A Rhode Island-based comic strip got canned from the Providence Journal. Then the letters came.

Will Henry is far from the first person to find himself on the short end of the cost-cutting stick when it comes to corporate newspaper ownership. But he’s one of the few whose brush with the realities of modern journalism had a happy ending.

Will Henry is actually the pen name for Rhode Island cartoonist Will Wilson (he says you should just call him Will); he’s the creator of “Wallace the Brave,” a daily comic strip that’s been added to more than 100 newspapers nationwide since it was first picked up by Andrews McMeel Syndication in 2015. It was the recipient of the Reuben Award — the cartooning industry Oscars — for best newspaper comic strip in both 2018 and 2022. 

And — maybe most importantly for the hometown crowd — his strip’s young characters have all their adventures in Rhode Island, in the fictional seaside town of Snug Harbor. (Which may or may not bear some resemblance to the real Snug Harbor, which is a neighborhood in South Kingstown.)

That makes the Providence Journal, essentially, both Will’s and Wallace’s hometown newspaper. Which is why it stung when the Journal’s corporate owner, Gannett, announced it was moving to more consolidated comics sections among its newspapers and that certain strips would be left by the wayside. In Providence, that included “Wallace the Brave.”

“It’s sort of a bummer to the comics readers, but I get it. It’s cost effective,” Will told Boston.com, noting he had been warned by his syndicate the move was coming. “So it wasn’t a surprise … It was inevitable,” he said. “But it still hurt a little bit.”

But to some of the comic strip’s loyal local readers, it apparently hurt a lot — and they reached out to each other on social media to commiserate, and to the newspaper to complain. 

“Besides wanting to support journalism, ‘Wallace the Brave’ was the last thing keeping me a subscriber,” Rhode Islander Jennie Polan wrote to the Journal, according to a post she made on Facebook. “If ‘Wallace’ is removed I am canceling my subscription. This will be the last straw.”

“‘Wallace the Brave’ has kept the Providence Journal’s comics fresh and vibrant,” offered another reader, Peter Geisser. “Will Henry is a local artist … to cut Wallace is an insult to the R.I. audience, but to replace it with ‘Blondie’ … I thought I was in a time warp this morning and was looking at something my grandparents would have seen 100 years ago.”

“My favorite comic is being cut from the Providence Journal,” wrote Amy Hagan on the “Wallace the Brave” Facebook page. “More corporate BS.”

“It was definitely the silver lining to the whole fiasco to find out that there was this hardcore group of readers that were really upset to see the comic leave, and they were very vocal about it,” Will says. “And they let the Providence Journal know that they wanted to see the comic. They wanted to see Wallace. 

“So you know, that was the heartwarming part of it — to know that my neighbors have my back, and they could see themselves in the comic and the characters.”

And why wouldn’t they? Rhode Island is as much of a character in “Wallace” as the kids in the strip’s cast — primary among them being the kind-hearted Wallace, his anxious sidekick Spud, and their tough-cookie buddy Amelia.

“Any creator, you know, you try to examine the things that made you who you are. Growing up in Rhode Island by the ocean, I think had a big impact on me,” Will says. “And drawing different things that I see from observation kind of keeps the comic fresh, at least for me, from the creative and illustration side … I can throw in the wharf that I walk past every day, or I can throw in the windmill that I see on my drive home — all those things kind of help build the comic.”

Which brings us to the happy ending part: Apparently the cartoonist and his loyal readers weren’t the only ones who saw the benefits of having Wallace’s Snug Harbor as part of the local paper. After receiving more than 200 calls and emails, the Journal reversed course and returned “Wallace the Brave” to its pages.

They even gave it better placement, on the paper’s local section front, rather than trying to shoehorn it back onto the comics page. “This seems particularly fitting, as the strip is, after all, a local feature,” wrote Journal and Newport Daily News regional executive editor Lynne Sullivan in her note welcoming “Wallace” back.

“The decision to continue publishing Wallace was an easy one,” Sullivan told Boston.com, noting that she was “delighted” to be able to bring it back. “‘Wallace the Brave’ is incredibly special to The Providence Journal and Newport Daily News,” she said.

Special nor not, it was a move that, frankly, came as a surprise to Wallace’s creator. “I honestly didn’t expect the Providence Journal to bring it back,” Will says. “And that isn’t a slight on the Providence Journal. I just understand how these corporate entities work, and how the nuts and bolts of business — there’s some harsh realities to that. 

“But I have to tip my hat because they listened to their readers, and put their neck out for the local guy,” he says. “They [even] did a nice story about it, front page, which was really, really groovy. I walked into my local gas station, the racks of newspapers were all there with my character right in the front, and I was like, ‘Well, wait a minute. That’s my guy Wallace!’”

For the full conversation with Will, check out the latest episode of “Strip Search: The Comic Strip Podcast,” below: