In response to The Daily Cartoonist story about Gannett unifying their comics pages,
the newspaper group has sent a correction:
In your “The New Gannett Unified Comics Pages” post, you note all USA TODAY NETWORK publications will carry the “exact same comics” which is inaccurate [emphasis added].
We are unifying our print comics package, but our comics may still vary by market. The majority of our publications will maintain a similar number of comics after the transition.
In addition, your post states the transition will be effective Oct. 2, which is also not correct [emphasis added]. While many of our publications will make the transition in October, others will be transitioning in January or later.
Kindly update your post to reflect these changes. In addition, sharing a statement from Kristin Roberts, Chief Content Officer, Gannett in the event you’d like to include in your post:
“Our mission to provide essential journalism in the communities we serve means we are always evolving our content to ensure we are relevant. Refreshing our comics provides a consistent and modern presentation for our audience while incorporating beloved favorites they love.”
I apologize for misinterpreting that the Memphis Commercial Appeal change would be applied company-wide.
The change may will not affect be the same in all of their newspapers and will not be implemented on October 2 for all papers.
So the unified Gannett comics lineup won’t happen at all?
My understanding from the statement is it won’t necessarily involve all USA Today newspapers (“comics may still vary by market”) and changes to USA Today papers will take place over the course of a few months (“many of our publications will make the transition in October, others will be transitioning in January or later”).
Who cares about corrected transition dates… or that comics will “vary by market” if they are all essentially rejiggered reruns and/or prehistoric strips? [emphasis not added because I don’t know how.]
Gannett’s Chief Content Officer needs to (kindly) look up the words “evolving,” “relevant,” “refreshing,” and “modern.”
When Funky Winkerbean* ended the Akron Beacon Journal arbitrarily added a comic without asking for input. At least now I know what might happen next. Thanks for the heads up !
*Funky cartoonist Tom Batiuk was from the area.
The objections from Gannett notwithstanding, later announcements from Gannett’s subsidiary papers prove that The Daily Cartoonist was right on the money: the vast majority of those papers are keeping to the party line, and only a few of them will continue to offer a microscopic number of “non-Gannett-approved” strips. For anyone who prefers anything fresh, or at least non-antiquated, it is clear that Gannett is NOT the place to go to find anything humorous.