“To whom it may concern,” began one of many e-mails that came in to the Journal’s comics survey. “I hope the quest to find a replacement strip for Kudzu in the Winston-Salem Journal is over and the obvious winner Pearls Before Swine is a regular feature starting in January.”
And so it is. Starting Monday, Pearls - a strip by Stephan Pastis that blends cute cartoon animals with biting, sarcastic humor - will return to the comics page.
“That’s fantastic,” Pastis said when told his strip had won the survey. “I’m thrilled. It’s tough for young strips to get a foothold.”
Pastis’ strip began in 2002, when he shifted over to cartooning after a nine-year career as a lawyer. It is now carried in about 450 newspapers and has been reprinted in eight books. The ninth, The Crass Menagerie, is due out in March.
“It always draws strong reactions,” Pastis said of his strip. “It’s frequently in the 10 most-hated list and the 10 most-loved list simultaneously. But I call that the ‘sweet spot.’”
Pastis splits his time between two jobs, one as a cartoonist and the other at the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, where he makes sure that potential licensed products remain true to the spirit of the Peanuts comic strip and works on the board of directors. He is working with Schulz’s son, Craig, on the script for a new Peanuts Christmas special.
On Feb. 16, Pastis plans to be in Chapel Hill, participating in the Carolina Comedy Festival on the UNC campus with comedian Lewis Black.
“Tell everyone ‘thank you for voting for me,’” Pastis said.
Pearls got the biggest response of any of the six strips we ran in our comic survey, with more than 270 people writing in about it, about 70 percent of them voting in favor of the strip.
Also well-liked, but voted on by fewer readers, was The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee. It took a full week of the strip’s four-week run before the first negative comment came in. Told his was the first vote against the strip, the reader responded, “Now I’m starting to feel like an old curmudgeon.” He then amended his anti-Edison comment to say, “It’s by far the least lame of the ones so far.”
High praise indeed.
The Other Coast also got mostly positive feedback, with only two naysayers. But in terms of sheer numbers, both strips got only a small portion of the response that Pearls did. Pearls also kept getting votes all through the auditions of later strips.
The nays far outnumbered the yeas on Single and Looking and Secret Asian Man, but those who loved Asian Man tended to really love it and to let us know with all-caps and exclamation marks. Fans of Single tended to be more low-key in their responses.
Voters also felt obliged to tell us what they thought of other strips on the comics pages. Lio got a lot of hate mail, but we also heard from diehard supporters of that wacky little kid. For the record, we’re planning to keep Lio. The cartoonist goes too far sometimes, but humor that doesn’t push the boundaries sometimes isn’t usually funny for long.
“I think Lio’s great,” Stephan Pastis said, “because anything that draws fire away from me is great. It’s kind of like prisoners going over a wall together. They can only shoot at so many of us.”
We also heard from people confused about the changes in direction on Funky Winkerbean (the cartoonist jumped ahead in time and the characters are all older now) and For Better or For Worse (the cartoonist has been mixing new strips with reruns and will soon switch over to all reruns).
Some complained about the political content of Doonesbury, with one Pearls supporter declaring, “At least if Pearls Before Swine gets political, it will be ridiculously cute and funny doing it. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it!”
We even got a vote or two against Family Circus. And we heard from people listing strips that we’d better keep or they’ll cancel their subscription.
Several readers wrote in about current strips with jokes they just didn’t get. We could help them with most, but one Brevity from Dec. 5, 2007, stumped even us.
Some voters also made suggestions of other strips they felt we should add. Some were old strips that are well past their prime (sorry, folks, we won’t be bringing back Andy Capp) and some were suggestions that we’ve made note of for the next survey (we’ve heard you, Pickles fans).
Some asked for strips that we would love to have in the comics page, but they are no longer being produced. Fox Trot is no longer a daily strip, and Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin & Hobbes, put down his pen and brush years ago.
And then there were those who wanted to audition themselves, with strips they had created. We appreciate the sentiment, but you need to send those to the comic syndicates and get into a lot of papers to make it worth your while.
Believe us, we know to listen to your opinions. One little girl (at least, the writer claimed to be a little girl) said that we shouldn’t discount her negative review of the strip Single and Looking just because she is 10. “I do not think that is wise,” she wrote, “for I am a smart child and I will think of ways to ruin you.”
Yes, ma’am. Whatever you say, ma’am.
■ Tim Clodfelter can be reached at 727-7371 or at{encode="tclodfelter@wsjournal.com." title=" .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)"}.