A pretty big announcement

March 30th marks ten years that "Phoebe and Her Unicorn" has been in newspaper syndication.

"Phoebe and Her Unicorn" will continue for as long as I have a brain, eyes, and a functioning drawing hand. There will be new books for decades.

I thought I’d reassure people of that, before dropping the following news: I’m bringing the daily newspaper strip to an end.

The Sunday comics will continue, but as of March 30, 2025, I’m finished with daily comic strips.

And just as, in the strip, Phoebe has moved to a new house, she’s also moving to a new medium: graphic novels.

She’s been there before: in addition to the many books that are collections of strips, two (The Magic Storm and Unicorn Theater) are graphic novels written on their own, and probably a template for what’s to come.

And the truth is, books are where “Phoebe and Her Unicorn” has been most successful. I’m in a couple hundred newspapers. Meanwhile I’ve sold nearly 5 million books. And books are most of my income. If the marketplace is speaking, it’s telling me people want books. So I'm going to just do that.

I’ve known for a few years now that that’s where this was eventually headed.

Of course, this was an emotional decision. I wanted to be a syndicated comic strip artist my whole life, for as long as I knew what one was. I was xeroxing my strip samples at Kinko’s and then mailing them to all the syndicates before I was 20. It was my unreachable dream for so long, until finally, in my 30s, I won a contest and got the opportunity to make my dream come true.

And it’s been everything I hoped for and more. The rare, almost unique, privilege of making a living drawing unicorns. Getting to meet, and feel welcomed by, so many of my comics heroes.

I would not trade it for anything. It's been a great honor.

The thing is, though, I’ve been drawing comic strips for a really long time. I started Ozy and Millie as a teenager, drew it for a decade, and now I’ve drawn “Phoebe and Her Unicorn” for 13 years. I’ve drawn many thousands of comic strips.

I feel ready for new challenges. I have ideas for new long-form stories about Phoebe and Marigold that I’m super eager to write! And I’ll have time for other projects, too. My long-delayed graphic memoir. A long-gestating graphic novel with my sister. A book about Ozy and Milo. New challenges and projects I haven’t even thought of yet.

But Phoebe and Marigold will remain the stars. That’s the biggest thing I want to communicate. They aren’t going anywhere!

Thank you to everyone who’s read the strip all these years, to all the newspapers who kept running it, and to Andrews McMeel for being a great syndicate. They’re a great publisher too, and they’ll be getting a lot more unicorn books from me before this is done.

Onward!

With sparkles,

Dana Simpson