March 26 was scheduled to be Opening Day for Major League Baseball.
You may remember that the Zits comic strip for today was replaced:
King Features Syndicate has issued a correction for Zits black and white and color for 3/26.
Due to the event’s postponement, a comic about baseball’s Opening Day was replaced.
So we got this 2010 Zits rerun in place of the original intent…
though, as of this writing, if you click on the rerun it brings up the intended strip:
Word on the street is a number (most?) of the newspapers, or their pagination service, got the replacement notice too late and ran with the original.
When getting to the Dustin comic strip it becomes clear it was the creators’ request to cancel the scheduled Zits strip and not the syndicate. Dustin ran with their Opening Day strip:
Coupled with yesterday’s crowded cafeteria scene
it’s plain comics are still catching up with “the new normal.”
Not that Dustin is alone in that:
Is it “Bring Your Kid to Work” day?
Three are Striking Out (Comments)
Years ago 9 Chickweed Lane (and Pibgorn) turned off the comments section on GoComics because of all the snark. Now it is joined by Alley Oop. The other day GoComics turned off the comments section and deleted all the past comments.
I hadn’t been especially attached to the old Alley Oop, so have no objections to this incarnation – even enjoying it, especially the Sunday Little Oop. But long time fans (the same who objected to The Benders’ 28 years on the strip?) have been carping. So no more comments for the time being.
I have to say that the soap-story strips at King Features have thicker skin.
There is a group of “fans” who live to snark.
Two of a Kind
I can report that the Tampa Bay Times where I live ran the correct Zits comic strip (the rerun).
9 Chickweed Lane and Pibgorn got largely effusive praise in the comments section, and sometimes 1000 comments a day. But Brooke McEldowney couldn’t handle the fact that there was ANY criticism, and compared it to defacing the Mona Lisa, and turned off the comments. And the strip’s quality has nose-dived ever since. Possibly because Brooke doesn’t want to know if readers find a storyline impenetrable, inconsistent, or just bad.
As for Alley Oop, how can you respect a writer or artist who simply doesn’t want to hear it if long-time readers don’t care for a new direction? And don’t they realize that it means that the comic is being read? People enjoy commenting. If you don’t want comments, they might stop reading.