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Current Non Sequitur storyline inspired by new Schulz biography?

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Yesterday’s and today’s Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller are dealing with distorted biographies for the sake of selling more books. The storyline includes the Danae character questioning her father about his childhood with the intent to write her own distorted biography in the event he becomes famous. The timing of the material might suggest that Wiley is using his feature as his own outlet for feelings about the Schulz and Peanuts biography.

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Comments 18

  1. Oh, no… it’s just a COMPLETE coincidence! 🙂

  2. Or maybe it’s an INCOMPLETE coincidence.
    Ho, hum.

  3. Wiley, the ongoing strip is funny – and I didn’t catch the “coincidence” until Alan mentioned it today. Goes to show ya, funny is funny either way! I love Danae; wonder how long before she meets lio?

  4. Good comics!

    Perhaps he’s just poking fun at those ubiquitous Behind the Music docs on VH1. They do all the rock stars: Eric Clapton, Nirvana, Charles Schulz…

  5. As soon as I read “Non Sequitur” yesterday I had a big grin…it’s a great example of how to make a sensitive point through great writing. Comics are at their best when they’re satirical in a way that is entertaining and funny, but powerful points are being made. Subtlety and satire are difficult arts, and Mr. Miller is a master.

  7. Wiley,
    I had written you once complimenting you on your timing and pacing in your strips. Your “timing” on these strips couldn’t be any better! Thanks so much.

  8. Beautiful – a “Daddy Dearest.” How long before Danae meets CALVIN?

  9. Calvin is dead.
    I’ve actually thought of doing a series of Danae meeting Lio. Gotta talk to Mark about that.

  10. Danae and Lio … Now there’s a match made in hell!

  11. If Lio is tied up, maybe she could strike up an acquaintance with Dean?

  12. Hey, Wiley, I’m really loving this week’s storyline. It’s funny on its own, but because I’m “in the know” on the Charles Schulz biography controversy I was able to pick up on the way it is making a jab at the biographer.

    Actually, when I first read Tuesday’s strip I didn’t make the connection, but then I read it a second time a few hours later it clicked. It was very funny on both levels, as has been the rest of the series. “Non Sequitur” is genius…

  13. Ah, now I see. Yes, that biography was very disturbing, wish it’d never happened.

    My local paper didn’t run your strip last Saturday (the Ku Klux Chicken strip), saying that it
    was deemed racially offensive. I just saw it online and to me it seemed offensive to Klansmen. I think we should all offend Klansment whenever possible. Thanks for doing that.

  14. That puzzled me as well when I heard from my editor last week that at least two papers wanted a replacement for Saturday’s cartoon. There may have been more.
    I asked, “what are they afraid of, offending white supremacists?”
    I thought if there was one group that was pretty safe to satirize, it would be the KKK.

    Well, now I know what those editors were afraid of. They didn’t want to hear from morons who don’t know how to read a cartoon or decipher satire. I’ve gotten several e-mails from angry readers who were “offended” by this cartoon. Just the mere sight of a klan outfit apparently is enough to set them off into a self-righteous tirade to show their moral superiority. It just leaves you shaking your head and wondering just how incredibly stupid people can be.

    Such misplaced vitriol doesn’t just speak to level of intelligence and sophistication in this country. I see it as an indictment of the news media that has continued to dumb-down to the lowest common denominator rather than challenge readers and viewers with literacy. This simple sight gag shouldn’t have been so difficult for so many to get.

  15. I took a look at this KKK cartoon, and I have to say – I completely understand why some people would be offended. And I’m kind of surprised that Wiley, a veteran, didn’t foresee a potential problem with this. Although I suspect he might have, judging from the day of the week he chose to run it (Saturdays are notoriously the least-read day for newspapers).

    I think, and again this is just my opinion, the issue stems from the fact that the joke does not come at the EXPENSE of the KKK chicken, but rather is derived from it. The humor rests on the fact that the chicken belongs to a society that has raped and murdered minorities throughout history. This is a pathetic analogy, but it would be like a farmer looking at his pen of pigs – one of whom has a short moustache and a swastika armband – and commenting: “That’s where we get the non-kosher hams”.

    You can see how an African-American or a Jewish person could take offense to either of those scenarios.

    It would be ridiculous for me to try and tell Wiley how to do his job, but a less-incendiary take would be to have the other chickens all casting out the KKK chicken from the coop, with the farmer confiding, “She only produced egg whites”.

    This is just a thought from someone on the periphery of the business and a long-time comics lover. All said and done, it’s a very funny cartoon – just not for the antiseptic audiences that make up newspaper readers.

  16. “All said and done, itâ??s a very funny cartoon – just not for the antiseptic audiences that make up newspaper readers.”

    That pretty much reiterates my point, Mitch. What you are asking me to do then is weaken the cartoon by dumbing it down for the satirically challenged. This is precisely what newspapers and electronic media has been doing for decades now. I’ve always refused to go along with that as I don’t think we should be appeasing stupid people just because they yell, “I’m offended” at things they don’t understand. The “anitseptic audience” shouldn’t be pandered to and protected from satire. They need to be challenged and help brought up to speed.

    And I ran it on Saturday because I thought it wasn’t as strong as the cartoons for the rest of the week. It was just a simple sight gag. But you made a good point in your analysis of the humor being derived from the KKK. But since you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who’d defend the KKK, I didn’t feel the need to emphasize what a revolting group they are. That’s pretty much universally understood, and trying state that in the cartoon undermines the subtlety of satire. You don’t see Mel Brooks having to explain that in his movies, where Nazis and the KKK are a consistent target of his humor.

  17. The egg whites gag is good, though, can I steal it?

  18. I don’t often actually laugh out loud at the comics, as much as I do love ’em…you get your occasional chuckle, a lot of grins, and some shakes of the head in utter disbelief that anyone is still reading certain comics. But when I read the KKK Non Sequitur, I burst out laughing and immediately showed it to everyone within shouting distance. As the Irish say, foookin’ brilliant. If you raised a little blood pressures out there, my friend, all the better. (Of course, it may make me re-think my ordering an egg-white omelette in the near future…) Not that you need the encouragement from a wannabe like myself, but keep it up, amigo. Lead that charge and wave that flag, and the rest of us will try to keep up with you in a tightly choreographed triangle a la “Les Miserables.”

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