Honey, we shrunk the newspaper.
Beginning today, The State News is being printed by Michigan Web Press, based in Davisburg. The switch means, among other things, that the newspaper is an inch shorter - it's a subtle change that you might not have noticed, but we thought you should know.
We're pretty sure if you didn't notice the smaller newspaper, you noticed two changes we made to our Comics page. First and foremost is the absence of the long-running Peanuts comic strip. Charles Schulz was a fantastic artist and Peanuts continues to resonate in the hearts of millions (I have a statuette of Charlie Brown on my desk), but it's been four years since Schulz died. While his strip remains popular, we had to eliminate something, and couldn't justify removing work drawn by an artist who still is producing new material.
The second change is the elimination of the advertisement above the crossword puzzle. Many of you wrote to us and complained about the fact that it was no longer possible to complete the puzzle without unfolding the newspaper. We heard your pleas, and now the crossword should fit conveniently above the fold.
Beginning with the first edition of the fall semester, student ink will return to the comics page when we start running The Percy Project, a new strip about a transfer student from Venus who comes to MSU to learn about - and eventually conquer - humankind.
To make room for the strip, written and drawn by English senior Brian Solomon, something has to go. That's where you come in. If you were editor for a day, which strip would you chop? Vote online at statenews.com.
