Changes are coming to the Chieftain's comics pages next week. Here's what to expect

As a kid growing up in the 1990s and early 2000s, I always looked forward to the Sunday paper. While my mom thumbed through the day’s news and my dad did a deep dive into the sports section, I’d stake my claim on the vibrantly colored pages that encompassed my only interest in newspapers at that time: the Sunday comics.

I’d lay on the carpeted floor of our living room, paper sprawled out in front of me, admiring the art and giggling at the antics of characters in some of my favorite strips like “B.C.,” “FoxTrot,” “The Wizard of Id” and “Hagar the Horrible.”

Even strips like “Dilbert” and “Cathy,” in which the jokes typically went well over my head, were fun to show my parents to see if they understood the punchline (and then pretend I too understood and was totally in on the joke.)

As time went by, some of the strips I’d come to enjoy fell out of fashion and out of the paper as the comics section evolved to reflect the current tastes of the times. I was disappointed to see some of them go, but in most cases, it didn’t take long for me to learn to love several of the new strips that took their places, such as “Sherman’s Lagoon,” “Zits” and one of my all-time favorites, “The Boondocks.”

In alignment with other USA Today Network newspapers, as of next Monday, Oct. 2, the Pueblo Chieftain’s comics section will undergo a refresh of its own, with an updated package that maintains some longtime staples, but also incorporates some classics I’m sure many readers have missed.

From that point forward, the daily comics will have one fewer strip than we’ve featured in recent years (going from 12 strips to 11 on weekdays,) but the Sunday comics will have one more (going from 11 strips to 12.)

The daily comics will continue to run in black and white as they do now, just as the Sunday comics will continue to run in the eye-popping color that captured my attention as a young reader.

For the daily papers, we’ll continue to run the staples of “Family Circus,” “Peanuts,” “Baby Blues,” “Blondie,” “Garfield,” “Pickles” and “Zits,” while adding the classics of “Beetle Bailey,” “Hagar the Horrible,” “Dennis the Menace” and “For Better or For Worse.”

The Sunday comics section will look largely the same: we'll continue to run “Family Circus,” “Peanuts,” “Blondie,” “Garfield,” "For Better or For Worse" and “Zits” and add “Baby Blues," “Pickles,"(both of which previously only ran during the weekdays,) “Dennis the Menace,” “FoxTrot,” “Beetle Bailey,” and “Hagar the Horrible."

The biggest change to the Sunday section is that the comics will now be more condensed, being spread over two pages instead of the former three.

For digital readers, the comics will still be featured online in the Chieftain’s eNewspaper, and our readers also have access to expanded comics offerings online at chieftain.com/comics.

The change will have no impact on current subscription rates.

For some of our longtime readers, I hope these changes mark a return to the paper for some of the beloved strips you haven’t seen in the Chieftain in recent years; for younger readers who incorporate the Sunday comics into their family’s weekend routine like I did growing up, I’m confident you’ll find new things to love about the beloved strips we’ll be featuring going forward.

Chieftain editor Zach Hillstrom can be reached at zhillstrom@gannett.com or on X, formerly Twitter, @ZachHillstrom. Support local news, subscribe to the Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com.