when they’re down. They are, of course, my customers, but, more important, I know for a fact that most of the editors and reporters in the trenches—not to mention the pressmen and the carriers and all the ancillary worker bees—have no real part in the decisions that determine their course.

Anyway, today wraps up the tree house series from 1986, the first storyline ever to appear in A&J. I want to thank those who went to gocomics.com, signed up and included A&J among their “favorites.” My numbers indicated a noticeable bump last week! If you’ve been leary about signing up, I don’t think you should be. All that happens is, you’ll get the comics you specify delivered to you every day by email. You can opt out of receiving any further communications from Universal Uclick. They’re mainly interested in running up their own numbers to impress advertisers, but if you pay a small premium you don’t even have to look at any ads. With the advertisements, it’s all free.