What is it about comic strips that draw us into their two-dimensional worlds?
It’s hard to pinpoint the mass appeal, because one comic strip can be entirely different from another. (“Ziggy.” “Zippy.” Need I say more?) But we know the attraction is there and has been since “Hogan’s Alley,” with its famous character, the Yellow Kid, appeared in the New York World in 1895.
The comics are important to any newspaper, The Star included, because editors know that many readers pick up the newspaper for the funny papers. The Star’s market research department surveyed 889,000 Sunday Star readers and found that 77 percent read the Sunday comics.
Another indication of Kansas Citians’ obsession with the funnies: the 15,000 votes cast last spring to save or give the ax to five comic strips. Those voted out were “Six Chix,” “Rugrats” and “Over the Hedge.” The final two strips voted out – “Gasoline Alley” and “Mary Worth” – will run temporarily in FYI until their current storylines end.
Editors and designers took the survey results and redesigned the daily comics pages, which made their debuts Monday. The pages added one new strip, “Pearls Before Swine,” and two new puzzles.
Not everyone was happy with the change, but the readers’ representative team didn’t hear a groundswell of outrage, either. About 50 readers called or wrote in to voice displeasure. Complaints ranged from calling the size of the comics too small to wanting the old comics back.
A major redesign isn’t the only time newspapers hear from readers about the comics. Content is key. And it often comes down to what readers think is suitable – or funny.
Most strips in the early days of comics were light-hearted creations. Sure, there were dramatic serials, such as “Apt. 3-G,” “Mary Worth” and “Brenda Starr.” But the story lines were rated G, and they were outnumbered by the classic funnies, such as “Blondie,” “B.C,” “Beetle Bailey” and “Dennis the Menace.”
But while Blondie was nagging Dagwood, and Sarge was still on Beetle’s back, something happened. Comics grew up – or could it be that they forgot themselves?
Perhaps the birthday of this comics evolution is Oct. 26, 1970, when “Doonesbury” made its debut in 28 newspapers.
Today, the “funnies” are just as likely to prompt a smirk as a smile. From the urban satire of “Boondocks” to “Jane’s World,” a mostly online comic strip featuring a lesbian, many comics now are sending adult messages along with laughs.
Not everyone is laughing, however. Even those who are laughing question whether these adult comics belong in the same funny papers that children read. Why not run them in the opinion pages? It’s a request that newspaper ombudsmen sometimes hear from readers.
However, most newspapers do run “Doonesbury” on the comics pages, including The Star, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Texas, the Detroit Free Press, The Post and Courier in Charleston, W.Va., the Chicago Tribune and The Nashville Tennessean. The San Diego Union-Tribune runs it on the Op-Ed page Monday through Saturday, but in the comics section on Sundays.
The adult-themed content of these comics is one reason Editor Mark Zieman decided to substitute a “Doonesbury” column in the Sept. 7 Kansas City Star. In the strip, a character mentions the word “masturbation.” A second character quickly chides him. Then humor ensues.
Zieman thought it wasn’t appropriate for young readers of the Sunday comics, which are focused on children and families and which feature Kid City Star. He wasn’t the only editor who felt that way. Of about 350 newspapers that run the Sunday strip, at least 80 percent chose to run a substitute provided by the distributor, according to Deborah Abeyta, operations manager of Western Colorprint in Denver. It supplies the strips to newspapers around the country.
Whether the topic is masturbation or the political climate, no one would accuse these adult comics of being fair and accurate. Not even the creator of “Doonesbury,”Garry Trudeau. On the 30th anniversary of “Doonesbury,” Trudeau said in an interview in USA Today that being fair and accurate was not in the job description. “If it were, you’d never read me. An accurate, fair political drawing is not a cartoon, it’s an illustration.”
I’ve heard from you about recent Star decisions about the comics, so here’s my two cents:
You can’t please everyone, and there was no way The Star wasn’t going to anger some readers with this comics redesign. But editors listened to the majority of readers in the spring survey, and because they added a new comic plus two new puzzles for the increasing number of puzzlers out there, I’d say they did a good job.
Doonesbury was available online through www.kansascity.com, and The Star should have told you so. True, some of the same children reading the comics section could have gone to the Web site, but there still would have been a buffer between the offending strip and the very young children that The Star’s editors were trying to protect. A one-line note above the substitution – “An alternate ‘Doonesbury’ runs today. To see the original ‘Doonesbury,’ go to www.kansascity.com” – was all that was needed.
So one thumbs up and one thumbs down. In the world of daily newspapers, that’s not bad.
