About once a month, I get a call or a letter from a reader with a plaintive cry: "Bring back 'Beetle Bailey' and 'Hagar the Horrible.' "
Beetle and Hagar. Hagar and Beetle. I've heard about them since becoming executive editor. As readers and staffers explained to me, a former News Tribune editor pulled the two comic strips from our daily and Sunday lineups after deeming them sexist.
I don't doubt my predecessor's sincerity. But I wonder whether she might have engaged her readers before deciding whether the two comics should go.
That editor ended up wondering the same thing. After pulling the comics, she asked readers to take a survey to confirm or contradict her thoughts. But before readers could respond, competing local newspapers picked up the two comics, preventing her from reinstating them when readers said they wanted them back.
To her credit, the editor apologized in a column, saying, "Suffice it to say, I made changes in our comics and then asked for input, instead of the other way around."
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Four years into my tenure, it's time to re-examine our comics, and I want to hear from you -- before we make changes.
In today's Scrapbook section, you'll find two polls asking your opinion of the comic strips we run and some we might consider running. If we make changes, it won't be to save money. It's simply been a long time since we reviewed our offerings. My team and I want your opinion. I don't pretend to be a comics expert. More importantly, it's your paper and your comics pages.
Comic strips usually are deeply personal and sometimes acquired tastes. There's classic humor, such as "Peanuts" or "Blondie." There's what some consider off-beat humor, such as "Close to Home" or "Non Sequitur." Or take a look at "Lio" or "Scary Gary," two of the possibilities we're previewing on Pages 4 and 5 of Scrapbook.
There are traditional -- some might say corny -- strips such as "Family Circus," for which I bravely confessed an affinity in this space a few months back. I think it dates to my days growing up in Iowa and delivering the Des Moines Register. "Family Circus" was the lead daily and Sunday strip in that newspaper. I read it as I made my morning rounds.
There are funny funnies and serious funnies. New themes and old. A dish for every taste.
So who would we be at the News Tribune if we made changes based solely on our preferences? Newspapers used to operate that way. You didn't have as many choices for how you got information. It was either the newspaper or nothing. And newspaper people felt they had a good sense for what readers wanted. That was at least partially true. But no small amount of arrogance also played into those decisions.
Thankfully, the newspaper is still an important part of many people's lives. But you have more media choices these days. And we must, like any other business, engage our customers in decisions.
I hope you'll spend time with Scrapbook and our comics section today. We'd like you to read the familiar and new strips, and then take two surveys, which appear on pages D4 and D5. Tell us what you think of our current lineup. Tell us what you think of possible replacements.
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If you need to see more examples, you can go online. We've included Web site addresses. And if you have a favorite strip that we haven't included in the list of possibilities, you have space for write-in votes. The survey also is available at duluthnewstribune.com. We need input by March 9. I promise we'll share the results.
And we won't make any change until you have spoken.
Rob Karwath is executive editor of the News Tribune. You can reach him at (218) 720-4177 or rkarwath@ duluthnews.com.
