The News & Observer has done some pretty controversial things in the past year -- its coverage of the Jim Black scandal and the Duke lacrosse case, eliminating most stock tables -- but perhaps none more traumatizing than this: Last week, The N&O replaced four comic strips.

Gone are "Cathy," "Boondocks," "Hagar the Horrible" and "Drabble." Taking their place in the daily comic pages are "Pearls Before Swine," "Watch Your Head," "Frazz" and "Edge City." "The Wizard of Id," which ran only on Sundays, also was banished.

You think readers care about war in Iraq or midterm elections? Try taking away "Cathy." Editors received more than 375 comments about the changes in comics, and it's safe to say that few were positive.

"I have been reading N&O comics for years and am irate at the desecration of the comics section that you are about to do and have done," reader Jeffrey Woods wrote in a letter to the editor. Kathy Abrahams of Chapel Hill was incensed at the suggestion, in Tuesday's paper, that "Cathy" fans like her should photocopy old strips, white out the balloon text and add their own "Cathy"-esque text, like "Aack." Said the real Kathy: "That's pretty small. I really resent that. You don't respect your readers' opinions."

She reckoned that Cathy's execution was carried out by a male editor, who wouldn't understand her appeal to the legions of women out there who shared Cathy's angst about appearance, men and mothers.

Cathy's executioner is indeed a guy, Features Editor Thad Ogburn. But he points out that he also wielded the ax over "Hagar the Horrible," a man's man in comicland.

Given all the grief from readers -- which was anticipated -- why mess up a good comic section? Because, Ogburn said, Cathy and friends were tired. "You do it because you want the paper to be fresh," he said. "You don't want to be stale. If a newspaper never changed comics, we'd still have 'The Katzenjammer Kids' and 'Mutt and Jeff'." (What? They're gone?) Without change, he said, there would never be new favorites such as "Dilbert" and "Get Fuzzy."

The changes were not made lightly. Ogburn assembled an in-house committee of comics aficionados who, over a period of months, sifted through dozens of new comics offerings and weighed them against the current lineup of 33 strips. They identified 10 for removal, then winnowed those down to four by committee vote.

"Boondocks" was a gimme, because creator Aaron McGruder has stopped drawing the strip. In the comics-for-women category, it was "Cathy" v. "Sylvia," and "Cathy" lost. "Cathy had gotten married in recent years, but we felt like Cathy hadn't grown," Ogburn said. "It was the same old jokes."

The key, Ogburn said, is to have a good mix that appeals to a range of readers. Yes there are hip features like "Watch Your Head," but there still are the classics like "Blondie," "Beetle Bailey" and "Peanuts."

In many cases, readers were upset not so much by the new strips as by the choices in removing the old. "To cut 'Cathy' and 'Hagar the Horrible' while leaving in place 'Gil Thorp' and 'Mutts' makes no sense at all," wrote Bernie Zahuranec. "In particular, 'Gil Thorp' is the most disjointed, meaningless strip I think I've ever seen." He and others wondered why we didn't put the choice to readers by conducting a poll.

Because, Ogburn said, a poll would be unrepresentative of readers at large and would inherently favor old strips over new ones. "If you ran just by polling, I don't think you'd ever get a strip like 'Boondocks.' " he said. "People always vote for what they know."

Agree with their choices or not, I thought the editors did a good job of preparing comics-lovers for this blow. The Life, etc. section began running "teaser" drawings of the new characters more than a week before the Nov. 27 debut. Three days before, there were short profiles of the creators of the new strips, and on the day of the change, N&O editorial cartoonist Dwane Powell drew farewell cartoons for each of the departing comics.

Throughout, Ogburn invited readers to submit their comments (you can still do it, to comics@newsobserver.com). And, he says, he's open to changing his mind if enough readers continue to feel aggrieved. He also promises (threatens?) to review strips more regularly in the future, changing out one or two each year.

Some of us at the paper are bemused by the reader passion over comics, when there are so many more weighty issues in the paper. After all, The New York Times doesn't even have comics. The N&O's comics take up two full pages, without ads -- a significant expense in a time of cost pressures. Why even have comics?

Because they're fun. They give readers a break from the heavy stuff. They're entertainment, which is part of the newspaper mix that helps draw and keep readers for real news. Kathy Abrahams, the aforementioned "Cathy" lover, says she goes through all the serious, often grim, news before treating herself to the comics at the end, "so I can have a little chuckle to go out and face the day."

That's the idea, says Ogburn: "If you look at the paper as a meal, the front page is your entree and vegetables, and when you get to the end, there's the dessert. That's the comics."

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