Someday, we'll all laugh about this
But for now, as you grip that cup of coffee ever tighter, imagining the editor's neck with each squeeze, consider which comics deserve a coveted spot on your fridge.
By MIKE WILSON
Published March 26, 2006
The last guy who changed the comics here was found wandering the streets the next day, suffering from a severe, reader-induced wedgie, his head encased in a papier-mache lump of old Snuffy Smith and Gasoline Alley strips.
Therefore we want you to know it is not our fault that The Boondocks is disappearing from our comics pages on Monday. Creator Aaron McGruder is taking a rest, meaning he isn't going to be drawing any new strips, so we couldn't run The Boondocks if we wanted to. Fault? Not ours.
We see this as an opportunity! To serve you better! Because you're our friends!
Starting Monday we will bring you not one but three new comic strips, all of which we know you will love, and if you don't it's okay we'll just change them so please put that down you're scaring me. The new strips will appear on the black-and-white comics page inside the daily Floridian. We'll run them all in color on Sundays beginning next week. They are:
* Dog Eat Doug, about a dog and a baby. We're talking cute, but with a Calvin and Hobbesian twist to the jokes.
* Watch Your Head, about six pals going to college together. Hip, edgy, diverse. You can like it or you can like The Family Circus, but you can't like both.
* F Minus, a single-panel strip about the complications of life. Think The Far Side, with fewer cows and snakes.
That's not all! Next Sunday we'll also introduce a weekly strip called Peach Fuzz, about a young girl and her prissy ferret. It is drawn in the hugely popular Japanese style called manga.
That's four new comics, so you really should be excited even though we had to make certain accommodations, such as eliminating Dear Abby, Classic Peanuts, the daily TV guide, all recipes and movie listings, and all news about God and sick people.
I am so kidding! We are not taking away any of those things. Actually we are discontinuing just two strips, Cathy and Opus, and even then only on a trial basis. Not so bad, in comparison!
We feel so strongly that you will like our new offerings that we committed to publishing them for an entire month! We did so because we believe they have lasting artistic merit, unless you don't, in which case we don't either.
Please continue on to learn more about the new strips and find out how you can calmly and nonviolently tell us what you think.
F MINUS
A man is sitting alone on a desert island. A canoe drifts toward him. Standing in the canoe is a tiger. "Figures," the man is thinking.
That's F Minus, a riotously twisted single-panel strip. It debuts Monday on the black-and-white comics page in Floridian.
Creator Tony Carillo says he enjoyed drawing, comedy and, er, knife-throwing as a kid growing up in Tempe, Ariz.
He started F Minus when he was a student at Arizona State University.
In 2004 Carillo won a comics contest sponsored by mtvU, the college cable network, and signed a development deal with United Feature Syndicate.
F Minus made its debut on www.comics.com in May 2005. Read F Minus and consider the larger questions of life, such as, "Can I take only one shower a week if it's seven times the normal length?"
WATCH YOUR HEAD
Cory, the class brain in his high school, goes off to predominantly black Oliver Otis University hoping to commune, at long last, with people he figures to be his intellectual equals. So he's a little startled when the first thing his roommate says to him is, "What up, Son? You smoke?"
It's one of many unexpected moments in the edgy and realistic Watch Your Head, the story of six students adjusting to life as young adults. The strip debuts in newspapers on Monday; the Times will run it on the black-and-white comics page inside Floridian.Creator Cory Thomas, a native of Trinidad, spent his childhood drawing characters and miniature comics for friends. He entered Howard University on a mechanical engineering scholarship in 1998 and drew the first Watch Your Head strips for the college newspaper.
"From doodling in church to drawing giant noses on teachers from the backs of classrooms, this strip is the culmination of a life's worth of infractions," he said.
Thomas said he wants "to entertain, enlighten and be the trembly voice of the socially awkward everywhere."
DOG EAT DOUG
A dog's people return home from someplace. They walk right past their pet.
"Where are you going?" the dog thinks. "What are you carrying? And why is it crying?"
Dog Eat Doug - which debuts on the black-and-white comics page Monday in Floridian - explores the sudden, shocking loss of status for any dog whose family brings home something else needy and adorable. But this is more than just a cutesy comic. It is well-drawn and a bit subversive; the dog and baby soon learn to conspire against the irrational adults who control their feedings.
Artist Brian Anderson, of Natick, Mass., drew comics as a kid and kept at it through his college years. In 1996, fresh out of Holy Cross, he tried his hand at cartooning for a small-town newspaper, then experimented with screenwriting. No go.
Three years ago he became a husband, homeowner and master of a chocolate Lab puppy. Inspired, he created Dog Eat Doug, which debuted online in 2005.
PEACH FUZZAmanda is 9 years old and lonely, so her mom lets her buy a pet for company. She comes home with a little ferret she calls Peach.
That ends any semblance of order in the lives of Amanda and her mom. Peach takes control of the household even as she struggles to adjust to life without her admirers among the other pet store ferrets.
Peach Fuzz - a once-a-week strip created by Tokyopop, an international company specializing in the Japanese comic book style known as manga - has a story line that unfolds slowly and focuses tightly on relationships. After 26 weeks the story ends and Tokyopop offers a new strip with new characters.
Manga has become a sensation among teens and young adults. Peach Fuzz is the St. Petersburg Times' first strip drawn in that style. It debuts next Sunday in the color comics pages.
There's no need to read this; move on to the crossword
What's going away for now, at least:
* The Boondocks. Creator Aaron McGruder is taking a break until at least September and no new strips will be available for publication.
* Cathy, by Cathy Guisewhite. Our take: The time has passed for a strip about a woman who cares only about how she looks and whose mother is a meddler. Besides, Cathy was funnier when she was single.
* Opus, by Berke Breathed. Our take: The much-ballyhooed return of Bloom County creator Breathed to the Sunday comics pages has been a letdown. Like Paul McCartney in Wings, Opus in this new strip merely makes you yearn for the original.
Here's how to reach us:
1. Post your thoughts on It's Your Times, our Web-based discussion forum. The Web address is www.itsyourtimes.com.
2. E-mail us at comics@sptimes.com.