Kansas City, Here I Go

From the Kansas City Star:

Several changes in FYI and the Sunday comics take effect Sunday and Monday. We like some, and hope you do, too, and regret others.

Beginning Sunday, the comics section will lose two pages. Paper is a major cost at any newspaper, and The Star has been offsetting rising newsprint prices by cutting some pages. A page of Sunday comics is one of our most expensive because the full-color section is printed by an outside company at a premium price.

But by reducing the size of some strips and moving the Horoscopes to Sunday FYI, we can hold down the number of comics we have to eliminate. We’ve also avoided removing comics with continuing story lines through the week. Still, “Spot the Frog,” which appeared only on Sunday, leaves the paper, and two others, “Mark Trail” and “Zippy,” will not run on Sundays. (They remain in daily FYI.) “Calvin and Hobbes Classics,” which was available for only a limited run, ended Jan. 1.

Having the Spot sunday in The Star was a pleasure. They were printed with fidelity -- not a given when it comes to sundays -- and it inspired some kind readers to say hello.

If any of you happen to be readers of the paper, you might say hello to the paper's editor.

Comments

[Brian]

I'm sorry to hear that you lost your Sunday slot in KC. Unfortunately, when it comes to cost-cutting it seems that all too many editors look first to the comics page. I hope you pick up three papers to replace the one you're losing.

[Peter]

Burns my ass. What other industry says OK I'll make the product worse, and then expects more people to read it? The newspaper industry is run by philistines and cowards. PJD

[mark heath]

It's a gray day when my wallet and ego shrink a bit with a lost client, but it's always a matter of luck when a strip finds its way into a paper. If the strip stumbles in the opposite direction, that's luck of another sort. Since I can't control either, I focus on the one thing I can control, and that's the pen in my hand. Unless I'm drinking full-bore coffee. Then I jitter like a dime on a loud speaker. Which is why I only drink coffee with a homeopathic measure of caffeine. Not that anyone asked.

I mention the occasional lost client to remind readers that nothing about a comics section is set in stone -- newsprint and ink have a lot more give and take -- and a letter to the editor might inspire Spot's eventual return.