New features, new faces, for the new year

Dear readers:

We've got a batch of changes in our regular Northwest Life content with the start of the new year. Some comics are coming and going — and we're welcoming a new advice columnist. Here are the details.

Comics changes

You'll find some significant changes to our comics lineup today.

First is the absence of "FoxTrot," one of our most popular comic strips. Its creator, Bill Amend, has decided to stop creating the daily strip, in order to make time to try new things. But Amend will still create new Sunday strips, which we'll be running every Sunday, and our Web site — seattletimes.com/comics — will have reruns of the original dailies.

Happier news is that we are bringing back both "Lola" and "Shoe" today, in direct response to your pleas — especially for the return of "Lola." To make room for them, we are dropping "Pickles" and "Monty." And we are dropping the panel "Brevity" in order to make room for a trial run of "Bliss," a panel drawn by Harry Bliss, a cover artist for The New Yorker.

Beyond that, we make the Guest Comic "Lio" a regular part of our pages starting today, and we have moved "The Duplex" to the main comics page, to be near its creative sibling, "The Flying McCoys." And we start a new Guest Comic, "Diesel Sweeties." It has been a successful online comic for several years and is now getting a shot at print.

That's a lot of change. Let us know what you think by sending e-mail to Timescomics@seattletimes.com. We regret that we can't send individual answers to every e-mail, but we assure you your note will be read and considered.

New advice columnist

We're also making a change in our daily advice column, welcoming to our pages Amy Dickinson, whose "Ask Amy" column will be replacing Dear Abby.

As many of you know, there never was a "real" Dear Abby. That column was created by Pauline Phillips, whose twin sister Esther Lederer had earlier created the Ann Landers column. Neither of them is still writing; Lederer died in 2002, and Phillips handed Dear Abby over to her daughter Jeanne that same year.

After that transition, many newspapers, including The Times, came to feel the quality of the "original" Dear Abby was diminishing, and we began checking out other options.

We're happy to have settled on Amy Dickinson, who succeeded Ann Landers at her flagship newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, and who now appears in more than 100 newspapers, including The Washington Post, The Oregonian, the Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

We like the freshness Amy brings to her daily advice, and the way she draws on common sense, real-life experiences and her own experience as a journalist. (She's had a column on family matters for Time magazine, worked as a producer for NBC News and appeared regularly on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," among other things.)

But we'll let Amy introduce herself: She's written a letter to all her new Seattle readers, which accompanies this; her first column appears on Page E8. Enjoy!

We'd be happy to hear your comments on this change, too. Use the e-mail address above for comics comments. For other comments, write to us at talktous@seattletimes.com. Again, we regret we can't answer each e-mail individually, but we promise your note will be read and considered.

— The Editors