shewhomust | A call to arms

Today is the first day on which the Guardian appears in its new format. And - unbelievably - one of the changes they have made is to drop Doonesbury! I know I can read it on-line, I do that too (and quite often I buy the books as well) - but I like to think that Gary Trudeau is gaining some remuneration for my readership. So I've posted this comment:

I explained long ago that everything I know about the USA, I learned from Doonesbury. I was astonished to discover, after a frantic scrabble through this morning's paper, that you had decided to drop the strip - without warning, without discussion, without mentioning it in the copious information about the paper's new look.

I am one of those readers whose arms are not long enough to handle a broadsheet newpaper comfortably, but if the new compact format means that there is no room for my favourite strip, then it is not an improvement.

on the paper's discussion forum.

Go, and do thou likewise.

ETA: As

durham_rambler comments, at 9.14 p.m. (within 12 hours of this post, and within 24 hours of the paper going on sale), Ian Katz, Features Editor, posted that he had changed his mond, Doonesbury will be back next week.

Which leaves only the question, "What were they thinking?" The original explanation from Ian Katz was:

"We felt Doonesbury had a small, committed following but was not read by a large readership. If we're wrong about the number of people who read and love it, we may have to think again,"

Y'know, the Grauniad doesn't have the largest circulation in the country, but those of us who read it, love it - as

poliphilo suggests, they are made for each other.