CHICAGO — Contrary to other readers’ opinions recently published here, I applaud the redesign of Tempo.
The new emphasis on feature articles is a big plus, Page 3 looks sharp, and there seems to be less celebrity fluff and fewer wire stories.
And though I once enjoyed reading “Fred Bassett,” it ran out of steam years ago and is well-retired now. (Personally, I’d like to read more of Steve Johnson, but nothing’s perfect.)
My quarrel is with the decision to shrink the Sunday comics from eight to six pages. Though I never much cared for “Spots,” my boys appreciated having something specifically written for children.
Hacking it from a full page to something like one-sixth is an indignity. The surviving strips look cramped in their current space, often missing leads and very hard to read.
It’s an open secret that newspaper publishers hate wasting space on comics, but the redesign is positively contemptuous.
— Paul Mollica
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