Some days I'd love to leave the comics alone. There is no purge, we're just trying to stay fresh. For instance, Zippy and Ernie are my current favorites, and I was devastated when The Fusco Brothers was dropped. But I often feel like a minority reader with these tastes in strips. That's why we don't choose strips based only on reader polls.
Some strips have a small but loyal following.
It's harder to work with now. We've heard from many puzzle fans about this matter. We'll look into it. Even if we had readers' opinions, I'm not sure there'd be any agreement on new strips. We try to edit the strips for issues of taste.