The Gray Lady Adds a Touch of Color

After (oh I don't know, how old is The New York Times, anyway?) 150 years or so, The New York Times added something new to its pages on Sunday. Going all retro on us, it introduced something it's calling "The Funny Pages." Does that say comics to you? Well, it should. The paper's long history as being too serious for comics was shattered this week as words and pictures invaded the pages of the Sunday magazine (that's right, comics aren't actually showing up on the newsprint pages--not yet, anyway). Don't worry, the comics have a pristine pedigree: Chris Ware, toast of the comics cognoscenti, provides the first installment of a comics story that's due to go (roughly) 24 installments. It's available online in a PDF file. But comics aren't the only element available in "The Funny Pages." Elmore Leonard is serializing a novella over 14 weeks. You can access all this and more (they're also publishing humorous essays by a different author every week) at the table of contents for "The Funny Pages" (which promises to keep older episodes of the comic strip and serialized story available for those who might be coming in late).