Charles Apple

Once upon a time, comic strips drove newspaper circulation.

‘The Yellow Kid,’ as drawn by Richard
Outcault in the 1890s in The New York
World and The New York Journal American.
—

Not any more. Over the last few decades, most newspapers have cut back on their comics. As a a comic strip lover — and as a former cartoonist — I dislike this trend very much.

Leave it to my former employer, The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer to buck the trend

N&O public editor Ted Vaden wrote in a recent column:

Back in November, [Features Editor Thad Ogburn and his staff] ran a survey inviting readers to vote on their favorite and least favorite comics, as a prelude to adding and cutting strips. An astounding 7,910 voted, by e-mail and paper ballots. Some town elections don’t get that many participants.

As Deputy Managing Editor Dan Barkin said, “It would be lunacy for a newspaper to ignore that.”

The editors were so awed by the response that they scrapped the original plan to add three new strips and cut three old ones. Instead, they cleared space on the comics page for nine more strips, adding some new ones and resurrecting the previously canceled “Cathy,” “Hagar the Horrible” and “Drabble.” Saved from the chopping block were “Peanuts,” “Shoe” and “For Better or For Worse.” The changes [started Jan. 14].

Perhaps this will be the start of a new trend. All we need now is for Bill Watterson to return…

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 1:49 pm and is filed under Comic strips, Newspapers, VizEds Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.