Editor's Desk
Comics and classifieds
Posted by: John Beck
Friday, May 23, 2008 11:05 AM
We've had a number of News-Gazette readers ask why we moved some of our comics to the Classified section of the newspaper and why they don't appear on certain days. Here's the deal.A couple of months ago, we moved "Tina's Groove," "Rose is Rose," "Between Friends," and "Mary Worth" to the Classified section. They joined "Heart of the City," "Judge Parker" and "The Dinette Set," which already had been running in the section.
We did this to be able to run the Carolyn Hax advice column Monday through Saturday on the Entertainment pages. We had many, many requests to resume her column when we dropped it from E3 magazine in January, so many in fact that we looked for a place to run it daily rather than once a week.
To make room, we moved the four comics to Classified. These are the comics that the most readers told us they could do without in our Last Comic Standing comics survey last summer.
Occasionally, the amount of Classified advertising squeezes out some or all of the comics.
This has occurred more frequently since we converted our Thursday paper from 6 sections to 4 and started running our TV weekly section on Friday instead of Saturday. This means that Classified shares space with our Living section on Thursday and our Sports section on Friday, and it tightens the amount of space available for classified.
In particular, fans of "The Dinette Set" seem to be concerned that we've dropped the comic when it doesn't appear on a particular day. Don't worry, "The Dinette Set" is not in danger.
I've asked our production department to run "doubles" the next day if at all possible any time we have to leave them out.
There will be other changes in our comics lineup coming up, including picking up one or more new comics from the samples we ran last summer and running regular samples of guest comics to see if any strike your fancy.
Comments
My wife and I are not happy about what you are doing with the comics, especially since you appear to be ready to drop some of our favorites, even though they are not the most popular; i.e., Heart, Rex Morgan, and Mary Worth. We don't care much about "Among Friends", and "Dinette Set" stinks. Also, the new test strips you ran were pretty lame. You could get rid of some of the regulars that haven't had any good ideas in a long time, such as B.C. and Blondie. On a more general note, it appears that you are taking some drastic cost-cutting measures, and the paper is shrinking in value, as well as newsprint. There is at least one good thing in this; namely, sports is finally getting its due! It has always been overblown, and hardly worth the paper it is printed on. Incidentally, putting comics in the classified section has the advantage of exposing readers to more advertising, which I don't mind. However, you are really aggravating us with those little stick-on ads, and with the ad that is stuck to the comics every week. At the very least, you could expand the comics section so that it would be all full size, which would be less obnoxious by a couple of orders of magnitude! We will NEVER patronize any business that uses these devices!
Posted by eddiejoepopcorn on May 23, 2008 at 10:02 PM
The Dinette Set rules!
Other than that, WFW with the previous poster.
Posted by Wenalway on May 24, 2008 at 10:54 AM
Obviously, readers have different tastes in comics. The strips we moved to the Classified section finished near the bottom of our Last Comic Standing reader survey last summer. That doesn't mean we're going to kill them, but we have to be able to make space for new comics, and we use the surveys to help us find out which strips are least popular. You are correct, the strips we sampled last summer were disappointing, except for "Frazz" and "Pearls Before Swine," which got positive reviews. We may pick those up. Both "B.C" and "Wizard of Id" are candidates for the ax since their creator, Johnny Hart, is dead and others have taken over the strip. Lynn Johnston, who draws "For Better or Worse," is retiring in September and intends to redraw and reissue old strips. We may kill that as well so we don't get into the same situation we're in with "Peanuts," which we probably should have killed when Charles Schultz died.
We have not shrunk the size of the paper and in fact have increased the space available in the front section on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
"Dinette Set" does rule.
Posted by jbeck on May 29, 2008 at 11:03 AM
"Peanuts" isn't so bad when it's an older strip and not one from the "empty shell" 1990s. But I see the point of running fresh strips. If people want the older ones, they're available.
Also, Start Smart is off to a bad start with a cutout from "Sex and the City" at the top. Why keep trying the same, unoriginal, failing tactics in the new edition?
Posted by Wenalway on June 2, 2008 at 8:12 PM
"Peanuts" isn't so bad when it's an older strip and not one from the "empty shell" 1990s. But I see the point of running fresh strips. If people want the older ones, they're available.
Also, Start Smart is off to a bad start with a cutout from "Sex and the City" at the top. Why keep trying the same, unoriginal, failing tactics in the new edition?
Posted by Wenalway on June 2, 2008 at 8:12 PM
The new morning edition was well-received on news stands in its first week. I think the cutouts, if used properly, can attract attention on the news stands, but you're right, there's nothing original about the concept. I don't think it's a failed tactic, however. We intend to use cutouts sparingly to draw readers to fresh sports and entertainment stories inside the paper. Cubs on the West Coast last week is a good example. Other morning papers did not have those scores and game stories. I do think we overused Cubs cutouts last week, though.
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Posted by mick on August 3, 2008 at 12:17 AM
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