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Well, the day I’ve been dreading has finally arrived: the Baltimore Sun has at last unveiled its new, unimproved comics pages. All I can say is: Ugh. I’m so upset that I’m turning this blog black for the week in protest. Because today the real reason behind the cull has become clear: they’ve added four new comics, but they’ve removed sixteen. It’s all part of a larger master plan to cut down the number of pages in the Today section and cram the TV listings onto the same pages as the comics. (Up until Saturday, the comics had two full pages to themselves.)

Since I know you turn to this space for comics news, I offer you the complete lowdown on the carnage. First, the new strips:

• Fox Trot
• Get Fuzzy
• Pearls Before Swine
• Zits

This is a mixed bag: I like Get Fuzzy and Fox Trot a lot; Zits is a so-so strip that manages to amuse occasionally; Pearls Before Swine looks dumb, but I’ll give it a shot. In addition, the Sun is running another new strip, Speed Bump, on an entirely different page in the Today section. They’re printing this single-panel thing at a squint-inducingly small size, which is fine with me because it looks unspeakably lame. All of these strips will make their debuts in this space eventually.

Now, the tragic victims of the purge. Here are the eliminated strips that I will genuinely miss:

• Apartment 3-G
• Gasoline Alley
• The Lockhorns
• Mark Trail
• Mary Worth
• The Phantom
• Prince Valiant

That’s right — it’s almost all of the serial strips, with the odd and notable exception Rex Morgan, M.D. I have no idea how this, the serial with the most consistently bland storylines, survived the bloodbath. Meanwhile, the greater Baltimore area is apparently unequipped to deal with the cavalcade of marital savagery that is The Lockhorns.

There was of course some genuine dead wood that was pruned. These comics I will miss primarily in that they provided material for mockery:

• Barney Google and Snuffy Smith
• Dennis the Menace
• Herb and Jamaal
• Jump Start
• Kudzu
• Marmaduke
• Momma
• Willy N’ Ethel
• Ziggy

But then there are the bland time-servers that, against all logic and reason, were retained:

• B.C.
• Beetle Bailey
• Cathy
• The Family Circus (though I admit that I get a sick fascination out of this and would secretly be sad if it were gone)
• Hagar the Horrible
• Hi and Lois
• The Middletons (if you’re going to be retaining one amiable, family-oriented strip with a racially mixed cast, I can’t understand why you would jettison Jump Start and keep this)
• Peanuts (which I like as much as the next guy, but for God’s sake, he’s dead, can we please move on)
• Shoe
• Zippy the Pinhead

In theory, it’s not too late: The Sun has provided both a phone number (410-783-2537) and a Website (http://baltimoresun.com/comics) for your comments. Inimitable comics aficionado Sam Wiley has already called to complain about the elimination of the serials (much to the confusion of the editor he spoke to, who said, “Most of the people complaining about Mary Worth were … older”), and was told that the current lineup is not “set in stone.” So, on the off chance that I have power and influence over vast hordes of comics readers, or even if you’re just bored at work, I urge you to give a call to vent your righteous anger (politely, of course).

Meanwhile, just to show you how addicted I’ve become to Mary Worth and the gang, I’ve broken with my longtime paper-comics-only stance and signed up for the Houston Chronicle’s excellent build-your-own-comics-page-online service. They have all the serials that the Sun cut, plus even weirder ones like Gil Thorpe and Steve Roper. Look for these guys too to make their appearance here in the coming days.

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A lot of blogs and Websites with substantial readerships have linked to me lately, which has translated into me getting a serious increase in traffic. Now, I consider my actual traffic numbers to be a trade secret, but I can tell you that the number of regular IRTCSYDHT readers has gone from dozens to literally hundreds per day. This is great for stroking my ego, but, if things keep going at their current pace, I may have to pay more to my Web host because of the additional bandwidth.

To defray these possible costs, I’ve added some Google and Amazon ads to the site (they’re in the left-hand navbar; scroll down a bit to see them). I hope the ads are visible but not too obtrusive, and I promise to do no more pimping for them in the blog itself after this.

And now some linkbacks to the aforementioned linkers: J-Walk Blog, Howling Curmudgeons, Hubris, Tom McMahon, disjoint thoughts, The Grand Staircase, Renaissance Man, MEEP MEEP MEEP MEEP MEEP, Partisan Shots, and Matrixland.net.

And finally, big thanks to Dan at p0mi.com, who has developed a nifty parser that will allow you to view IRTCSYDHT (and other, lesser, comics sites) on a Danger hiptop or other similarly screen-constrainted gadgets. The parser cuts out the stylesheets, rotates the images, and suppresses pop-ups. I’m honored that Dan chose my blog as one of the demonstration sites for his work. Check it out!

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As November draws to a close, let’s take a fond look back at some of the bizarre and offensive search terms that brought you here: “feminism and cathy comic,” “free picture of charlie brown sighing from peanuts” (always they want the free things, you’ll notice), “slamming meth” (can some tweaker out there please explain to me what this phrase means?), “worst comic strips one big happy” (I didn’t say it, I’m just reporting it), “foppish,” “apologies to dagwood and blondie,” “snuffy smith stereotype” (he sure is!), “unnerving search term watch” (let’s get meta, shall we?), and “i hate mondays and dilbert.” And linkbacks go to the good people at Distance, Redefined, SecretPlans.org, and the amusingly named joshrocket.net (touch my joshrocket!).