Open letter to the DNT
Dear Duluth News Tribune,
Any time I find a stray newspaper at a coffee shop, or waiting room, my initial course of action is to go straight to The Family Circus so that I may gawk at the daily track-wreck of comedy it provides. The philosophical beating I take by trying to riddle out just what is it that Bil & Jeffy Keane think I should be laughing at has somehow become a masochist treat for my brain as the years go by.
In recent months though, this pleasure seems to be unhinged by the horrible way your layout editors treat this sacred circle. Attached is the comic as it appears from the syndication source, immediately followed by the beaten and bloodied corpse that gets spat onto your printed comics page.
The Family Oval shall not suffice. I’m sure Bil & Jeffy Keane would be aghast by the treatment you give their comic. Without a doubt, the Keane’s go to great lengths to make sure that Billy, Dolly, and little PJ’s heads perfectly resemble testicles in each and every one of their daily discs of unfunny. To unprofessionally scale them in the way that you repeatably do, should be taken as nothing less then an open handed slap to the face of both Bil & Jeffy Keane as you disgrace their little works of art.
Please, give the editor back his shift key so he can resize his images while constraining proportions. It will make us all happier at the end of the day.
Sincerely,
K. Praslowicz
You really should not be getting your Family Circus fix from the paper. Try this:
https://thekfs.com/section/capswaps/
The DNT could always get some comics from people that aren’t 80 years old or already syndicated to death.
There is a plethora of great comics online today. Why are the comics in the newspaper so staid and boring.
Paper fucking sucks. New format sucks. The Wave Reports suck. SUCK! It’s sucks so much that your holy temple “pizza luce” canceled it’s subscription.
it’s. contraction for “it is,” not the third person possessive pronoun.
FAIL.
I used to say the DNT was not worth 50 cents. Then they raised the price…
Stupid, inane FAIL trend:
FAIL
I fucking hate the name ‘barfy’.
Someone kill that guy.
Interesting how people want the paper to change, but don’t want to support it in any way.
C’mon.
Barfy is the only funny thing about it.
I used to support it by purchasing it. Then they made it even crappier.
Have you seen it lately? I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced a paper
so sad and worthless.
Here’s the kicker: The DNT spells the artist’s name wrong. Can someone send this to the syndicate?
I alway use Barfy gto his name because he was a dog that puked all the time. Has this namesake ever actually come up in a piece?
“Barfy didn’t like Dolly’s easy bake mommy!”
My theory is those that bitch about Family Circus don’t have kids and can’t appreciate the innocent, simple and sometimes hilarious things they say. How could anyone submit such a rant on something so trivial? What good does it do to tell the world how much you hate a comic? And testicles? Most people have no idea how hard it is to maintain a comic “brand” that’s instantly recognized and different from all the others out there. Hell, most people can’t draw at all. I think anyone criticizing a comic should submit their own and we’ll judge it for them.
As for the DNT, I’m sick of hearing how much it sucks from people who have no idea what it takes to produce a newspaper and have it on customers’ doorsteps every single morning. They’re working with nothing over there. They don’t even have a marketing dept. anymore, yet they’re getting the job done and doing it despite the constant criticism. I don’t like a lot of the stuff myself (like the little girl who made the front page today for inventing something I’ve seen invented at least 3 other times over the last 6 years), but bitching about it won’t help the DNT, the little girl or anyone else in any way. As our local daily newspaper, they have a positive impact on our community in ways that can’t be counted and what would Duluth look like w/o a printed daily news?
The biggest problem with Duluth is this constant bitching – things could turn around fast around here if all the time spent on the negative could be turned into time spent on something productive.
Note to self. Attempt to convey non-serious humor via a phoney open letter:
FAIL.
Wow, somebody is touchy about Family Circus. It’s okay that you have the complete Family Circus collection, ShaneB, no one is taking a stab at you! I think this post is hilarious, but just a short note: the theory that people shouldn’t satirize aspects of our culture unless they are able to produce like work, is ridiculous. (By the way, you complain about bitching, but it seems like you’re the one that’s doing the most of it.)
I hate the wave section. I hate the bias it has.
For Family Circus lovers and haters alike…
allow me to introduce: Neitzsche Family Circus!
https://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/
Ben, that link is a win.
As a man named Barfy I am seriously concerned that someone wants to kill me due to my name. That makes Stalin really look like a pussycat. He at least thought the people he killed were out to get him…
Thanks for the link to Neitzsche Family Circus–great stuff.
For anyone out there that might still miss Calvin and Hobbes I would recommend Sinfest.
https://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=59
“What’s in a name? That which we call Barfy
By any other name would still vomit on the carpet as much.”
Ha! The Nietzsche Family Circus is GREAT!
The real one really isn’t funny, though – kids, whatever. Defending Family Circus is the height of mediocrity.
Anyway, yes, the Duluth news Tribune has gone far downhill, like the rest of the papers out there. It takes me about 8 minutes to read these days. Lat year it was at least 12 minutes.
I hold, without sarcasm or irony, that Sally Forth is the funniest strip in syndicated comics today.
Don’t give us sob stories about the DNT, Shane. The DNT is working with nothing because their staff was SHREDDED by their corporate owners in Fargo. I used to really like the paper when I first moved to the region. Now it’s tabloid trash. I’ve recently come to the conclusion that Forum must be consciously trying to run Duluth’s daily paper into the ground and eliminate it, because nobody who cared about the newspaper and wished to see it turn a profit could possibly manage it THAT stupidly.
The DNT is capsized and sinking. At this point, the only way to save it would be for a local non-profit to buy it out, reorganize it, hire back all the laid-off employees, and make it actually serve the community. And who has the money to do that?
The few times I’ve commented here, I have always regretted the time I spent on it the next day. Just read a profanity filled rant in the Reader about the DNT prior to my comment and I get so filled up with the abundance of negative crap in Duluth that I become negative myself. Any newspaper print publications should probably be celebrating each other’s existence these days, rather than slamming each other so hard.
Today I see the humor. No offense to Sjixxxy. I also see the humor in Family Circus, but wouldn’t miss it much if it went away. I would miss Dilbert and the Peanuts reruns though.
Re: The profanity-filled rant about the DNT in the Reader Weekly.
It’s too bad that ranter didn’t write for a newspaper, or even have the freedom of having her own column, so she could look into and report to the community on all those issues she deems so important.
Oh, wait.
Anyone notice today’s (Sunday, 2/8) front section?
Front page was articles (I won’t bother debating the value of them) from top to bottom. Every other page was all ads below the fold and about 1/3 ads above the fold, plus one page with a full-page ad.
I’m sure glad I’m not a subscriber – I would have just laid down some hard earn cash to buy a paper that appeared to be mostly ads.
I think this open letter to the editors of the DNT is dead on. Thank you for your insightful look into the travesty of comic manipulation that is errant in American society today, Sjixxxy.
Would think the DNT would have learned after an incedent three years ago.
https://www.brokennewz.com/displaystory.asp_Q_storyid_E_1376famcircus