Comics choice

You tell us the ones you love and the ones you loathe

'CANDORVILLE" -- Darrin Bell's edgy, urban comic strip -- is "stinking garbage," according to one News & Observer reader who wrote us during the strip's trial run earlier this year. But another reader e-mailed that "Candorville" is "a thinking man's strip with something to say in a funny way."

Meanwhile, "Mallard Fillmore," Bruce Tinsley's take-no-prisoners strip, was called "the best guest comic" we tried. It also was termed "simplistic opinion ... with no wit or fun anywhere."

Think it's only the political comics that draw such wildly divergent opinions? Oh, no. The little girl known as "Agnes" in Tony Cochran's cartoon was "one funny young lady" to some readers, "stupid" to others. Tony Carillo's "F-Minus" strip? "Great! ... love the irony!" versus "The sorriest excuse for a cartoon I've ever seen."

Suffice it to say, we're never going to get full agreement on any comic strip. Humor is just too subjective.

But we do want to hear what readers are thinking.

That brings us to our comics poll starting today. For the next week, we're offering you an opportunity to go online and register your opinions on seven of our guest comics from the past year. We haven't picked up any of these strips permanently yet. Should we?

We also want your thoughts on 10 of our existing comics that, for a variety of reasons, may be due for a break. Let me emphasize that we have not yet made a decision to drop any of these strips. In fact, we may not lose any of them. But we want to hear what you think.

Some readers don't believe we should ever change the comics. They like what they like in the same place it's always been.

But I think it's important to freshen things up from time to time. After all, if newspapers never tried new comics, there would have been no "Far Side," "Calvin & Hobbes," "Bloom County" or other favorites of the past.

Sometimes, cartoonists make decisions for us by opting to retire. That's what happened in the past year or so with "Boondocks" and the Monday-Saturday "Fox Trot" strip.

Sometimes, sad circumstances necessitate changes. The artists behind two N&O comics died this year -- "B.C.'s" Johnny Hart and "Kudzu's" Doug Marlette. "B.C." continued with a different cartoonist; "Kudzu" was discontinued by Marlette's syndicate after his final strips ran.

And then there are times when we think a strip is just not working out as well as we would like. Maybe it's an older comic that has run its course or a newer strip that's never really found its groove.

Some safe, some risky

Our ultimate goal is to have a good mix. I like the analogy I've heard from Janet Grimley, assistant managing editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which has run guest comics for several years. She likens a newspaper's comics pages to a stock portfolio -- you want to have some "safe" favorites, such as "Blondie" and "Beetle Bailey," and some more "risky" offerings, like "Lio" and "Pearls Before Swine."

Will every reader like every comic? Of course not. Not now nor after we make any changes that may result from this poll (probably in January).

But we would like for every reader to find at least some strips in our lineup that speak to them.

We also may make changes to our Sunday lineup at some point. Because of production schedules, those color pages take longer to change.

And we'll keep a spot reserved in the coming year to give a monthlong stint to more guest comics. There are still a number we want to test, including "Little Dog Lost," "It's All About You," "Cul-de-Sac" and "Family Tree."

Happy voting. And thanks for reading the comics.