What happened to the weekend comics?

What happened to the weekend comics?

“I want to go home,” my 5-year-old nephew said, moments before his pre-school class was ready to take the stage for his graduation, with what looked like the beginning of tears on his tiny cheeks.

Liam had been running up and down the auditorium stairs just moments before with his best friend Jaq, who he had announced would be his friend “forever.”

He had talked excitedly on the car ride over about the song his class had practiced.

But none of the reminders of that or gentle coaxing could change his mind. Well, unless everyone – literally his whole family — could go back to the line with him.

He’s tiny, but when he makes up his mind, it’s hard to change it.

So we watched from the audience, clapping and cheering as his class started their graduation, minus one.

Then the big moment came. The one where each student got to go forward to the microphone and say what they wanted to be when they grow up and accept their graduation medal.

The class had practiced this on the stage too, earlier in the week.

And Liam’s excitement overcame those nerves. He was ready to graduate.

Fortunately, there was an open seat on the edge of the stage, right next to his very best friend.

He and I snuck — very badly — to the side of the stage and a teacher directed him to his spot.

When they called William Pope forward, the little guy announced loudly the he wanted to be a bus driver and did a funny little happy dance.

What does this have to do with our weekend color comics?

Well, hopefully, it’s made you smile. But also, we were anxious about moving forward with this change too.

It wasn’t an easy or quick decision. Discussions started in October, when our budget process for 2024 started.

As I shared when the insertions first stopped, these subscriptions come at a premium cost.

This change, while difficult, allows us to invest that savings in the equivalent of one year of a part-time local position. It keeps the money we were paying to those national companies here, in a local job.

I’ll add that those subscriptions were purchased from two companies. One offered a variety of options to bring some of the weekend comics onto our daily page, which we are still exploring.

The other didn’t return a single email or phone call in three months as we tried to discuss our account and finally canceled. I can’t say I’m sorry about trading their product for a local job.

We are now posting an additional entertainment page with our Saturday online edition as part of this change. The digital-only content is available to all of our subscribers through the online edition and has the crossword, crypto quote, Dear Annie, horoscopes and Monday comics.

Online access to all of our content is available to all print subscribers at no additional charge. If you don’t currently have that set up with your account, we’re happy to help. Just contact our circulation department at 573-785-1414.

I want to thank those who have reached out since we first announced this change and shared their thoughts with us. Most people who have called or emailed simply wanted to know more about why the change was made, and we were happy to discuss that. Others have said they didn’t understand the “burden” those subscriptions came with and applauded the decision.

We are going to continue to look at the daily comics we offer and the possibility of improving that content by either adding or swapping items. If there is something you’d like to see us add, or even to make sure we keep, please let us know. You can contact me with any questions, feedback or concerns.

Thank you for supporting community journalism and reading the Daily American Republic.

Donna Farley is the editor of the Daily American Republic. She can be reached at dfarley@darnews.com.