Last week I posted a letter to the editor by a certain offended reader of the Baltimore Sun who decried the profanity in Pearls Before Swine. Just to be clear, we’re not talking real swear words – we’re talking characters like @#$@. Then on Sunday, Scott Hilburn drops the big #%@!* in his strip.
Yesterday Pearls Before Swine creator Stephan Pastis runs a strip making fun of comics teaching kids profanity. It’s like he planned this whole thing.
So is our new theory that the letter to the editor was a plant by Pastis?
“Dear Wheeler: you provide the prose poems. I’ll provide the war.”
– Charles Foster Kane
Thanks for the clarification, Alan. I mistakenly thought/assumed the swearing went beyond the characters. I did think Hilburn’s use of them was clever and funny so it’s all in how they’re used.
Well, technically, that form of “swearing” is inappropriate too.