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Traditionally, comic pages and newspapers go hand-in-hand. Many of you have undoubtedly enjoyed flipping past the news pages to find relatable characters on a comics page in The LaGrange Daily News to brighten your day. They’re a tradition for many, one we’ve enjoyed bringing you all these years.

But as much as we all hate to admit it, things change over time.

And I’m writing today to let you know that as of March 1, there won’t be a comics page in the LDN. There also won’t be a Sudoku or crossword puzzle any longer. 

And yes, I hate it as much as you do.

The truth is, publishing a comics page has become cost prohibitive. As prices on everything rise, including the cost to print a newspaper, our goal is to invest our resources further into local journalism. Doing so aligns with our intent as an organization — to provide the most comprehensive local coverage possible. 

That means being at meetings of the city council, county commission and school board. It means being on the sideline at football games at Callaway Stadium or in the dugout at Granger Park. It means writing about that new business down the street or looking into that new development you passed on the way to work. 

Our newspaper spends a lot of time and energy reporting on subjects like the ones listed above. Keeping you, the reader, informed is our number one goal.

There’s a reason you don’t see much news from Atlanta, Columbus or Washington D.C. inside the LDN. We want to bring you the news from our local community, which is Troup County and the three cities within its boundaries.

I know many of you will miss the comics page, and I’ll miss it right along with you.

We spent some time over the last few weeks trying to find an advertiser who would partner with us to help pay for the cost of this page. It’s a great opportunity to spread a marketing message, as we know there are plenty of eyeballs that read the comics every day. However, we ultimately came up short of finding a sponsor.

If we did find someone to sponsor the page, we’d certainly be willing to reconsider and bring comics back to the LDN. 

But at a cost of approximately $10K a year for comics and printing the associated pages, our decision was to invest that money toward local reporting and to ensure we’re meeting our commitment to our readers, which is to continue being the news source you can trust for accurate and timely information.

We’re thankful for the continued support of this community, particularly our subscribers, and we remain as committed as ever to delivering a top-notch product day in and day out.