Plain Dealer Picked Wrong Comic to Drop
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As reported here the Cleveland Plain Dealer, without notice, dropped the Pickles comic strip and replaced it with Animal Crackers.
Response from indignant readers was immense and immediate:
Oh, no, my very favorite comic, Pickles, gone!
Why on earth would you drop Pickles from your comics page?
The decision to replace “Pickles”… is tantamount to trading in a Maserati for a KIA.
The Plain Dealer has heard and complied with reader demand.
Over the past few weeks we’ve tried a couple of new things. We launched a new weather page, and we experimented with taking Pickles out of our comics lineup. We’ve heard from plenty of readers on both subjects, and we’ve listened.
Pickles is coming back, and the weather page is about to get a major upgrade.
The editor offered an explanation as to why there was no warning:
I’ve tried through the years to warn readers about significant changes we’re considering, and to give everyone a chance to offer thoughts on those. I didn’t do that with Pickles, because the whole question was whether readers would consider the loss of Pickles to be significant. The only fair way to judge that was to make the change and see how many readers noticed, without being prompted.
Yeah, readers didn’t need prompting.
Dozens of readers did notice, and told us there was no way the replacement strip could ever earn as big a spot in their hearts as Pickles had. So, that turned out to be pretty simple. Pickles is back, except for the next couple of Sundays, for which the comics have already been printed.
Wonder what’s the next comic they try to drop?
The Plain Dealer Editorial Column about the return of Pickles.
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