No clear comics winner (7/13/05)

Here at Election Central, the results are a little unclear. The voters have spoken, but they’ve spoken with many different voices.

Several weeks ago, we asked readers of The Commercial Review to let us know which comics published in the daily newspaper were their favorites.

It would never qualify as scientific market research. The sample was too small and was purely voluntary. But it gave folks a chance to express their opinions and gave us an opportunity to hear what’s on their minds.

Tallying the results, however, was a little bit complicated.

For instance, we figured people would rank the ten comics in order, with number one as their favorite on down to number ten as their least favorite. And that’s what most did.

But others interpreted the minimal instructions differently, ranking each comic on a scale of one to ten. (Some used ten as the best, others used one.) Still others decided they’d rank a few of the comics then leave notes like “cancel this one” or “don’t read” beside their least favorites.

The message was communicated, but it was little hard to add up in a quantifiable way.

I started out by tallying which comic got the most votes for number one. I also counted which ones got the most votes as number ten — the least favorite — and included the “don’t read” votes in the tally.

Taking first place by a handy margin was “The Family Circus.”

But guess what? Every single one of the comics received at least one vote for the top spot, even the one — “Speed Bump” — which received the most votes as the least favorite.

(Just for the record, I didn’t vote, though I would have ranked “Speed Bump,” drawn by Indiana’s Dave Coverly, as one of my favorites and “Family Circus” as one of my least favorites. Shows what I know.)

As I continued to tally the vote, certain patterns started to appear. Readers who liked “Family Circus” also liked other strips with a family sit-com setting, comics like “Hi and Lois,” “Rose is Rose,” or “Peanuts.”

A few strips are polarizing, drawing strong negatives as well as positives. “Speed Bump” led that category, followed by “Funky Winkerbean,” and “Foxtrot.”

Finally, trying to get a handle on the overall picture, I averaged the ranking for each of the comics.

Here’s how they ranked in the end:

• Number one, “Family Circus.”

• Number two, “Blondie,” a surprise since it only had two votes for first place. It received a lot of votes as the second, third, or fourth favorite.

• Number three, “Hi and Lois,” a perennial in The CR which received only a single vote for first-place.

• Number four, “Peanuts,” a personal choice for number one on my part.

• Number five, “Beetle Bailey,” another surprise. I suspected that Beetle, Killer, Sarge, and General Halftrack weren’t still attracting readers; I was wrong.

• Number six, “Rose is Rose,” another favorite of mine. Connie and I had the pleasure of meeting cartoonist Pat Brady at a convention almost 20 years ago and have a signed original of one of his Sunday strips hanging on the wall at home.

• Number seven, “Snuffy Smith,” the hillbilly with nine lives. This is another one that I believed readers had abandoned. Again, I was wrong.

• Number eight, “Funky Winkerbean,” a quirky strip people either love or hate. It’s drawn by Ohio resident Tom Batiuk, who likes to stretch the boundaries of comic strip story-telling.

• Number nine, “Foxtrot,” which didn’t win over the domestic sit-com audience from “Hi and Lois.”

• Number ten, “Speed Bump,” which we first picked up after Gary Larson retired from drawing “The Far Side.” My guess is that the folks who don’t care for “Speed Bump” hated “The Far Side.”

So there you have it. We’ll be mulling over the results for awhile; but given the fact that each comic ranked number one with somebody, don’t look for any dramatic changes soon. And thanks for voting.[[In-content Ad]]