Sunday, September 06, 2009, 9:01 PM
Atlanta, Sunday Paper News, Stop the Presses
By Kevin Moreau
Reach out and touch someone
In this electronic age, when it’s so easy to reach out and touch someone via e-mail, text and Twitter, I’ve found that our readers seldom feel compelled to voice their opinions via the antiquated telephone. So when they
do pick up the phone and dial, you know they’re serious.
Months ago, after we ran Kirsten Ott Palladino’s cover story about the challenges she faced planning her gay wedding, I received a rather spirited voicemail on the subject. “The Bible says Adam and
Eve, not Adam and
Steve,” the gentleman earnestly explained, so convinced of the irrefutable logic of that statement that he repeated it multiple times over the course of his message.
But that impassioned phone call was nothing compared to some of the messages I received last Monday about our Comics section. Many readers took the time to let me know that the crossword puzzle we printed didn’t match the clues or answers provided—which I’d found out the hard way when I sat down to do the puzzle the day before.
The crossword snafu wasn’t the only thing I heard about that morning. A very nice man called to tell me about his 5-year-old son, a huge fan of the “Spider-Man” strip who had started looking forward to picking up The Sunday Paper each weekend for his latest fix. Needless to say, he was quite disappointed that we’d apparently stopped carrying it.
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Marvel Comics, and consider Marvel mastermind Stan Lee a significant influence on my writing as well as my editing style. But Lee’s family-friendly “Spider-Man” strip isn’t my cup of tea, so when a technical glitch prevented us from receiving it from its syndicate a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t figure anyone would miss it. And when a tight page count necessitated trimming the Comics section last week, it made sense to cut “Spider-Man” for the second week in a row.
We make a lot of important decisions about what goes into the paper each week, and I don’t usually spend a lot of time second-guessing them. But when you hear that a decision you made let down a 5-year-old boy—well, who can live with that kind of guilt?
So take heart, Gavin Lamb: Your beloved Spider-Man is back where he belongs. And for the rest of you, I’m proud to report that this week’s crossword puzzle is not the exercise in futility last week’s was. I hope you enjoy it.
And if you don’t, I’m sure you’ll let me know.