More than a dozen newspapers have canceled the "Calvin and Hobbes" cartoon strip to protest its author's requirement it take up a larger part of the Sunday comics page, its distributor said.
About 70 editors have complained to Universal Press Syndicate, but the strip's subscriptions continue to grow overall, said Lee Salem, editorial director of the Kansas City-based company that distributes the cartoon.Dick King, assistant to the executive editor of The Topeka (Kan.) Capital-Journal, said the paper expects complaints since it decided to cancel the strip.
"We figured that if we had to put up `Calvin and Hobbes' on a half-page, we would have to eliminate something else," he said.
The comic strip tells of the adventures of an imaginative young boy and his stuffed tiger and runs in more than 1,800 publications.
Cartoonist Bill Watterson said in a letter to editors: "I couldn't draw the strip the way I wanted it to look (using the smaller format), and I was beginning to wonder why I was publishing my work in newspapers . . . (Now) I think I can make the strip more fun to look at. I can promise no other comic strip will have bigger, uglier aliens."
Salem said the larger format will involve only the Sunday cartoons and is set to begin Feb. 2, when Watterson returns from a sabbatical.
Salem said 12 to 15 newspapers have canceled the strip. He said he could not immediately identify them.
Editors objected to the syndicate making editorial decisions by limiting options for page design. They also said the demand for more space hurts newspapers reeling from low advertising revenue.
"We're fighting for every inch of news hole we can get these days, and when someone comes and says they're going to take a half page of your newspaper, it's kicking sand in your face," said Tim Kelly, editor of the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader.
"Whenever one of Universal Press' cartoonists wants more space, more space in the news hole doesn't just materialize," Kelly added. "We're having to deal with severe (economic) realities, and this is incredibly insensitive to what's happening with newspapers."
But, while angry about the new space requirement, Kelly said he would keep the comic strip.
"I'm not stupid. Calvin is one of our most popular strips," Kelly said. "I adore it. It's a terrific strip."
David J. Butler, editor of the New Haven (Conn.) Register, said Tuesday his paper canceled two other comics distributed by Universal but kept "Calvin and Hobbes" to make up for the lost space.
"Readers are going to get fewer comics when this happens, and I think that is unfortunate," he said.