Mike Rhode over on ComicsDC is taking the Washington Post to task for removing last weeks Get Fuzzy that contained marijuana overtones. According to Mike, the Washington Post has a history of running comic repeats during any feature’s episodes that it feels are offensive. Yanked features over the years include Scott Adams’s Dilbert, The Boondocks, Johnny Hart’s BC, and Ted Rall.
According to E&P, about a dozen of Darby Conley’s 650 clients asked for alternates.
The offending strips can be viewed over at comics.com.
UPDATE: Dave Coverly writes in to tell me that yesterday’s Speed Bump was replaced from the Washington Post. The cartoon depicted a child mooning an adult with the mom reprimanding the child saying, “Michael, use your words.” He also mentions that no other paper has pulled the cartoon.
Actually, this seems to be a glimmer of hope. If only a dozen or so of the 650 clients that carry Get Fuzzy pulled it, then maybe the tide is beginning to change…
Guess I shouldn’t get my hopes up just yet though.
Hear! Hear! for the Washington Post. Why is it that any cartoonist or fan should think that a work must be published just because it is created? The Washington Post is a customer of the syndicate, and just like any other sales outlet of which you or I would be a customer, they have the right to walk out of the “store” and leave a product on the shelf. What’s more, the Post did the syndicate a favor by paying for the unused product anyway! It’s the Post’s editorial right to not publish a strip, just as it is any reader’s right that doesn’t like it not to purchase the paper. Thanks, Post editors, for taking a stand.