Village Voice to drop political cartoons?

Cagle's blog reported a few days ago that the Village Voice would be dropping its political cartoons and moving away from politics:

Recently, it is rumored that the Voice is switching gears and steering away from politics. Even with the editors objection to the corporate office decision, the Village Voice is slated to erase cartoonists Ted Rall, Ruben Bolling and Matt Groening from its pages. The editors cannot win. New York City doesn't need another free listing manual. New York City needs the raw political coverage, both national and local, that The Voice currently provides. This is a sad time for cartooning and also a sad time for alternative weeklies.

The Voice also runs Ward Sutton and Tom Tomorrow. This would coincide with the recent cancellation of the Bush Beat column. Hopefully the other papers in the merger don't follow suit.

So what is it with NYC and comics? The New York Times hates editorial cartoons, the New York Press doesn't run any political ones and switches its editors every few months, and now the Voice. The alternative weeklies are the last vestige of cutting edge comics in America (besides the internet), the most prominent one in the country isn't supposed to be cutting them. Make sure your paper doesn't cut any comics by organizing a riot outside their offices -- whoops, I mean writing them a letter!

Because for us cartoonists, the website doesn't pay the bills (well, except for a few morons).