You may remember a post from July discussing cuts at the Journal Star and the condition of parent company, Lee Enterprises. At that point, the stock was around $3, putting the company’s value around $145 million. Today the stock is struggling to stay at $.60. If the $3:$145m ratio holds, that would put the entire company’s value around $30 million (the market cap is at $27.49m as of writing, with shares at $.61). In December 2004, this same company was valued around $2 billion. The parent company of 52 newspapers is worth less than The Huffington Post.

The company is now in danger of being de-listed from the NYSE. The company’s net value change since 1978 is .30%. That’s not a typo — I didn’t confuse .30 and 30%. The value has increased less than one third of one percent in the past 30 years. But timing is everything:

Had one purchased Lee Enterprises stock in 1978 and sold it at the beginning of 2007, one would have enjoyed a 3,131.44% return on one’s investment.

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I figured I’d have plenty of opportunity to resubmit this cartoon after Gov. Heineman signed Nebraska’s smoking ban into law in late February, but Iowa quickly neutralized the threat.

Cartoons on national issues rarely get chosen without some direct localization.

It’s time to kick off this year’s countdown, now extended from a Top 20 to a TOP 31, counting down to the best reject on the last day of the year. I have absolutely no recollection of what the news was that inspired #31, but I figured it’s probably a good idea to kick off each year’s countdown with a cartoon about bigfoot.

This is just a friendly reminder about the nealo.com Cartoon Christmas charity cartoon print sale. Buy a print (suitable for framing, mind you) and give to a Christmas charity in the process.