One of the best ways to get continuous feedback from your readers about comics is to start a blog or a message board on your Web site.

Whether you start by posting an entry explaining why you made some recent comics changes, or describing the strengths and weaknesses of your current comics lineup, or asking readers what they think of the Guest Comic this month, inviting readers to respond with their own posts allows you to have a direct conversation with them. And they can have a conversation with each other. It’s a way for readers to see that the comics pages are not just for them but for everybody – something they sometimes forget – and one comic that they can’t stand might be someone else’s favorite.

You can retain editorial control to ensure that inappropriate comments are not posted, and it’s a good idea to require a username and password to participate in the discussion, to create some accountability. It also never hurts to remind everyone that, when taking their feedback into account, you will give more weight to reasoned and thoughtful criticisms than to angry rants.

In this way a blog can be a useful tool for every aspect of your paper – not just the comics. Knowing that you are reading their comments and responding to them will make readers feel like they have more of an investment in your newspaper, creating lifelong readers.

The St. Petersburg Times is one of the newspapers pioneering the use blogs. Its Web site, www.itsyourtimes.com, has a multitude of discussion forums. Registered users can post comments on anything from gas prices to illegal immigration to their favorite Chuck Norris joke.

And comics are no exception. When Features Editor Mike Wilson announced that the Times was going to trial several new comic strips, while possibly dropping a few others, he invited readers to respond by e-mail and also by blog. The comics blog quickly turned into a heated debate among passionate comics fans with a wide range of taste.

In spite of the deluge, Wilson did not find the blog time-consuming. “I went online from time to time to see what readers were saying, and to respond to a few of them. I didn’t post very much.” When he did jump into the conversation, Wilson would give the readers an update and serve as a voice of reason in the fray. “Everybody wants us to discontinue only the comics he or she doesn't like,” he wrote in one post. “This, I promise you, would result in blank pages.”

Except for a filter that weeds out posts with inappropriate language, the Times does not screen reader comments. “If we see something objectionable, or if someone alerts us to such a posting, we delete it right away.” Wilson said. “We ask people to be courteous and they are, sort of, kind of, usually.”

Wilson used the blog to get a sense of what people were saying, but he did not make it into a formal count of reader opinion. “I purposely tried to stay away from the idea that a vote was taking place,” he said, “because we weren't going to base our decisions about what to run on who screamed the loudest.”

In the end, the comics blog received hundreds of posts, and the response had an effect. The Times reinstated one of the comics it had pulled and added another one to its Web site. The editors chose to drop some different strips that showed less support. Wilson’s only complaint about the blog? “I get tired of being called a moron, however accurate that may be.”