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Comic strips Controversies

Beloit Daily News drops Non Sequitur over KKK strip

1 minute 55 comments

The Wisconsin based Beloit Daily News pulled a recent Non Sequitur cartoon that featured a hen with a KKK hood, who according to the punch-line “only lays white eggs.” The paper pulled the feature from the November 24th paper decided to make the drop permanent.

The editor goes on to quote many responses to the feature’s disappearance – many of which were in support of Wiley Miller’s feature.

From Cathy and Lynn Oswald, identified in an e-mail only as longtime subscribers: “Can’t tell you how sorry and disappointed my husband and I were to see this cartoon suspended from your paper … We think it deserves another chance to run after sitting in the corner for a few days … It is one of the more thought provoking and clever cartoons we have seen in a long time.”

From Gary Davis, Beloit: “I find both the readers’ and the Beloit Daily News’ reaction a bit overboard … Maybe offended readers would be well served by growing a thicker skin … Likewise there seems to be a bit of ‘knee jerk’ reaction by BDN … You on occasion print an editorial that provokes reactions by readers; following your actions in this case will you quit printing editorials because a reader may be offended by BDN views?”

He ends this article with these choice words:

AND SO IT GOES. We’re no closer today to knowing what we will do, long-term, with Non Sequitur than we were last week. For the time being, the strip will stay in the woodshed, where the spanking continues.

We have been publishing a selection of other cartoon strips available to us. To me, some seem fairly entertaining, others dull as dishwater.

Meanwhile, we’re listening. Readers may chime in by writing a letter addressed to me, at the Beloit Daily News, 149 State St., Beloit, WI 53511. Or, if you prefer e-mail, use bbarth@beloitdailynews.com to reach me.

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Comments 55

  1. Since the strip was critical of the KKK, Ironically, by pulling the strip and suspending NS, it gives the appearance that the paper supports the Klan.

  2. I don’t even know or care if the cartoon supports or denounces the KKK. The fact is, the KKK is real, and unfortunately has a place in American history. Why a cartoonist can’t make a reference to it like this is an example of how intolerant we as a society have become. I personally can’t begin to understand this, as cartooning should be allowed to be the ugliness in the mirror we are holding up.

  3. >>>cartooning should be allowed to be the ugliness in the mirror we are holding up.

    If you’ve ever met many cartoonists, you’d quickly see we’re an ugly lot…with the exception of Ann Telnaes who is a stone fox.

  4. This is freaking unbelievable. On the other hand let’s think about it this way: this was a once in a lifetime opportunity for Beloit Daily Crap to be known around the world. Be honest folks. Have you ever heard about this Bully Daily Thingie before? And do you think you would have ever heard about them if it wasn’t for this?

  5. This is too bad. That strip was awesome.

  6. would those who were offended by the reference to the KKK also be offended by a news story about the KKK? One just happened: Staten Island, NY â?? A White teen has been charged with a hate crime for allegedly scrawling the letters â??KKKâ? on a Black classmate, who feel asleep in class.
    Oh, we should stop reporting the news. It might bother a reader.

  7. This whole things is so pathetic and so exemplifies what’s wrong with newspapers today, that I don’t even know where to begin.

    So I’ll just paste this guy’s own words here:
    “AND SO IT GOES. We’re no closer today to knowing what we will do, long-term, with Non Sequitur than we were last week. For the time being, the strip will stay in the woodshed, where the spanking continues.”

    Is anybody offended by THAT statement? That a cartoonist should be SPANKED for drawing anything the least bit controversial that can give stupid people an opening to be stupid??? SPANKING in the WOODSHED, as if Wiley is school boy who did something naughty that his betters don’t approve of???!!

    I’m absolutely appalled by this. I wrote this cowardly idiot editor an email.

    Wiley, I swear if it were me, I’d tell this newspaper that they are no longer ALLOWED to carry Non Sequitur. I know it’s your livelihood, and it’s easy for me to sit and write this when it’s not my money, but I wouldn’t let this stand.

    This is absolutely disgusting.

  8. Perhaps a current or past grand dragon is a major stockholder in the newspaper? What else could explain it? 😉 Wiley, the hen wasn’t from Beloit was she?

  9. I don’t have anything to say that hasn’t already been said but I wanted to add my voice in support of Wiley and the right to poke fun at everything and anything that is deserving of being ridiculed (of which the KKK is at the top of that list).

  10. Nice to see Dawn’s usual calm and measured response. 🙂

  11. I also wish to voice my support for Wiley. I agree with Dom, anything I could say here would just be redundant. They are great strips and great gags. Wiley, don’t let the political correctness crowd sway you. Sometimes, when we hold up the mirror, people don’t like what they see. Keep holding up the mirror Wiley.

  12. An ugly lot? I’m very good looking. My mom told me so. Dropping Wiley for this is ugly.
    Wiley, I always support good art and good, honest writing. I support you.

  13. The reason I’m so appalled by this is not just that it’s so undeservedly disrespectful to Wiley, but because of what it so blatantly exhibits, that editors have totally abdicated their once honorable role as presenters and defenders of truth.

    This is blatant nonsense and any editor worth his salt would tell his “offended” readers so after speaking to the creator about it, if necessary. But no, editors aren’t about explaining realities any longer. Newspapers aren’t about fact and reason. It’s all he said/she said feely-feely-feely soap opera drama and emotional spin.

    That’s why I no longer read a newspaper. You can’t get any FACTS out of it, anymore. It’s all about “whatever you want to believe works here, we’ll indulge all sides, no matter how absurd.”

    It’s an editor’s JOB to support the writers and artists in his newspaper!! It’s his JOB to be the liason between the professionals in his newspaper and the readers of his newspaper. If there is a misunderstanding, he’s supposed to CORRECT the misunderstanding, not FUEL it with “spanking in the woodshed” hyperbole.

    If I owned this newspaper, I’d fire this guy’s #$$. He’s not doing his job. He’s NOT an editor. He’s somebody who put up a sign that say “Come wallow here in your emotional stupidity so I don’t have to do my job.”

  14. Btw, what do you think this is going to do to OTHER cartoonists.

    I guarantee they’re saying to themselves, “No, I can’t say that, can’t be the least bit controversial. I’m just going to write another safe and boring cartoon. The readers will hate it, but the editors are my customers and they’re the ones I have to please in order to make my house payment.”

    That’s the way it’s been for years. Stuff like this just makes it worse.

    Newspapers are destroying cartoons. We all know it.

  15. Dawn, I agree with your amazement over this. However, one questionable editor, or insufferable upper management or the entire newspaper industry folding will not bring cartooning down. (We may not eat for awhile but …) It just means finding another way … but I’m preaching to the choir (and a few of the great unwashed). And, of course, you are already blazing an alternative.

    Wiley, I hope all this fuss actually brings some papers your way. Perhaps other editors following the flap (if any do) will actually realize this is a kind of cartoon they should be printing.

  16. Yeah, if I didn’t have a 101 degree fever, I probably wouldn’t get so hot under the collar myself. 😉

    Just 9pm and I’m going to bed!

  17. Dawn, I hope that this does not set a precident for cartoonists to second guess their writing as you suggest. As soon as a cartoonist, or any writer, starts to think, “What are people going to say about this?” they start to become more watered down and the work suffers.

  18. >>Itâ??s his JOB to be the liason between the professionals in his newspaper and the readers of his newspaper. If there is a misunderstanding, heâ??s supposed to CORRECT the misunderstanding, not FUEL it with â??spanking in the woodshedâ? hyperbole.

    I’m in total agreement with this. Editors have abdicated this duty to the lunatic minority for fear of losing subscribers.

  20. Today’s “Non Sequiter” would suggest that the woodshed whupping will have to go on a while more.

    Although the one saving grace might be that the humorless bureaucrats who are the butt of the joke probably don’t realize that they are the humorless bureaucrats at the butt of the joke.

  21. “Newspapers are destroying cartoons. We all know it.” Saying that is like saying movie theaters are destroying movies. People who want their cartoons will look elsewhere just as movie lovers are turning from the cinema to DVD’s and home theater.

  22. Except that movie theaters don’t control movies the way newspapers control comics.

    And if you’re a 48 year old woman like I am, where is elsewhere? The Internet currently supports a handful of cartoonists who are targeted to geek audiences. As a reader, I’m not interested in any of those features.

    Like it or not, on this day in 2007, the only place I can find comic strips I might enjoy is via syndicates serving newspapers.

  23. Dawn’s right, John, the relationship between newspapers and comic strips is very different from the relationship between theaters and movies. And even if you could compare them more equally, theaters aren’t cutting back multiplexes or shrinking the size of the screens. Comic strips were uniquely created for newspapers, and newspapers have come close to ruining one of the few types of content that was unique to them. There was a time when boughty 4-5 different Sunday papers in order to collect the Sunday strips I wanted. Now I don’t buy any at all, not even my local paper. What they’ve done to the once enjoyable Sunday comic section has totally destroyed my interest in it.

    And by the way Dawn, those “syndicates serving newspapers” also offer you the ability to see all of their offerings online, via subscription. I highly recommend dailyink.com.

  24. Jeff, theaters are doing exactly that. Auditoria are smaller today than they ever have been before. Except for one or two “big house” screens in each multiplex (which distributors negotiate their way onto sometimes) the individual screens are smaller, too.

    Local exhibitors (or their corporate parents) decide what films to show, when to show them, and on how big a screen they are shown. They can also shoehorn competitors out of the way for major titles, even blocking “discount” theaters from ever getting big titles by keeping them on one screen for one showing at 10:30 PM at night, thus maintaining their “exclusivity.”

    Now, with digital cinema coming along, there’s talk of some projectors eventually being able to digitally “speed up” a movie, something you can’t do with film. Right now, if the movie runs 2:15, with a 30 minute cleanup and turnaround, an exhibitor needs to schedule a 2:45 or 3:00 block for that film, limiting the number of times a day it shows. If these projectors come out (and the studios don’t stop the practice), the exhibitor could almost seamlessly run a 2:15 movie in 2:00 flat, making room for an extra showing each day. Tell me that’s not the equivalent of squeezing down the comics.

  25. It’s still vastly different. Theaters’ revenue comes from getting people in their seats to watch the movies they show. There is a direct line between the movie and the revenue. That’s not true of comics. Editors see comics as a cost center, not a profit center.

    If newspapers could directly see this comic made them money and that comic didn’t, we would have very different comic pages because then readers would be a lot more control, just as movie-watchers ultimately do.

  26. oops, that’s HAVE a lot more control.

    I’ll blame the cold medicine.

  27. Technically, a theater’s revenue comes from getting people into the theater to buy overpriced popcorn. Ticket sales bring almost no revenue to the theater, though they do give the management some idea of which movies bring in more customers.

    Just a technical correction — it doesn’t really change Dawn’s point.

  28. Newpapers viewing comics as a cost center rings true. Would someone explain again why they can’t run ads on comic pages?

  29. To be specific, Josh, of your $9.00 ticket, theaters pay $8.10 right back to the distributors. You’re correct, almost all of the income of a movie theater comes from concessions, screen advertising, and ancillary revenue. Ticket prices are a very small part of it.

    Likewise, comics were designed to lure people into buying the paper, so they can see ads.

  30. Right. The difference is: I know without a doubt that, at my theater last week, 159 people bought tickets to “Fred Claus” while only 53 people bought tickets to “Hit Man”. Thus “Hit Man” is out, and “Fred” stays at least another week. But a newspaper editor has no clear measure of whether people buy the paper because of its local news coverage, “Blondie”, or the CryptoQuip puzzle.

  31. Pab, you are correct, the multiplexes have downsized, but they have done so in order to show more films at a multiplex, not to cut down on the number of films. And none of the ones which I am familiar with cut down the screen size. Sure, the old Cinerama screens are gone, but so are the Cinerama films. And the number of movies being shown at the growing number of iMax screens has increased.

    Newspapers, on the other hand, have had to shrink comic sizes because, over a period of years, they have continued to shrink page sizes. They’ve shrunk Sunday sections by removing pages from the sections. They have reduced the size and the number of comics they have included.

    Dawn, I once chose to buy certain newspapers just to see certain comics. I don’t think anyone does that anymore due to the state of newspaper comics. I do now choose to subscribe to a certain online service to see certain comics.

  32. I’m confident the comics, and Non Sequitur, will survive the current example of censorship by the Beloit Daily News. This kind of thing isn’t new. In Brian Walker’s ‘The Comics: Before 1945″, he tells us: “Religious groups had been protesting the publication of newspapers on the Christian Sabbath since the New York Courier issued its first Sunday edition on March 20, 1825.” A lot of publishers got on the reformist bandwagon then and in the years that followed. It was in their economic interest to try and give the readers what they wanted. He goes on to provide more history along the same lines, over and over again, during the course of the many decades since. The big thing that the censors objected to in the earliest days was the violence, disrepect for authority, vulgarity, anarchy and rebellious bad behavior. And the cartoonists, especially around the turn of the century, responded…with more child-friendly fare, with strips like ‘Buster Brown’, for example. But at the same time, the strips were still jam-packed with class and ethnic stereotypes that, if they were printed today, would probably cause a riot on the scale of a national meltdown, and yet, in those days nobody in authority was PO’d about such bigotted portrayals. As the current flap over Non Sequitur shows, today there are different things that any given publisher or editor will deem worthy of censoring, and the gist is the same: the publishers and editors are paying for comics and they have the real say-so, not the creators or the syndicates. But the comics go on. Long may they rave.

  33. Rich, the perceived wisdom is that comics actually distract a reader from looking at adverts, or that the two cancel each other out.

    Ads need a bland, text-based background to make themselves noticed.

  34. Malc, interesting. Well, there’s plenty of that in the newspaper (like most of it). I wonder how well that theory has been tested … maybe they need less bland ads to go with the comics? (more like superbowl ads)

    So, anyway, it’s an unwritten rule then about ads and comics? I thought someone mention the syndicates having a problem with it at some point or something like that. If not, it’s just so uncanny that no paper uses ads that way. I would think the most highly viewed sections of the paper would be were the highest priced ad space would be.

  35. Rich, I don’t know about other papers but ours used to run ads on the same page as the comics. They stopped because people complained saying basically ” If you have more space on the page for ads, you have space for more comics. Give us more comics!” So they did. Maybe if our paper had more than one page of comics like some papers do, they could mix in other content around the strips. I think the Sun Times used to do that by having all the advice columns, puzzles, horoscope, comics etc mixed together in a two or three page section. They could just as easily put ads in there so Malc must be right about advertisers complaining.

    Getting back to Wiley’s KKK strip, Rick is absolutely right when he points out the irony of the situation – it does make the paper look as though they’re afraid of offending the Klan which I am sure is the last thing they intended. It reminds me very much of the Breathed Islam flap where most people completely misundersood the cartoons and complained for probably all the wrong reasons. I wish this editor had been a little more clear about why the strip bothered people – whether it was the position the strip took on the Klan (as understood by those who complained) or was it the fact that they felt that by mentioning the Klan at all on the comics page that the strip had crossed a line. We see that argument about content here all the time. There are a lot of people that don’t think religion, politics, sex or cancer have any place in the “funnies”. I suspect the folks who complained are those who don’t like NS in the first place because it is political. When they felt it crossed a line, they saw an opening and jumped on it as hard as they could.

  37. “I suspect the folks who complained are those who donâ??t like NS in the first place because it is political. When they felt it crossed a line, they saw an opening and jumped on it as hard as they could.”

    I get the impression that this editor just doesn’t like NS and is trying to stir up controversy so he can drop what seems to be a popular strip in his paper.

  38. Could also be some fear of the Klan in Beloit. The Klan seems to continually have a presence in Skokie, IL (just north of Chicago). Skokie has (or had) at one time a fairly larger Jewish presence so it seemed the Klan always liked to stir it up there with rallies and protests. Beloit is just across the IL state line, so it’s possible there is some Klan influence either in the complaints or somehow exerting pressure. Josh’s theory may be correct too! We’ll probably never know what’s really driving it.

  39. Dawn said: “Movie theaters donâ??t control movies the way newspapers control comics.” Dawn, it’s arguable how much CONTROL theater owners have over the way movies are made, but they certainly wield considerable influence over how movies are SOLD to movie-goers, and they’re certainly to blame for the generally less-enjoyable experience of going “out to the movies” today. I love watching movies now as much as I did back when everybody went to the theater to see a movie, but now I watch most of what I see at home; the product is basically the same…but the venue has changed.
    Jeff said: “The relationship between newspapers and comic strips is very different from the relationship between theaters and movies,” and “the multiplexes have downsized,but…none of the ones which I am familiar with cut down the screen size.” Jeff, most theaters chains, when they “downsized” in the 70’s and 80’s, did, in fact, take their larger screens and split them, and/or build smaller houses with smaller screens, so they could show more movies more times. One of the reasons movie-goers stopped movie-going and started movie-renting is BECAUSE the big screen got so small.
    These are the reasons I used the theater/newspaper analogy. Maybe I’m just being overly hopeful, but I believe short-sighted newspapers can’t destroy the comics anymore than short-sighted theater chains destroyed movie-watching; we’ll just read our comics in another venue.

  40. John, as somebody creating another venue, I hope you’re right! 🙂
    (Well, actually, I know you are, or I wouldn’t be doing this.)

    You’re welcome, Wiley. Please let us all know what that guy’s decision is, if he ever makes one.

  41. To be specific, Josh, of your $9.00 ticket, theaters pay $8.10 right back to the distributors.
    Pab,
    where did you get this info from? Just curious…that’s a worse split than a syndication contract!

    What a lousy payout to the theater…I’m amazed that theaters don’t strike. I personally refuse to go to theaters these days because of the total cost(almost $30 for a couple!). I wait for the DVD…and I await the day when you can watch a new release on pay per view…

  42. I got that because I used to own a movie theater. For opening and second weekend, when most people go to see a movie, a 90/10 split is standard. Week three it goes to 80/20, week four 70/30. Lowest the split ever goes is around week nine when it’s 35/65.

    There are some adjustments, like the “house allowance” that will charge a smaller cut on the first filled-auditorium’s worth of tickets to give smaller exhibitors a chance, but the standard cut is still 90/10.

  43. it gets old when a handful of grumps complain and the media (in this case the paper) freaks out. someone saw kkk and the pointy hat and freaked out. i live in arizona, but i may send in e-mail to bring NS back to beloit

  44. Wiley, you might want to check out “The New Adventures Of Queen Victoria” starting this Tuesday. I have no papers to fear losing, so it’s time for me to point out some stupidity.

  45. Dan, and everyone…writing to that paper is the key. I whipped off an email right after first reading about this ridiculous situation here at the Daily Cartoonist. If we send our thoughts and outrage to that editor from around the country (I’m in San Diego), maybe we can make a difference. In many of our interviews at Comics Coast to Coast, we’ve heard that the voices of the people really make a difference to the editors out there, so let’s test that out.

    Power to the people, people! Burn those draftcards! Stick it to the Wisconsin Man!

  46. P.S…anyone see today’s “Family Circus?” Talk about white supremescists! Who knew Billy was such a bigot? 🙂 I wonder if THIS cartoon will catch any flack?

  47. Wow!

    Okay, I feel like I need to step in and offer my two cents, because so far this has been a one-sided debate. And no offense, but I’m astounded at how long a one-sided debate can go! You guys just keep agreeing with each other. What’s left to argue? How a movie theater turns a profit?? Anyway…

    I’m not an overly political person, but I’m well educated, intelligent, and I follow/vote on the issues that are important to me. So even if you don’t agree with me, please don’t insult me or my intelligence for not agreeing with you. I’ll offer you that same courtesy. Criticism is, of course, welcome.

    Did the newspaper over-react? Maybe. Does one paper matter, in the big picture? Probably not. I hear a lot of people crying “conspiracy”, saying that the cartoon was critical of the KKK, and therefore the paper must have some allegiance, fear, or something.

    Personally, I don’t feel the strip condoned OR criticized the KKK. I felt that it made light of the Klan, and for that reason I found it mildly distasteful. Haha, racist chicken only lays egg whites, but the bottom line is the KKK is something that still creates fear and anger in many people.

    One last thought – the word “censorship” is thrown around a lot, and we need to get back to using it correctly. A government censors. But a business has every right to not publish something it disagrees with or feels is bad for business itself. And let’s not even pretend most (if indeed any) newspapers are impartial sources of information. Name any paper, and its political slant is usually well known even among its casual readers.

  48. Tom, my brother had almost the same reaction to Sunday’s Family Circus, to wit: “How could he have left out a white MLK Jr. Day?”

  49. Stephen:

    You make some good points, but now I’m going to put on my humorist and comedy writer hat and offer a counterpoint.

    There is a good reason why Wiley uses KKK jokes, Mel Brooks made a fortune off of Hitler jokes, and I like to poke fun at the religious right….

    It’s always good to make jokes about what scares you.

    It’s always been that way. One of the best psychological weapons we have is to reduce objects of our most abject fear to sources of ridicule. It depowers them. It takes away their one real weapon: fear. You can’t be afraid of something if you’re laughing at it so hard you’re starting to cry.

    To quote Alice, “who cares for you? You’re nothing but a pack of cards.”

    The KKK is nothing but a tiny bunch of sad old racist men with no real power unless we give it to them by being afraid of them instead of seeing them for what they are. By holding them up to well deserved ridicule, we deny them their only weapon.

    By the way, if anyone out there wants to read the best comic tearing down the KKK ever written, read the story “The Kluk Klams” by Walt Kelly. I believe it was published in “The Pogo Poop Book.”

  50. Mr. Ghest, I think what got everyone’s hackles up was your statement: “For the time being, the strip will stay in the woodshed, where the spanking continues.” It’s a pretty severe metaphor for a strip whose only apparent offense was that it one day was “mildly distasteful”. Such an offense might earn a scolding, maybe a seat in the corner for an hour or so. But for a woodshed whupping to be warranted, I have to think there are other reasons behind it.

  51. Pab-

    Point taken about ridiculing sources of fear. Takes a little wind out of their sales. I disagree about our fear being the only power they have, though. If you live in white suburbia (and I do, personally), that’s probably true. But there are still people who (rightly) fear actual prejudice/violence, and that’s a little tougher to shrug off. But again, I do see the comic style that was employed, that maybe I didn’t recognize before.

    Josh-

    I think you got me confused with the editor of that paper (or maybe the phrase “your statement” above was just a typo) but yeah, I definitely think that statement was, at very least, an eye-roller. Maybe he was trying to be slightly cute in an attempt to diffuse a situation. From my personal experience, that has never worked on an angry wife, so I don’t try it anywhere else, either 🙂

  52. The Beloit Daily News editors are making the people of Beloit look like a bunch of yolkels.

  53. The Beloit Daily News editors are making the people of Beloit look like a bunch of yolkels.

    (I had to hear about this in the strip “The New Adventures of Queen Victiria”, I hope no Beloit monarchists were offended.)

    (This is a re-send I omitted my last name the first time but in no way should it be contstrued to mean I don’t like rule #1.) Regards.

  54. Tom-

    One business decides to no longer subscribe to a single publication, and suddenly everybody there is (or appears to be) a yokel? I’m hard pressed to even say that about the editor. It’s their paper, and they’re customers (of the comic strips they choose to run) who have decided to no longer buy that product. It’s their right.

  55. Stephen:

    I said “yolkels” not yokels. It was an attempt at a pun with regard to the comic strip that had “It only lays egg whites” as the punchline. Is there a Beloit in Denmark?

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