Comic Strip Updates
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VeeFriends and LeePapers; Doonesbury Done in Dallas; Comics Come in for Candorville Cuts.
VeeFriends Debut Newspaper Comic Strip
If you were like me you would have thought that the images of the comic strip with the publicity surrounding the debut of VeeFriends in Lee newspapers was the actual February 23 comic strip. It wasn’t.
With thanks to pranaynigotiya, aka PN11, we have images from yesterday’s Buffalo News.
So…
VeeFriends
by Gary Vaynerchuk (as Gary Vee) and D. J. Coffman (signed)
February 23, 2025 –
Sunday only
exclusive to Lee Enterprises newspapers
G. B. Trudeau Responds to Dallas News Decision
The Dallas Morning News dropping Doonesbury prompted D (for Dallas) Magazine to ask Garry Trudeau for his reaction to action. Trudeau, long ago got used to newspapers dropping his comic strip, responded:
[Tim Rogers] asked him if the DMN brass had contacted him or his syndicate to tell them the paper had decided not publish any of his new work. His answer was thoughtful and pointed and provided great context. Here it is in full:
No, they didn’t, and obviously I’m disappointed. The Morning News is a major newspaper and a longstanding client. And the Dallas editors have supported me in some tough moments in the past—most notably in 2012, when 65 other newspapers dropped [link added] the week about Texas’ abortion sonogram law…
… Having said all that, I’ve been around for 54 years, and editors and readers know what to expect. I have a point of view and the satirist’s mission statement: to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. I create characters and tell stories that often, but not always, make some sort of social or political point, and I’ve done it well enough that most editors seem willing to tolerate the occasional crossed line (all 65 of the papers mentioned above reinstated the strip the following Monday).
Tim Rogers introduction and G. B. Trudeau’s full response here.
From D Magazine editor Tim Rogers’ introduction:
… So I’m not buying the explanation that Doonesbury isn’t funny or that it too often traffics in the same trope. That is bunk.
Which brings us to the notion that Trudeau hasn’t been fair and balanced in its treatment of Trump. Doonesbury is satire. Expecting satire to be fair and balanced is like expecting a roast to be kind and flattering. You don’t bring in Nikki Glaser and then say, “That woman isn’t very nice.”
The News’ decision and, worse, its disingenuous explanation for it got me pretty heated last week…
I haven’t been able to determine what comics, if any, The Dallas Morning News has added to replace Doonesbury. Some suggestions on social media have mentioned Crabgrass, Dustin, and Baldo. But I have some evidence that those strips were already running in The News, at least daily.
However…
Comics Replacing Candorville in Newspapers
Stars and Stripes which carried Candorville almost to the end replaced that strip with the WuMo panel this weekend. WuMo by Wulff and Morgenthaler took over the space Candorville ran in the weekend editions on Friday February 21, 2025. It did the same on Stars and Stripes daily comics page today, February 24, 2025.
Also: After months of rerunning Fort Knox Stars and Stripes added Crabgrass in its place this weekend.
Elsewhere it was Curtis that beat out Sally Forth and Dumplings for the Candorville spot in The Daily Republic.
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