‘L.A. Times’ Gets Heat for Comics Page Changes
By Mike Witmer on February 4th, 2010Posted In: blog, news
From Editor & Publisher Magazine:
NEW YORK Apparently, the Los Angeles Times never learned the lesson that you Do Not Mess With the Comics Pages.
Following Tuesday’s debut of a newly reconfigured L.A.Times, with the paper itself an inch narrower from a foot wide to 11 inches (but the type size in stories and photo captions remaining the same), readers are making their feelings known about the redesigned comics page. Among the gripes: the strips are too small (a common complaint among newspaper readers these days); a banner ad that readers are finding intrusive; and the crossword is no longer below the fold, “but has the fold smack dab in the middle of it!” one reader writes.
To the paper’s credit, the L.A. Times’ comments blog has included many of the complaints sent to readers representative Deirdre Edgar. Check them out, here.
“I hope you are sending subscribers magnifying glasses so we can read the comics now that you have shrunk them,” one reader writes. “You do realize that your readers are demographically older and have to wear reading glasses already. So having to read even smaller comic typefaces is annoying to say the least. What is the plan for the comic pages — the LA Times placeholder seems to indicate that you will be adding 2 more comics. The wider margins seem silly when compared to the smaller size of the comics. You definitely should make an effort to enlarge the comics again.”
I prayed this day would come…
It really is awful. My in-laws subscribe to the times, and they always save the comics pages for me. What they hell is wrong with the papers? They’ve forgotten just how powerful the comics page is. Sad.
*taps playing*
This is just another example of the papers having no idea how to save their own skins. The papers may survive in the end, but they will be so diminished that they may as well have died. Comics could be something that brings in more/younger readers, but editors just see comics as another expense. The comics page will go away, I think, as papers continue to scale back to make ends meet.
Readers like the IPad may save papers eventually, but I suspect that the comics page will be gone from most large papers before that happens.