Back in December, Amy Lago, comics editor at Washington Post Writers Group, blogged about the quirkiness of using off-color words in comics. Fearing that many interpreted her comments as being anti-dicey language, she wrote another blog post regarding the matter.
Just last week, there was dissension on the appropriateness of the word “ass” in Doonesbury with editors coming down on both sides of the argument. If you look seriously at that strip, Trudeau is saying “ass” as in heinie. He’s not saying “ass” as in short for the word that means sphincter. So honestly, folks, if you’d allow “chicken-butt,” why wouldn’t you allow “chicken-ass”? Shouldn’t we be teaching our children that this is a perfectly fine word, if only so they can read various Bible verses without snickering?
As goofy as it sounds, when I write dialogue for my strip I envision the characters speaking as I would (or the people they’re based off of, and they are all people I know). Many times off color words pop up in my mind…hey, I’ve been in the military for a long time, I’m used to ’em…but I actually enjoy rewriting sentences in my head without using language thats not too iffy.