In reading a Washington Post commentary, Are Too Many Newspaper Comic Polls a Sham?, I was shocked by two points:
- Judge Parker is being returned to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
- The AJC has a Comics Editor.
Judge Parker? Really? You’re not exactly picking up new readers with that stinker.
With the Atlanta Journal-Constitution cutting more than 50 full-time employees, 100 part-time employees and dropping 22 counties from its circulation, does it really need a Comics Editor?
What wasn’t shocking: comics polls don’t mean much. One of the first newspaper jobs I ever had was collecting ballots, inputting data and tabulating the results of my paper’s comics survey. The people who take the time to fill out a 50-plus question survey aren’t necessarily a representative sample.
Also, they have poor handwriting and can’t cut a straight line to save their life.
“…not picking up new readers with that one”.
Really? So, not a Judge Parker fan are ya? Too bad, it’s a well done story strip, with great artwork from Eduardo Barreto, terrific characters and stories from Woody Wilson.
Also, this isn’t the first time the AJC has yanked the Judge, only to return it to the comics pages (now just the comics page, not pages). In fact it is at least the third time in the last 12 years they had to bring it back after one of their oh, so, scientific comics surveys. 1997, 2004 and now, 2009 it was killed off, only to be brought back.
And, for the record, the AJC whacked 11 comics in this latest purge. I would argue that newspapers that are dumping comics are doing themselves no favor by upsetting readers who enjoy that content. The comics aren’t that costly, it’s the newsprint, I get that that. How about running more comics and less trivial b.s. that you do in the rest of the paper. One less blowhard columnist or editorialist or AP story.
As for Comics Editor, Frank Rizzo at the AJC. He is a good one. And, I think he does more than just “edit the comics” at the AJC.