Mere days after The Village Voice fired Michael Musto and others, the paper has lost two more writers. The only difference is that Tejal Rao and Nick Pinto quit. Rao and Pinto both tweeted that they have resigned from the Voice, making the paper even more hollow than it already is.

Rao’s departure is particularly awkward for the Voice because when it announced the “restructuring” that ousted Musto, Robert Sietsema and Michael Feingold, it boasted of Rao’s employment there. Oops.

In related “The Village Voice is Crap” news, Musto told HuffPost Live that the mood at the Voice was “dour” in the days leading up to his firing. Wonder what the mood is now? Grim? Sullen? Depressed? Gloomy?

When two of The Village Voice‘s top editors quit rather than downsize staffers, it was only a matter of time before those layoffs transpired. The cuts involved three big names. According to Gawker, Michael Musto, Robert Sietsema and Michael Feingold have all been let go.

Christine Brennan, executive editor of the Village Voice Media Group, oversaw the reductions, which included some on the business side of the Voice. She was also the one asking Will Bourne, the Voice’s last editor, to fire or reduce the roles of staffers.

Musto had been writing for the Voice since the early 1980s; Sietsema since the early 90s; and Feingold since the late 90s. When a paper just fires three of their most iconic writers, you know things are bad.

Will Bourne, the editor-in-chief of The Village Voice for only six months, has resigned. The New York Times reports that Bourne — along with deputy editor Jessica Lustig — chose to leave the paper rather than implement staff cuts:

They met with the staff at 11 p.m. on Thursday and said that Christine Brennan, executive editor of Voice Media Group, had instructed them to cut five positions from the 20-person staff. Rather than carrying out the cuts, they resigned and left immediately.

“When I was brought in here, I was explicitly told that the bloodletting had come to an end,” Bourne told the Times. “I have enormous respect for the staff here and the work they have been doing and I am not going to preside over further layoffs.”

Bourne succeeded Tony Ortega as editor of the Voice in late November. We’ve reached out to him for comment and will update when we hear back.

The Village Voice has named Stephanie Zacharek its principal film writer. Zacharek most recently worked as Movieline’s chief film critic. Prior to her time there, she was Salon’s lead film critic. Zacharek’s work has also been featured in publications such as Rolling Stone and New York.

“Here is a writer who cuts to the heart of the films she sees, one able to capture that elusive sense of what a film actually feels like while still finding urgent connections between it and the world outside the theater,” said Alan Scherstuhl, film editor of the Voice, in a statement. “For the Voice she’ll continue to cover the movies she’s most passionate about, whether wide releases, indie standouts, or local screenings.”

Zacharek begins her new role on April 24.

Will Bourne has been named the editor-in-chief of The Village Voice. He replaces Tony Ortega, who left the paper in September.

Bourne comes to the Voice from Inc., where he served as editor-at-large since July. Previously Bourne had been executive editor of Fast Company for four years, and during his time there the magazine won several awards (George Polk Award and Cunningham Award in 2009) and was nominated for several others (2010 Magazine of The Year, Mirror Award, George Loeb Award).

At the Voice, Bourne hopes to bolster the paper’s historically strong political presence and expand its influence in other areas.

“The Voice is an amazing — and resilient!! — institution and, as the recent election showed, so is liberalism,” Bourne told FishbowlNY via email. “I plan to reinforce the paper’s position as a showcase for progressive — but balanced, disciplined — journalism, and to make it an even more forceful presence on the culture front. The recent changes and new ownership at the company have made the entire VV chain much healthier and I am honored to be part of the process of helping it grow.”

Bourne starts at the Voice November 26.

Dan Perkins, (aka Tom Tomorrow) the cartoonist behind “This Modern World,” a popular syndicated comic, has had his strip cut from The Village Voice. Perkins’ strip had been running in the Voice since 1997, and when he heard the news that it was being dropped, he took to Twitter and his personal site to blast the Voice.

“Unsurprising news: my cartoon just got shitcanned from the Village Voice by the assholes at corporate hq.” Tweeted Perkins. Shortly after, he posted, “Oh, also: FUCK VILLAGE VOICE MEDIA. Did more harm to altweekly cartooning than the economy and the internet combined.”

He then added on his site that he saw this coming, ever since Tony Ortega left the paper:

As some of you know, a few years back the powers that be at the Village Voice chain decided to shitcan all cartoons across the chain (costing meover almost a dozen major cities in a single day — it was like a nuclear first strike on my career). The one exception for me was the Village Voice itself, because editor Tony Ortega was a hardcore fan of my cartoon, and fought some serious battles to keep it in. He resigned a couple weeks ago, and I’ve been waiting for the axe to fall there, and was not remotely surprised to learn just now from the interim editor that my cartoon will no longer be running in their paper.

Mere days after the Village Voice lost editor-in-chief Tony Ortega and music editor Maura Johnston was fired, the paper has named a successor for the latter. According to The New York Times, Brian McManus will be the Voice’s new music editor.

McManus’ work has appeared in Philadelphia Weekly, Houston Press, The Chicago Reader, SF Weekly and more. He has also written one book.

A replacement for Ortega has not been named yet.

Tony Ortega is leaving The Village Voice. Ortega has been the editor of the paper since 2007, but had been with Village Voice Media since 1995.

Ortega announced that he was leaving to pursue a book proposal about Scientology.

From Ortega on the Voice’s Running Scared blog:

Many of those stories I could not have produced without the involvement and aid of our amazing commenting community. Your tips and knowledgeable analysis have made this blog live and breathe. I regret that at least for now, this show is going off the air. But perhaps soon, as I pursue my new goals, I’ll be able to post a story here and there in another venue. I hope you’ll look for me when that happens.

Before following someone on Twitter, it was all about the “hard copy.” For twenty years, Stan Mack was the cartoonist at The Village Voice with his popular comic strip, “Stan Mack’s Real Life Funnies.”

In 1994, Mack started branching out into the literary world. After dabbling in children’s books, his first major publication was born. Now 18 years later, and after writing and illustrating several books, Mack is ready to re-release that publication.

This selection is entitled Taxes, Tea Party, and Those Revolting Rebels: A History in Comics of the American Revolution. In the 1950s, Arthur Miller used the backdrop of McCarthyism as an allegory to write The Crucible about the 17th Century witchhunt.

In the same way, Mack was inspired to explore our country’s founding based on what he saw covering the riots at Tompkins Square Park in the 1980s for The Voice.

“There was something about that experience, watching the clash between the various groups and it kind of just got a little bit out of control,” Mack tells FishbowlNY. “What came out it was the beginning of a study of rights of freedom, starting at the beginning of the country.”

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It’s almost the weekend, and you’ve been invited to your roommate’s band’s show tonight. If the cheap beer isn’t a good enough incentive, maybe a byline at the Village Voice is.

As the most open section of the Voice, the music section is vibing for offbeat culture stories with a humorous yet hard-hitting tone. Music editor Maura Johnston wants to know what is happening around New York: an artist with an interesting backstory and NYC ties who’s releasing an album, a micro-scene coalescing, and so on.

For more on word count and editor contact info, check out How To Pitch: Village Voice.