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Comic strips

More recent comic page changes

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The Toronto Star has dropped Darby Conley’s Get Fuzzy in favor of Aaron Johnson’s new (at least in print) comic W.T. Duck. The editor noted the flood of calls from Get Fuzzy fans, but in the end the decision was made by “canvassing some newsroom comic page readers” and making “a judgment call.” Public Editor Kathy English signs off saying, “our instincts were that W.T. Duck fit nicely into the mix of the page and has the potential to reach a wider audience than Get Fuzzy.”

The Herald Times in Bloomington (IN) has announced which comic they are cutting after a poll. Unfortunately, the results are behind a subscriber login. Anyone know which feature was cut?

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Comments 12

  1. Obviously, Ms English is a moron. Don’t listen to your readers, listen to yourself. What a great way to run a newspaper….into the ground.

  2. An honest response could have been, “What? We need a reason? Huh?”

  3. Would one of those infamous “reader polls” work any better? At least they didn’t replace Get Fuzzy with something completely lame.

  4. it is rough anytime a strip is cancelled by a newspaper. while we may like a certain one, there are more people who don’t like it and are happy it is gone. I felt bummed out when my paper pulled Lio, to dark for some tastes, I guess. That is why I have it e-mailed to me.

  5. I really, really felt bummed.

  7. Cancelling Get Fuzzy is pathetic. I’m sure there are plenty of lame comics in the Toronto Star that more than deserve the heave-ho before Get Fuzzy. If I was an editor at another Toronto newspaper, I’d grap Get Fuzzy ASAP. Just because the old folks “don’t get it” shouldn’t be the reason for cancelling Darby Conely’s great strip. It’s just another reason to cancel your subscription to the Star.

    The poll of the newsroom comic page reader quote is a lie. Who was Ms English talking to, the janitor? Newsrooms love Get Fuzzy.

  8. “The poll of the newsroom comic page reader quote is a lie. Who was Ms English talking to, the janitor? Newsrooms love Get Fuzzy.”

    Got a source for this statement? First, that she didn’t ask around, and, second, that newsroom personnel generally prefer Get Fuzzy? The paper I was working for back when Darby had a prolonged bout of back spasms and lousy strips (four years ago? five?) dropped the strip and there wasn’t a peep out of the newsroom.

    Maybe they all went to work in Toronto, d’ya think?

  9. Sorry Mike, but editors make up stuff all of the time to justify changes to unknowing readers. Ms English said “some newsroom comics page readers” in a very casual manner. How many people did she ask, six or seven? Gimme a break.

    As far as comics going in to periodic slumps, Hi and Lois has been in one since 1982 and that strip is still in too many papers.

  10. For the annual cost to run a comic it seems like the easiest way to keep and even gain new readers. I am really surprised struggling papers aren’t adding strips rather than cutting them. A third page ad can often pay for a comic for a whole year.

    BTW Hi and Lois was replaced by The Pajama Diaries this week in my local paper The Longmont Times Call, which is also home to the strip 2 Cows and a Chicken.

  11. I remember that day when I opened the Toronto Star at work and didn’t see “Get Fuzzy”. A sad, sad day!

    I’m not sure “W.T. Duck” is a better replacement and quite frankly I fail to see how it’s going to reach a wider audience than “Get Fuzzy”.

    I’m wondering if this new replacement will appeal to the masses like “Get Fuzzy” did.

  12. That editor’s brother must be in charge of the Federal Reserve.

    I read once that editors much preferred lots of white space, simple pictures and very little text in comic strips. Now, I have no way to know if that is true, but if it is, it seems to imply editors think readers are unintelligent hayseeds that have to be spoon fed simple, flat, mega-non-offensive humor.

    I looked up ‘W.T. Duck’ and read several strips. It’s OK, in that same way so many other strips today are – mildy amusing, a smidgen off beat but still profoundly ‘safe’, if you get my meaning. But better than ‘Get Fuzzy’? No way!

    I think ‘Get Fuzzy’ is one of the top 3 strips out there now, not only for truly off beat humor, but for engaging and fun artwork. Hell, it’s worth it’s real estate in the paper just to get to see Bucky’s fang every morning.

    But what’s fair in life? The current online poll being done by the Washinton Post has ‘Judge Parker’ trouncing ‘Pooch Cafe’ & ‘The Piranha Club.’

    What the #$%@& is going on!?

    http://voices.washingtonpost.com/comic-riffs/2009/03/the_post_poll_which_dropped_co.html

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