You may remember an entry last week about Hilary Price’s “Rhymes with Orange” being in danger of losing its spot in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Well, you can rest easy. “Rhymes with Orange” is staying put in the paper, but not without some controversy surrounding the “comics poll” that was to decide the outcome.
Apparently the Plain Dealer had printed phone numbers for readers to call and vote. What was odd, however, was that the number for the competing strip was in a larger font.
The paper also had printed the incorrect phone number for RWO voters who apparently were routed to a random employee’s line. Voters calling the correct number (which had been listed on the Plain Dealer’s website) found constant busy signals which the paper later blamed on a phone system technical problem.
Price notified Editor and Publisher who contacted the paper and pointed out the flawed contest. Elizabeth McIntyre, assistant managing editor/features at The Plain Dealer acknowledged the problems, but said it didn’t really matter as Rhymes with Orange was winning anyway.
Whew! That was a close one! I was beginning to think we were going to be examining hanging chads again!
There’s a great article on it at E&P’s website. Give it a read!
Also, don’t miss reading Hilary Price’s answers to our goofy questions in “Inside the Cartoonist’s Studio”