Comics are hard to change. We know this, and we feel your pain. But they are perhaps the most-read pages in the newspaper. Without change, your comics pages run the risk of looking stale and a century old. We have the perfect solution: the Guest Comic slot.

This concept has been used with great success in many newspapers and has given editors a way to gather useful information about what comics entertain their readers. It's a more accurate look at how a new comic would do than the drive-by surveys most newspapers have used and opens up a valuable way to gather information about what's working and what's not.

Quite simply, adding a Guest Comic to your pages means keeping one comic strip spot open for a revolving door of comics strips, each one tested for two to three months. Offer your readers a way to send you feedback (voice mail box, e-mail, blogs, mail) and be clear about how long the strip will run. You'll gather enough information in those months to know for sure whether you have a winner or a dud.

The only real work you'll have to do is if the comic does well. You'll have to make room for it on your page, but that decision will be easy because you'll have been gathering feedback for months on what strips your readers can do without. And the fact that the strip has already built a loyal audience means any negative reaction to swapping out a strip will likely be minimized. If the strip doesn't do well, simply discontinue it and pop another new strip in its place.

If you'd like to talk with editors who are using the Guest Comic rotation on their pages, please contact us at 800-879-9794 ext. 1, and we'll put you in touch with them directly. These editors are making some proactive moves to make their comics pages dynamic and fresh, and we support them in their efforts.

Additional benefits of the Guest Comic rotation:

• You will save money. Syndicates will always let newspapers trial their strips for a few months if it means their comic will get a good review by the readers. By always testing a new strip, you've eliminated one spot on your page that you have to pay for. This could save your papers hundreds of dollars a year.


• You condition readers to changes. Keeping your comics pages static for years at a time is a recipe for reader ennui. Show them the great new strips that cross your desk and open their comics world to fresh alternatives to strips that are in reruns or whose bylines have been subjects in the obits pages.


• Strips get evaluated based on their own merits. Most comic surveys fail to give editors accurate feedback because rather than asking readers to look at a new strip on its own merits, the survey pits it against other strips. By removing the ranking system, you let readers get familiar with a strip over a longer period of time and without putting it in competition with other strips.


• A longer trial period gives a better idea of how a strip will perform. Judging a comic's worth based a week or two of samples reveals little. The reason so many "classic" comics have fans is because readers have known the characters for years. By giving a strip a good run on your pages you'll know whether these are characters your readers want to spend time with and whether the cartoonist can deliver good work.


• You open your section to valuable feedback. Yes, at first you might get a lot of "readers" who will mount campaigns for existing strips. But the longer you keep the Guest Comic in rotation, the more genuine feedback you'll gather. They'll tell you what they like about the page, what could be improved, what they'll never miss. You might be surprised at what you discover. And by allowing a way for readers to contact the paper on a regular basis, you've given them a positive tool to help your newspaper as a whole serve the readership better.


• Did we mention you’ll save money? Call us today and we’ll help you get started.