The Funny Farm

We're always glad when people feel strongly enough about the content of Metro Times to take the time to e-mail us. We have received many passionate letters about our decision to replace Red Meat and This Modern World with The Perry Bible Fellowship and The Boiling Point.

This was a decision we did not make lightly. We wouldn't have run the work of Tom Tomorrow for more than 10 years and the work of Max Cannon for more than five years if we didn't like the strips. But we felt that Tom Tomorrow, who has been doing his strip for more than 20 years, has become so widely known and read that we began to question whether our mission was to provide a platform for somebody who is syndicated in scores of papers, has published several volumes of his cartoons, and is accessible on his own Web site. Similarly, Max Cannon has gained a national prominence and has published a few books of his collected work.

The question wasn't whether the strips were any good -- clearly we have carried them so long because of their quality. What prompted the move was a larger debate on the function of alternative newsweeklies. Just as Tom Tomorrow and Max Cannon could never have reached audiences without the help of publications like Metro Times, we feel that we have a duty to present newer, younger cartoonists exploring new styles in the medium.

It was with this in mind that we sought out fresh voices with a quality beyond their meager syndication.

Mikhaela Reid is a 25-year-old political cartoonist for the Boston Phoenix and Bay Windows. Her work has appeared in a handful of national magazines. Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall says that, "Mikhaela B. Reid is, at the start of a promising career, already one of America's sharpest political cartoonists."

Nicholas Gurewitch is a painter, actor, filmmaker and cartoonist living in New York state. Since winning the Baltimore City Paper's comic contest in 2003, his unusual strip has started appearing in several papers, including The New York Press. Last month, the strip won a jury prize at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD for "Best Online Comic."

Thank you for your thoughts on this matter, and we hope you can appreciate the factors that went into our decision.

Needless to say, if you absolutely need your weekly fix of the wit of Tom Tomorrow and Max Cannon, their work is available electronically at thismodernworld.com and redmeat.com.

Sincerely,

The Editorial Staff of Metro Times