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The L.A. Times redid its Sunday comics pages this weekend and moved Peanuts and Doonesbury inside, with the revived Opus by Berkeley Breathed new on the front (after a ten-year hiatus). The Doonesbury strip on Schwarzenegger that was tossed inside returned to the Gropenfuhrer theme and mentioned (link fixed) the H word. Could that be why it was shrunk and moved to the bottom of page 4? (Update 1:30 p.m.: No, writes Sherry Stern, the Times' Assistant Editor, Features. Click on [MORE] below for her response.)
Hi Kevin,
Among other things, I oversee the comics now and wanted to explain to you and your readers that moving and downsizing Doonesbury had nothing to do with Trudeau's politics. Here's the explanation. (Hope it's not too convoluted.)
On Sunday we added Opus to our Sunday lineup. Because of the size restrictions on Opus, we had two choices -- drop two Sunday comics to make room for Opus or drop only one by putting four comics onto the front page of the comics.
Because it's so tough to cut any comics, we opted for the second plan. We wanted to put Doonsbury on the top of page 2, but found out that Trudeau's syndicate does not offer it in that size. The only other size was the smaller one, which only fit into the format on page 4.
We are again requesting from Trudeau's syndicate to offer Doonsbury in the size that would allow us to put it atop page 2. We await their response.
Or it could be that Gary has stopped even trying to make Doonesbury even vaguely amusing.
Posted by: Kate at November 24, 2003 01:46 PMI also wrote to the Times about the smashing of Doonesbury & I got, word, for word, the same stupid response that you got. I guess it must have come as a stunning surprise to the folks at the Times that Doonesbury would have to be crushed like a cockroach into one of the smallest spaces in the all the Comics pages. Who could have guessed things would turn out that way? I mean, it’s not as if newspaper editors actually plan ahead or anything. “Opus” just suddenly appeared in Doonesbury’s slot & then what was a poor editor to do?
I'm not all that crazy about Der Gropenfuherer & the menacing hand image, but I'm even less delighted with censorship -- & make no mistake, that's what this is.
Posted by: Charlie K at December 9, 2003 04:55 PMI don't know where Charlie K went to school, but he (or she?) needs to bone up on the difference between censorship and editing. LA Times editors and editors everywhere make all sorts of decisions, some of them boneheaded, but even the most boneheaded ones fall under the umbrella of "editing." Censorship is done by the government, or public officials, not daily newspaper editors.
Posted by: John Hollon at December 19, 2003 12:52 PM
of LA Observed
A key point made in the Saturday Calendar section article on Breathed addressed how important space was for each comic to express itself.
Judging by the size of "Opus" on Sunday, I'm wondering if Breathed negotiated a minimum space requirement in his new syndication deal. If so, it clearly came at the expense of comics like Doonesbury, which looked about as big as a Bazooka Joe comic.
Ever since Bloom County was replaced by Outland and now Opus, I've felt that Breathed underestimated the importance of Bloom County's other characters to its success. But I guess that Opus is the Joey Tribiani of his world.
(By the way, that Calendar section article is worth a look for Breathed's intriguing reading of B.C.)
Posted by: Jon at November 24, 2003 01:43 PM