Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury is off on hiatus, papers begin replacements

Garry Trudeau, creator of Doonesbury announced earlier this month that he was taking a three month vacation. Subscribing papers could opt for three months of free re-runs. Some have opted to run guest comic polls. Here’s a break down of what I’ve read:

» The Star-Gazette is running Scott Stantis’ Prickly City afer 61% of readers polled voted for a substitute strip rather than re-runs.

» Speaking of Prickly City, The Bradenton Herald will be running a guest comic in Doonesbury’s spot with Scott’s feature as the first guest.

» The Erie Times-News will use the hiatus to “unveil a new local feature, which will involve readers.” No indication of what that might be. Methinks a poll.

» The Ocala Star-Banner will be running Richard Thompson’s Cul de Sac as the first of four guest comics. No word on what other comics will run.

I’m sure there are many more. If you’re aware of others not mentioned above, leave them in the comments.

15 thoughts on “Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury is off on hiatus, papers begin replacements

  1. The Journal Gazette has picked up Edison Lee for the duration of the Doonesbury hiatus. We have been informed that several other papers are also planning to substitute Edison for Doonesbury re-runs but I do not have specifics at this time.

  2. Other “Doonesbury” replacements:

    Rockford Register-Star: Candorville (only Monday through Saturday; no Sunday replacement until at least April 13th).

    Roanoke Times: Pearls Before Swine

    Standard-Times (MA.; Web site is SouthCoastToday.com): Candorville

    Baton Rouge Advocate: various strips (Mutts; F Minus; Get Fuzzy; DeFlocked; The Knight Life; Pickles). Paper may be dropping Doonesbury permanently along with Peanuts, For Better Or For Worse, B.C., Mallard Fillmore, Family Circus, Ziggy and Magic Eye (those last three strips listed run only on Sundays). Advocate also wants to expand Pearls Before Swine from a Sunday strip to a seven-day-a-week strip.

    Ventura County Star: Little Dog Lost

    York Daily Record: various strips starting with Tundra

    Bay City (Mi.) Times: Sound Off – a feature allowing local readers to opine (Doonesbury ran in the editorial pages).

    Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: various strips starting with Tundra.

    San Francisco Chronicle: Candorville

    Yakima Herald Republic: Tundra and The Other Coast. Family Tree was dropped.

  3. The Los Angeles Times is running a replacement strip “Cafe Con Leche” by Charles Gary. Not too funny the first day. The Riverside Press-Enterprise is running old strips.

  4. New York Daily News is running F Minus. Daily News has been available in Tampa Bay area for a while (NY Post has been available for about a year-and-a-half here).

  5. The Philadelphia Inquirer today has “Single and Looking”, referred to as a sample comic strip.

  6. The Tampa Tribune is running Red and Rover. Hope it is not permanent, but anything goes around here…

Comments are closed.

Top