"La Cucaracha" Back In, But What About "Candorville"?

That was fast. The L.A. Times has changed its mind on "La Cucaracha," restoring the strip to its funny pages as of Wednesday.

As a result, one of several old-time strips that have outlived their creators (and are now drawn by someone else), "Heathcliff," will get the ax. Don't worry, "Mallard Fillmore" is still dead.

"La Cucaracha," by Lalo Alcaraz, made a comeback after readers, furious over the dropping of the Times' only fully Latino-themed strip, apparently emailed the paper in huge numbers.



But what about Darrin Bell's "Candorville," which featured the comics pages' only leading, strong Latina female character? "Candorville" is smart, frequently funny and often the only strip tackling tough subjects like Hurricane Katrina in a satiric way. (Actually, it's the only strip still regularly bringing Katrina up.)

"Candorville" was also the only strip in the LAT with multi-ethnic leading characters: Frustrated writer Lemont Brown, his childhood friend Susan Garcia, and wannabe rapper Clyde (that's "C-Dog" to you). How 'bout we also finally put "Marmaduke" out of its misery and let "Candorville" return as well?

After all, if we're getting rid of the last remaining cat strip ("Heathcliff") on the LAT funny pages, it's only fair to ax the dog one as well.

Here's what the L.A. Times wrote today. Notice how they misspelled "Heathcliff." Truly it was time to put the garbage can-diving cat out of his misery (joining "Garfield," which was cut from the paper several years ago):

"La Cucaracha," one of several comics dropped this week as part of a shift in The Times' daily and Sunday print edition feature lineup, is returning to The Times' daily comics pages starting Wednesday. We decided to bring it back after hearing from so many of our readers who follow the comic strip loyally. "La Cucaracha" will return to our Sunday pages starting March 25.

To make room for the change, "Healthcliff" is being dropped Monday through Saturday along with "Mallard Fillmore," "Candorville" and "Mr. Boffo."

Meanwhile, the What's Wrong With Mallard Fillmore website celebrates the L.A. Times' move.