Here are a few of the changes on the comic pages:
Lynn Johnston’s For Better or For Worse returns to the Sherman Denison Herald Democrat after it was dropped when the paper scaled down to a single page of comics.
Tony Murphy’s recently launched It’s All About You has been picked up by the Tampa Bay Online.
Mort Walker’s Beetle Bailey was voted the top comic in a comic poll in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
The Northwest Florida Daily News is running a poll. Comics in consideration: Baby Blues, Between Friends, Bizarro, Cul de Sac, Get Fuzzy, Mutts, Ollie and Quentin, The Pajama Diaries, Pearls Before Swine, Pickles and Pooch Cafe
According to a post over on the The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee blog, Pearls Before Swine won the Winston Salem Poll.
“Beetle Bailey was voted the top comic in a comic poll in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette” Well deserved, Mort puts the KING in King Features!
The story with the Arkansas Democrat Gazette had some interesting points. The 5751 votes in the comics poll were more votes than those casted in the recent presidential primaries in 45 of Arkansas 75 counties.
If the purpose of comics is to entertain the newspaper buying reader one understands why “Beetle Bailey” lives in Arkansas.
I was amused by the reason the editor gave for not dropping last place “Girls & Sports”. It is new (to the local readers) “and you never know when they might lock eyes with the reader across the room.”
Most recommended to drop: “Lio”. The love/hate relationship the readers have with that comic continues.
Apparently what was dropped was “Elderberries”, that finished 17th out of 31. There is one less “legacy” strip in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Why it was dropped was not mentioned. Or did I miss read the comment next to the comic?
Why I read comics on the web. Of the 31 comics I read only three on a daily basis. And I read alot of comics on a daily basis.
This is a very interesting article, they obviously took a lot of time over this. I was most interested to note that they used the old fashioned “clip and return” ballot system. However one may feel about comics polls, I have to say the online ones bother me the most. It only seems right that those who take the poll be folks who actually read the paper in question.
The internet provides a forum in which poll results can be terrifically skewed by a few people who go out of their way to promote or sabotage any strips they choose. Especially when there are no safegurads against multiple voting. I have come across a few people who have deliberately set their sights on seeing to it that Edison Lee “does not get into even one more paper”. While I understand market forces and expect any new strip to take its lumps, this mean spirited attempt to manipulate papers to which these people do not even have the courtesy to subscribe, is completely uncalled for. I only hope that editors are wise to these people and are not influenced by them. At least the Gazette seems to have made an attempt to be fair and thourough.