WaPo letters: Dead White men on dead white trees? Or, do readers actually read the paper?

Dead White men on dead white trees [letters on women cartoonists]

Dalal Musa and Harise Poland-Wright

Washington Post March 30 2024.

online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/29/fani-willis-larry-hogan-female-cartoonists/

Thanks for the March 16 Style article "Female artists are being erased from chain newspapers" on the continuing challenge of shrinking platforms for print cartoonists, especially women.

"Breaking Cat News" creator Georgia Dunn is spot on in her observation that "there are more dead men than living women in the funny pages." The Post is itself guilty of stagnating, perpetually rerunning deceased men's cartoons. Why not stop printing "Peanuts"? I understand it is an iconic comic, but all its strips are archived and easily available elsewhere. There are so many new and talented cartoonists, both women and men. It's obviously not possible to print them all, but let's make room for the new.

The newspaper is not radio or TV with indefinite time to fill and dedicated oldies channels. You've still got two pages that can easily be filled with funny and/or insightful comic strips.

Dalal Musa, Falls Church

I really miss some of the comics discussed in the Style article on the lack of female cartoonists represented in news publications and how they continue to suffer from widespread downsizing. "Rhymes With Orange" was a truly witty comic, and to remove it and continue to print something like "Reply All Lite" is just an insult if it is supposed to be about representing female authors. When "Reply All" was a full strip, it was at times amusing. The "Lite" version is a waste of valuable space. Without comics, I'd likely unsubscribe to the print edition, even though I love having a daily paper at the table to leaf through at breakfast. I know there is a full array of comics in the online version, but the format is clunky and time-consuming. Please bring back "Rhymes With Orange" if nothing else.

Harise Poland-Wright, Silver Spring

Comments:

Janet Moore:

Today's Republicans are not by any stretch of the imagination "conservatives." They are radicals, albeit of varying degrees.

Nailed it!

As for the Comics section, the first thing I look at every morning is the Comics. That makes what is left almost palatable.

A good comic strip is a reflection of life and brings a touch of humor, whimsy, or simply a smile of recognition or Ah Ha. The best are not always politically motivated. Some of the older strips being rerun often provide a glimpse that sometimes today's POV is not much different than when the strip was first run.

Yes, I can go to outside sources to find my comics, but if I am going to pay for a subscription to a newspaper, I expect to find a comics section included.

MRhode:

I'm not really sure why you published the letter from Harise Poland-Wright, Silver Spring because Rhymes with Orange is still in the paper, appearing as recently as today, something your fact checkers should have caught. I do agree that Peanuts should go, and daily Doonesbury too since they are both repeats. I really like the new Flash Gordon, but it's printed too small to read. I think the comics would benefit from being printed about an inch larger, but I realize that's too much to hope for. Some of us subscribers remember 3 full daily pages (maybe even 4?) and 2 Sunday funnies sections though.