Calvin Tops Comics Poll

by Susan Bischoff
Houston Chronicle Assistant Managing Editor
January 31, 1988

IT TOOK hiring temporary help to open the flood of envelopes, but the responses to the Houston Chronicle's comics poll are in.

More than 20,000 ballots ranking favorite and least favorite comics were returned to the Chronicle and then shipped to Belden Associates, a leading newspaper research firm based in Dallas, for tabulation and analysis.

Calvin and Hobbes , a relative newcomer, came out on top as our readers' favorite comic. Half of the respondents named Calvin and Hobbes as one of their five favorites on both the weekday and Sunday ballots.

In Bill Watterson's strip, Calvin is a young boy with a stuffed tiger, Hobbes , who comes alive only around Calvin .

The Chronicle was one of the first papers in the country to carry Calvin and Hobbes , starting it in November 1985. Most comics build reader loyalty over the years, so Calvin and Hobbes ' early success is unusual, although it has done very well in several other recent comics surveys, too. Watterson also won a major award for the strip, the Reuben Award from the Editorial Cartoonists Society in 1986.

Other Houston favorite comics were Cathy and For Better or For Worse, with three out of 10 listing them as favorites. Two out of 10 said The Far Side, Mother Goose and Grimm, The Family Circus or The Lockhorns were favorites.

The list for Sunday was the same, with the addition of Hagar the Horrible. It captured two out of every 10 readers.

Although all the Chronicle's comics don't run in both the daily and Sunday papers, all the top favorites run seven days a week.

In addition to asking for rankings and frequency of readership, we asked for some demographic information to tell us who likes what. Men and women agreed on Calvin and Hobbes as their top comic, but split after that. Male readers picked The Far Side as their second favorite, while Cathy took the No. 2 spot with women.

Overall, the least favorites were serial comics, including Apt. 3 -G, Rex Morgan, Mary Worth, Winnie Winkle and Steve Roper. As one reader wrote, "I feel kind of bad putting them (the serials) up top, 'cause I never really read them to find out what they're like. But if they're anything like their TV equivalents, urk! Can them."

Others that showed up frequently as least favorites were Spider-Man, Annie and Gummi Bears. The younger respondents liked the comics in the Chronicle's daily Kids Corner. Several adults wrote that they thought some of the Kids Corner comics were dumb, but were glad we were running strips for younger people.

Older readers liked the serial strips more than younger readers. A 70-year-old woman wrote: "I have been reading the Houston Chronicle since I was a little girl, and the first thing I look for is the comics. The first I read is Annie. When I was a girl, it was Little Orphan Annie." Her other favorites were Rex Morgan, M.D. and Nancy.

Hagar the Horrible, which runs at the top of both the daily and Sunday comics pages, was the most frequently read comic. The second most frequently read comic was Family Circus, followed by For Better or For Worse and The Lockhorns. Calvin and Hobbes , our readers favorite comic, dropped to No. 8 when measured by frequency of readership. The full-page ballots for both daily and Sunday comics ran in the Chronicle in October. The questionnaire included a drawing of each of the 40 weekday and 39 Sunday comics which run in the Chronicle. Readers were asked to list their favorite and least favorite comics, plus whether they always read, sometimes read or almost never read each of the comics.

Many readers went way beyond the information requested, attaching letters with pleas to keep their favorite comics and drop ones they didn't like.

We learned that there's some strong sentiment about keeping the comics funny. As one long-time comics fan wrote:

"I think the children of today, thanks to all those so called comic writers, are missing life. Comics were not written to make a point. They were written for relaxing.

"Family Circus, for example. It is written by a man who knows kids and how they think. We don't need to be so smart too young. Kids need to be kids. They need to relax. Let the comics be comics."

People are still clipping out favorite comics, to put on refrigerator doors, to send to their children who have moved away, and even to glue together to make letters. One man, who has been reading comics since he was 8, writes that he and his sister are still making letters that get as long as 11 pages out of comics. "They are good medicine when the days are longer (at work) than the nights," he writes.

Although it's a little depressing to editors and reporters, some readers wrote things like, "Calvin and Hobbes is the Chronicle's single greatest achievement since I started reading it (1983)," and "On 9-30-87, I discontinued my annual subscription to the Post, entirely due to the fact they do not have Calvin and Hobbes . Overall, I like their columns, etc., but Calvin is more important and TV gives the news."

Houston Chronicle comics poll results:

READERSHIP The Chronicle comics with the highest readership, based on the percent who "always" read. 1. Hagar the Horrible - Dik Browne 2. Family Circus - Bil Keane 3 . For Better or Worse - Lynn Johnston 4. The Lockhorns - Bill Hoest 5. Hi & Lois - Mort Walker & Dik Browne 6. Peanuts - Charles M. Schulz 7. Beetle Bailey - Mort Walker 8. Calvin and Hobbes - Bill Watterson 9. Ziggy - Tom Wilson 10.Mother Goose & Grimm - Mike Peters

FAVORITE COMICS 1. Calvin and Hobbes - Bill Watterson 2. Cathy - Cathy Guisewite 3 . For Better or Worse - Lynn Johnston 4. The Far Side - Gary Larson 5. Mother Goose & Grimm - Mike Peters 6. Family Circus - Bil Keane 7. The Lockhorns - Bill Hoest 8. Beetle Bailey - Mort Walker 9. Geech-Jerry Bittle 10.Hagar the Horrible-Dik Browne

TEN MOST FREQUENTLY READ BY:
MEN.................................WOMEN
Hagar the Horrible..................For Better or Worse
Beetle Bailey.......................Family Circus
Peanuts.............................Hi & Lois
The Lockhorns.......................The Lockhorns
Calvin and Hobbes .................. Cathy
Family Circus...................... Hagar the Horrible
Hi & Lois.......................... Peanuts
Geech.............................. Calvin and Hobbes
For Better or Worse................ Luann
Mother Goose & Grimm............... Ziggy

FAVORITE COMICS Two out of 10 or more among men and women listed these Chronicle comics as their favorites.
MEN.................................WOMEN
Calvin and Hobbes ...................Calvin and Hobbes
The Far Side........................Cathy
Mother Goose & Grimm................For Better or Worse
Beetle Bailey.......................Family Cirucs
Geech...............................Hi & Lois
Hagar the Horrible..................The Far Side
Andy Capp...........................Luann