"Freshly Squeezed" is a comic strip by Ed Stein that went into syndication three months ago, but is based on a strip called "Denver Square" that he did for a little over a decade in the Rocky Mountain News.
Which newspaper, you will note, no longer exists.
Ed brought back the major characters from "Denver Square" for his new strip, with the added wrinkle that the wife's parents have lost their retirement savings in the depression and moved in with them, hence the family is "Freshly Squeezed" and aren't we all?
Today's strip is appropriately dark humor for those of us who work in newspapers. Instead of "I wonder what he's up to these days?" you find yourself wondering, "I wonder if he's still working," and "getting to keep your job" often means also getting to take on the jobs of a few less fortunate colleagues.
The ads on journalismjobs.com these days would be humorous if they weren't serious: They expect you to report, blog, tweet, shoot video, update the website and do just about everything except babysit the publisher's grandchildren and that probably comes up from time to time as well, all for less than $30k a year. And they are flooded with applicants for each position that comes open.
Fortunately, newspaper workers tend towards gallows humor to begin with. "Freshly Squeezed" has been a fairly bright strip in its young days, but Stein has thrown in a few of these reality checks from time to time and, as the strip finds its legs, I'm hopeful he won't start getting all cheerful on us.
In the words of St. Lou, "I hate spunk."
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