Letter to the Editor

The Virginian Pilot 9 January 2007
Features/Comics
150 West Brambleton Avenue
Norfolk, Virginia 23510-2075

To The Editor:

Every morning I save the best for last: the comics. No matter how bad the news is, I can always count on the funny pages to cheer me up. When a longtime friend and lifelong Virginia Beach resident told me of a cartoon shakeup at The Pilot, I knew what I had to do.
Concerning the comics on the chopping block, here are my arguments:

Peanuts? This must be a mistake. Though Schultz is long dead, he lives on through Peanuts. It’s timeless.

Besides being well drawn, socially relevant, and always humorous, Ray Billingsley’s Curtis represents African Americans. Some may feel alienated by its absence.

On the subject of comic strip minorities, Sally Forth written by Latino Francesco Marciuliano and Cathy penned by Cathy Guisewite provide valuable and varied societal perspectives and are also witty.

I read almost every strip on the comics page, unless, after giving the title a fair shake I just don’t like it. And now the replacement comics’s shortcomings:

I’ll lump Pearls Before Swine and Get Fuzzy together because they are not funny and are written by nerdy white guys for nerdy white guys. These selections are probably considered hip. Said strips have had their second and third chances with me. Written. “Pearls” is wordy and weird—not good weird. I don’t get it; if someone gets Pearls please let me in on the joke. Fuzzy tastes like reheated Garfield reprints. The Pilot already has Garfield, so please shave Fuzzy from the page.

Gary Larson should be getting royalties from F Minus writer Tony Carrillo (not to mention a throng of other cartoonists getting fat off of Larson’s one panel formula). Is F Minus funny? Sometimes, but the computer generated style is boring.

The Pajama Diaries is a worse For Better or For Worse or a two-ring Family Circus. There are already too many of these parenting comics.

Jim Borgman is one of the best new talents to grace the funny pages, so Zits gets an exemption.

I moved to Virginia Beach in early 1993 and down the road to Chesapeake until late 2001. The Virginian Pilot is an excellent newspaper. When I visit, and if I move back, I look forward to perusing its pages again. I am fortunate enough to live in the Dallas metro area where The Dallas Morning News features forty plus dailies (including all 4 strips the Pilot is dropping). The Morning News even has a section dedicated to comics and puzzles because a reader spoke up. I wish I could take credit. Perhaps an entire section for funnies and games wouldn’t work for The Pilot, but bringing back the aforementioned dailies would be a step in the right direction. I have included two clippings from my local paper to support my argument.

Thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration,






Charles J. Reith, III