Speaking Truth to Power

OK, so speaking truth to power is part of my job description as an editorial cartoonist. It ain't always fun (sometimes it is). Here's an open letter to Mr. Pluck and whoever else calls the shots on these blogs:

This new blog is a total letdown. We were told "this blog isn't changing, but it will have a lot of new improvements," and we were asked to tell this to our readers. BorgBlog's readers are responding with one giant, monolithic voice, "Who do you think you're fooling?"

The new Pluck blog is anything but an improvement in the case of BorgBlog. My readers used to be able to come to my blog and find an aesthetically pleasing column of drawings and essays, easy to navigate and post comments on, and enlarge the images with a single click for the many who chose to visit to scratch their graphic itch. Now it is a column of post titles, clicking over and back, over and back, over and back to miserly image files. What a disappointment.

There's no shortage of blame, some of which goes to Blogger, whose attention was increasingly difficult to capture when posting. A bigger share goes to the jerks whose inappropriate comments made it necessary to seek a more accountable format. I can hardly blame corporate for seeking a better system to police those whose fundamental incivility constantly threatened to sink the old blogs, as well as my faith in humanity.

Maybe Pluck is working well for those writers whose style fits it naturally. And Lord knows, I don't miss moderating comments. But for a graphics-oriented blog like this one, Pluck is no improvement. BorgBlog readers and I are all losing interest fast.