The free Michael Leunig calendar in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age is the latest victim of Fairfax Media’s cost-cutting drive.

As printed newspaper sales have declined, Fairfax has shed staff in the thousands. First it came for the subeditors, then reporters and then photographers. Now it’s the annual Leunig calendar.

For more than a decade, the whimsical illustrated calendar by the popular cartoonist was included in the subscription price of the newspapers or was given away if you bought a copy of the paper at a newsagency.

Last year there was an early sign Fairfax’s largesse was running out. The 2014 calendar had a price tag for the first time: $3 at the shop and $8 by mail.

Leunig told Guardian Australia he had not been given a reason for the cancellation but was simply informed by email by the marketing department that it would not be produced this year.

“I guess it’s all to do with commercial realities and the fact that organisations don’t do that sort of thing anymore,” Leunig said. “I don’t think those giveaway things are happening anywhere very much any more.

“The political world is the same. It’s slash and burn. That’s the climate in which we live; that’s all I can understand about it.”

Former Fairfax editors told Guardian Australia the calendar may be costly to produce but was once a driver of sales as well as a goodwill gesture.

The paper would print at least 25,000 extra copies when the calendar was included, one source said.

The announcement was made on Leunig’s personal website: “Fairfax have decided not to produce a Leunig calendar for 2015 and as this news was received by Michael late in the year, there has not been sufficient time for him to produce a replacement. We are sorry about this, but will work on creating a calendar for 2016.”

On a fan page on Facebook, Leunig devotees were furious.

One wrote: “We should start a campaign where we ring Fairfax one after the other, every minute of the day the day before it usually comes out.” Many believed it was a political decision. “Fairfax loses … good enough excuse to not have to buy their publications. Publish independently. Obviously Michael has hit a nerve with a Political comment they don’t like. Good on you Michael. Long live freedom of speech.”

Others offered to organise an independent printing or to crowd-source the funds.

Leunig started working for Fairfax in Melbourne in 1969, and is still contracted as an editorial cartoonist.

“A lot of people sent it overseas,” he said. “It had a real life and you’d see it in people’s homes.

“It was one of these domestic objects that was a humble thing but is part of an old tradition. When I was a kid, the butcher did one, the grocer did one, and it becomes part of the kitchen and their life. It’s always sad to lose something like that. It was a popular, useful thing.”

Fairfax confirmed it would not be producing a Leunig calendar but did not give reasons why.