In November 2007, faced with budget targets that we’d walk over hot coals to have to hit now, we decided to cut most of our comics. It saved us a little bit of money and earned us no end of pissed-off letters from fans of our onetime back-pages mainstays. Today the Minnesota Independent is reporting that Village Voice Media, the former New Times chain of alt-weeklies, is cutting its comics.

This is obviously a gut punch to comics artists reeling from cutbacks at smaller chains like ours (Washington City Paper is owned by Creative Loafing Inc., which owns five other papers and declared bankruptcy last year).

And yet: Now we look like visionaries!