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SOME PEOPLE START a comic after working in a totally unrelated profession.
"Ernie" creator Bud Grace was a nuclear physicist, "Sally Forth" creator Greg Howard was a lawyer, and "Katie's Wee Do Puzzle" creator Barry Loncke was--and is--a judge.
Actually, being a judge is by no means unrelated to the development of Loncke's educational cartoon feature. Loncke sees numerous troubled youngsters pass through Sacramento Municipal Court, and almost all of them possess underdeveloped literacy skills.
"They're invariably uninformed, and they don't have the skills to become informed," he said. Instead, many join gangs and commit crimes.
But Loncke believes youngsters can avoid ending up in the court system if they are reached early enough in life. That is a major reason why the community-activist judge created "Katie's Wee Do Puzzle," which enables youngsters to learn about words and decipher messages that can teach them about such subjects as history, moral values and safety.
The Sunday comic feature is an outgrowth of the scrambled-letter games Loncke played with his daughter Katie, now 8, from the time she was three years old. Her friends enjoyed the word games, too.
"One of them said to me, 'These are great, but you should get some pictures to go with them,'"...