Idiot Box: Vermont's least hated comic

Seven Days Vermont, a paper that runs Idiot box along with a slew of other strips, recently had a contest to determine the paper's worst strip so they could strike it from the paper. I tied with Troubletown cartoonist Lloyd Dangle for last place, making us the least hated in the Burlington area! Maakies initially came in #1. Congratulations!

It had a dual public service purpose: to get rid of a crappy comic and educate the masses on instant run-off voting.

Here's how it went:

In the initial round of voting, which represents everyone's first choice, "Maakies" took the loser lead, with 50 votes -- a full 19 votes more than "Mr. Grieves," which garnered 31. In a traditional race, that would be the end of it: "Maakies" would be declared number one, with 28.7 percent of the vote. But Instant Runoff requires the winner to receive more than 50 percent of the vote. So we kept on counting . . .

After all the other votes were redistibuted Maakies was edged out by some comic called Mr. Greives. If you want educated on how all that works you can start here and work your way through the contest. I'd have to advise against it though. It's all very confusing and made me pee myself when I first looked at because I thought Troubletown and I were getting the axe.