In what is turning into an annual event The Anchorage Daily News (ADN) has changed the make up of the comics it carries. This time its only their Sunday comics and this time it only involves cuts, not replacements.
The paper is reducing the the number of Sunday sections from four to two and moving the Sunday Funnies to the centerspread of the second section. From ADN editor David Hulen:
A NOTE TO READERS
Starting today, we’re making some changes in the Sunday newspaper. Instead of four sections, it’ll generally be two. The Sunday comics and classified sections will be incorporated into the second section. Otherwise, the changes should be minimal.
The overall space devoted to news should remain about the same as before, though where things appear will be slightly rearranged. Local news will stay on the front page and in the first section. The first page of the second section will remain devoted to national and international news. We’re keeping our regular Sunday features, including the New York Times crossword, and we’re adding Michelle Singletary’s popular personal finance column.
Then to the nitty-gritty about the syndicated comics:
The biggest change is to the comics pages. We’re reducing them from eight pages to four. They’ll appear on the middle four pages of the B-section so they can easily be pulled out. We’re keeping what we consider the strongest comics, more than 20 in all, nearly all of them running in the daily newspaper. Most of the comics will be a little smaller than before; the idea is to keep as many as possible with the fewer pages.
Steve Johnson of Anchorage (hat tip) sent us a list of the comics that remained in the January 7, 2024 Sunday edition: Baby Blues, Between Friends, Crabgrass, Crankshaft, Doonesbury, Dustin, Garfield, Loose Parts, Luann, Mutts, Nancy, Peanuts, Pearls Before Swine, Pickles, Pooch Cafe, Rose is Rose, Tundra, and Zits.
The comics that no longer appear in their Sunday Color Comics Supplement (or pull-out) as compared to the previous Sunday are Animal Crackers, Bound and Gagged, Brewster Rockit, Broom-Hilda, and The Middletons (all Tribune Content Agency strips), plus Carp Diem, Sally Forth, and Shoe. There were also some puzzle features among the missing: Boggle; Jumble Crosswords; Jumble For Kids; Kids Across, Parents Down; and Scrabble Grams.
another hat tip to Steve Johnson for the news and the details
I understand you are trying to keep the paper size down. If the middle 4 pages are in fact comics, and you are keeping the NY Times crossword (?), could you not have a full page for Cognitive things that usually get cut, Suduko, what’s missing, word scramble, etc. It’s a way to help everyone be on their toes which is helpful to older minds. I think they are in your demographics and may not have exposure if they lve alone. It’s just a thought. Thank you for reading.