Los Angeles Times Overhauls Comics Pages
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The Los Angeles Times has revamped it daily and Sunday comics pages.
We’re excited to introduce five cartoons to our readers, beginning with the June 27 print edition and eNewspaper.
These are the results of an overall review of the syndicated comics that The Times publishes, which we promised to readers after printing a “9 Chickweed Lane” strip Dec. 1 that contained an ethnic slur.
In the immediate aftermath, we permanently dropped “Chickweed,” temporarily replaced it with “Luann” and asked readers for input on The Times’ comics lineup. About a thousand of you responded. Thank you.
We then assembled a panel of Times staffers from across departments to review readers’ input and take an in-depth look at what our comics pages featured and what was available (some popular requests, such as “Calvin and Hobbes,” were not). Our goal was to bring you a dynamic and diverse mix.
To make room for new titles, we carefully considered what to remove. The panel evaluated criteria including reader support, frequency of new installments, instances of insensitivity and quality of content [emphasis added].
The “old” (last month’s) L. A. Times daily comics page:
In addition The Times publishes six panels on their puzzle page and
continues the long tradition of printing Love Is… in the classifieds:
New to The L. A. Times:
That’s the print kickoff for Tauhid Bondia’s popular online comic “Crabgrass,” which chronicles the high-spirited adventures of young BFFs Kevin and Miles. It will run every day. Award-winning cartoonist Liniers’ visually imaginative international hit “Macanudo” will also appear daily.
On Mondays through Saturdays, they’ll be joined by Sandra Bell-Lundy’s “Between Friends,” which follows middle-aged friends Maeve, Susan and Kimberly through the funny and poignant changes of their professional and personal lives; Donna Lewis’ “Reply All Lite,” which stars Lizzie, a successful career woman whose “inner fifth-grade voice” sometimes gets the best of her; and “Six Chix,” which showcases the distinct styles and wits of Isabella Bannerman, Bianca Xunise, Susan Camilleri Konar, Mary Lawton, Maritsa Patrinos and Stephanie Piro, who take turns drawing the strip.
Dropped to make room:
The Times is discontinuing Monday through Saturday reruns of “Doonesbury” (don’t worry — the Sunday-only new strips will stay); seven-day reruns of “Get Fuzzy”; all seven days of “Prickly City”; and the Monday through Saturday “Argyle Sweater” and “Luann,” which were not in Sunday Comics.
But we’re not pulling the football away from Charlie Brown: The all-reruns “Peanuts” continues for kids of all ages.
This is not a small matter to affected cartoonists as the price of running syndicated comic strips and panels is based on the newspapers’ circulation and The Los Angeles Times’s numbers are among the top five U. S. newspapers that carry comics.
The Los Angeles Times story on the changes. The story via AOL.
We take the funny pages as seriously as you do.
Syndicate scorecard.
Counting the dailies and the Sundays separately (as the syndicates do)
Andrews McMeel Syndication gained two: Crabgrass (daily and Sunday); but lost seven: Get Fuzzy (d&S), Prickly City (d&S), plus the daily Doonesbury, Argyle Sweater, and Luann.
King Features Syndicate gained four: Macanudo (d&S), and the daily Between Friends and Six Chix.
The Washington Post Writers Group gained one: the daily Reply All Lite.
Below is an “old” (last month) L. A. Times Sunday comics section.
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