Since becoming the publisher of The Daily Iberian this operation has been going through constant change to keep up with current trends and the ever changing business landscape. This year is no different. Beginning on Wednesday, February 14th we will be introducing a new comic’s page that will still include the puzzles and fun things you have come to enjoy.

So what is changing? Our comic’s line up will change slightly.

Here is the new line up: Baby Blues, Big Nate, For Better or For Worse, Garfield, Peanuts, Pearls Before Swine, Pickles, Universal Crossword, Wonderword and Sudoku. Our weekend comic lineup will include all of those plus Doonesbury and Wallace the Brave.

Why are we doing this? Our parent company, Wick Communications, is moving to a centralized vendor source for the whole company. This enables our pagination teams to create efficiencies while streamlining the process of building comics pages. In today’s environment efficiencies like this are needed at all levels of newspaper production in order to be successful.

We will also continue to publish political cartoons and sometimes these can be controversial, enraging and thought provoking. Political cartoons are one of the oldest forms of political discourse/satirical communication. As the publisher of The Daily Iberian I can tell you that I get a fair share of calls from readers regarding political cartoons. It seems like whoever is president or campaigning to be president usually takes the brunt of the slings and arrows that come from being the subject of a political cartoon. Cartoons about the National Rifle Association (NRA) also gain a lot of attention. The fact that I get calls regarding political cartoons tells me that the cartoons are getting the response that the author/artist has intended.

I will leave you with this fun fact: According to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the first great American political cartoon is also perhaps the best known: Benjamin Franklin’s “Join or Die.” He published it, a wood engraving, in the May 9, 1754, issue of his Pennsylvania Gazette to rally the colonies to support the Crown’s war against the French on the American frontier. How cool is that.

Ken Harty is the Publisher of The Daily Iberian. He can be reached at kenh@daily-iberian.com.