A wise and worldly editor once offered two simple rules.
Rule 1: Don't mess with the comics.
Rule 2: If you ignore Rule 1, take a long, out-of-town vacation.
As you will see, I have broken the first rule. Then-Plain Dealer Editor Doug Clifton wrote those words to open a column in 2002, and I’m stealing them today because of Beetle Bailey. I would rather write about anything else but the comics, even a rabbit getting into our death notices. I know I will be deluged with cranky responses, and I’m not leaving town for vacation. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Except they don’t. Sparking that column in 2002 was the bounty of new comics proposed for The Plain Dealer. Two editors (including current columnist Ted Diadiun) had approached Clifton with folders brimming with new comics. They said the comics page had been stagnant for more than a decade. The newspaper also surveyed readers about the comics they loved and hated and received more than 10,000 responses. After reviewing the new offerings and tallying the surveys, The Plain Dealer rolled out a new roster of comics and was deluged by responses - more than 1,000. So thick were the complaints that the newspaper brought back two comics it had spiked, Spiderman and Judge Parker. (The newspaper noted that despite 10 weeks having passed since Judge Parker was spiked, not one day had passed in the timeline of the comic. Things move mighty slowly in Judge Parker’s universe) The situation today is light years from what editors faced in 2002. Comics today are a waning art form. We don’t have folders bulging with new offerings, so when Northeast Ohio’s Tom Batiuk decided to retire the beloved Funky WInkerbean at the end of 2022, the pickings to replace it were slim. We went with Beetle Bailey, and nary a day has gone by since without someone writing me to question that decision. They say Beetle Bailey is a sexist, violent cartoon that was rightly removed from our pages years ago. To those who have written, thank you. We place great value on people taking the time to share their thoughts about how we are doing. My response is that the Beetle Bailey of 2023 is not the Beetle Bailey of yore. We don’t see the shameful leering by military brass. The pummelings that regularly left Beetle in a pile of squiggly lines are gone. Or so I am told. I’m not an avid reader of comics. I was once, back in the days of Calvin and Hobbes and the Far Side, but when they ended, so did my interest. The only comic I look for now is Pearls Before Swine. As for Beetle, I’m a bit surprised by the backlash. Most of the people writing say they remember their distaste for it from decades ago, but when The Plain Dealer did those comics surveys in 2002 (and again in 2003) Beetle Bailey ranked in the top 10. The Plain Dealer is the only newspaper in the Advance Local chain not publishing it, and readers in our other markets like it. That is the chief reason we selected it. Having uniformity among our markets will eventually make it easier for us to prepare our comics pages – and expand them. Jeff Glick, director of enterprise on the team that designs The Plain Dealer, sees a day in the not-distant future when his team will lay out as many as six pages of comics every day, for the entire enterprise. In Cleveland, we’d publish some of those pages in the printed edition of The Plain Dealer and, possibly, the rest as an extra feature in the digital edition of the paper. Our plan is to have bonus content in the digital edition, which is included in all Plain Dealer subscriptions. Jeff’s idea, though, would change our comics pages. We know from history that readers abhor change, especially with the comics. By adding Beetle Bailey to the open spot in our comics page now, we likely line up more closely with the pages Jeff’s team would create in the future, meaning less change for our readers to cope with down the road. Why create uniform comics pages? If Jeff’s team starts adding extra content to the digital edition, he will need efficiency. Having unified comics pages across all of our markets might be one strategy for efficiency. Jeff also is the one who sees what comics are available. He has watched as one after another has disappeared or been taken over by authors who are not as talented as the originators. (Beetle Bailey stayed in the family. Originator Mort Walker's sons draw and write the Beetle Bailey strip, after Walker died in 2018.) The comics that remain available are ancient cartoons. The Phantom. Snuffy Smith. Nancy. Even Mark Trail, a comic I don’t think I’d thought about in a half-century before Jeff mentioned it. “I think it’s a dying art,” Jeff told me. He suspects the creative people who might have started comics today have turned to other art forms, like YouTube and TikTok videos. Comics are an amusement, something to generate a smile, and Jeff notes many platforms offer easier entry to would-be creators than newspaper-style comics. Thus, Beetle Bailey, created in 1950, has returned to our comics pages. That disappoints some of you and makes others happy. An editor said in a story explaining the 2002 changes that the funny pages are like a salad bar and should include something for everyone – children, grandparents, parents and singles. If you find a few that make you smile, even if you’d rather not see Beetle Bailey, we’ve done our job. Let the deluge begin. I’m at cquinn@cleveland.com. Thanks for reading. | 