Amazingly Stupid Move By LA Times! UPDATE!!

(Proving that cockroaches will survive on this planet long after humans have gone - LA CUCARACHA has just been reinstated at the LA Times after many, many calls from a lot of us demanding its return)

According to LA OBSERVED, the LA Times is about to drop four comics - and three of them are among the best and the most likely to attract the younger, hipper readers the Times needs.

But the real brain dead move was to drop the ONLY comic that is both written in LA and is - essentially - about LA.

It is also written by a Latino, a major audience the Times needs to connect with - but even if it wasn't - it is still an amazingly dumb move to drop the only comic that has local content:

This is a Latino strategy?
Kevin Roderick

One person was more surprised than most by the Times' announcement today that several comic strips would no longer appear daily. He is Lalo Alcaraz, whose strip "La Cucaracha" got the axe. He is emailing supporters and friends in the Latino community:

From: Lalo Alcaraz
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 08:35:57 -0800 (PST)
To: xxxxx
Subject: LA CUCARACHA CUT FROM LA TIMES- HELP POR FAVOR

Dear friends

My daily comic strip, La Cucaracha has been CUT from the LA TIMES, without so much as an explanation. Can you please help bring to their attention that perhaps Los Angeles, with its majority Raza population might need at least ONE THING in the newspaper to show kids and grownups that represents a large part of Los Angeles in the paper? I'm thinking "Blondie" isn't really reflective of Los Angeles.

If you email them, please cc me at xxxxxxx@yahoo.com

Please contact:
Los Angeles Times Readers' Representative Office
E-mail: readers.rep@latimes.com
Telephone message line: (877) 554-4000
Fax: (213) 237-3535
Postal mail: 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012

Gracias
Lalo Alcaraz

Other strips that were discontinued via editor's note on today's comics page are "Mallard Fillmore," "Candorville" and "Mr. Boffo." But it's the dropping of "La Cucaracha" that is filling my in box this morning. Gustavo Arellano, a newly christened contributing editor of the Times opinion pages, blogs at the OC Weekly under the headline "The Los Angeles Times is Stupid....

With the exception of Mr. Boffo - the other three strips are oriented towards the Times readers of tomorrow, as opposed to many older strips that are only read by the readers who are dying off.