As a newspaper broadsheet it was always able to do so literally, but now the alternative comics anthology pood has folded in the unfortunately metaphorical sense. Writing on the pood blog, co-founder and co-editor Geoff Grogan says the publication's fourth issue will be its last.

Through pood, editors Grogan, Kevin Mutch, and Alex Rader published a wide array of challenging, often unfashionable altcomix work, by creators ranging from Jim Rugg to Hans Rickheit to (in the anthology's fourth and final issue) DC and Dick Tracy artist Joe Staton. But Grogan says that the project, always a labor of love, was a quixotic one in today's marketplace: Its unconventional newsprint format, uncommercial contents, and budget-necessitated lack of a dedicated PR person made it impossible to generate enough revenue to continue the series.

That was the dream- to create a self-sustaining vehicle for continuous exploration and experimentation, a place for comics of all kinds and comic creators of all stripes--that would entertain as much as it played around with form. In many ways, like the Sunday funnies in the first few decades of the 20th century. But---in the 21st century---the vehicle wasn't self-sustaining.

Whatever your take on the finished product, pood was a worthy idea, originating from an impulse akin to everything from DC's Wednesday Comics to Kramers Ergot 7 to those massive Little Nemo collections. It thought big not just in terms of page size but what went on those pages, and it's sad to see it go.