This Sunday we’ll be making some changes to our comics pages. We’ll have a story Sunday explaining the changes, but the teaser is that a long-time favorite is going away.
Making changes to the comics pages is tough. There’s a constituency for virtually everything on the page, and our readership seems sliced and diced into individual categories. For everybody who thinks that the Family Circus is the comics equivalent of ODing on sugar, there are others who loves its wholesome brand of humor. Some people love Get Fuzzy. Others just don’t get it. A friend was explaining the other day about the wisdom of Judge Parker. I haven’t found it.
But the comics are a living entity. They change with the times and they reflect who we are, what we find amusing, what moves us. I would love Calvin and Hobbes to return. Not going to happen. Same with The Far Side.
So we add and subtract. Not always successfully, but always with the same goal. What’s the best use of these two pages. Yes, some people are going to be angry, and that’s OK. There’s a reassuring comfort in reading the comics every day, and nobody likes their routines to be upset. But change is good, and my hope is that you will give these new strips a chance. I’ll talk more about this on Monday. Please read our Sunday story.
Your host is Ken Otterbourg, the managing editor at the Winston-Salem Journal. It's a forum to discuss the media, from
I look forward to the endless diatribes and letters to the editor about how you’ve ruined someone’s daily routine and lifestyle by removing their favorite comic.
You can’t be all things to all people. People should be thankful you even dedicate a page everyday to comics, horoscopes and the like (much less several pages to stocks- what a waste). If people are subscribing just to read the comics, then they are probably not the readers you want in the first place.
Ken, you may not get the wisdom of Judge Parker. But there is some there. I hope you can continue to keep the Judge in the paper for long time (I know, it’s been there a long time).
I enjoy it and it is the one good, last remaining story/serial comics left. All the new comics you ever add are either are not funny, poorly drawn or, dare I say, don’t even have dialogue.
I will have to take another look at the Judge. What is funny/profound has certainly changed over the years, and is a reflection of society. Are Close to Home or Brevity as good as The Far Side? Probably not. But most days, I get a chuckle from them. I have the collected Far Side at home. It’s two volumes, weighs about 40 pounds. And along with the cartoons, there are oodles of hate mail that Gary Larson received from people who were less than enamored of his efforts to give voice to animals.
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