Newspaper Cutting Six Chix Garners National News
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Reporting on newspapers cutting the Six Chix comic panel over the Tuesday July 28, 2020 installment by Bianca Xunise has become a national news story as NBC News is now covering the issue:
Tea Fougner, editorial director at King Features, the comic strip’s syndicate, confirmed to NBC News that angry responses to the strip resulted in some newspapers dropping “Six Chix” from publication entirely.
While the company is not allowed to share the names of its clients, Fougner said, an apology was printed at an undisclosed newspaper in the comic’s usual spot later in the week.
At least some of the upset newspapers seem to be located in California and are part of the MediaNews Group. The Vacaville Reporter, Chico Enterprise-Record, and the Santa Cruz Sentinel, all with Jim Gleim as publisher, carried the apology on July 29, the day after Bianca’s panel ran. The papers run the same comics page in the same order. The three then began running Curtis on July 30th in the slot previously held by Six Chix.
above: screenshot from the July 29 Vacaville Reporter via PressReader
At least two other papers in the MediaNews Group (the Monterey Herald and the Marin Independent-Journal) that also run that same comics page, but having different publishers, did not run the apology – instead just switching to Curtis on July 29.
Back to the NBC News report:
In response, Fougner, along with Xunise’s colleagues at “Six Chix,” defended the cartoon.
“Bianca created the July 28, 2020, ‘Six Chix’ cartoon to be a joke commenting on how Black issues are often disregarded as a personal problem and not a systemic issue,” Fougner said. “She is shedding light on two pandemics right now: one on race and another on COVID-19, and both are not being taken seriously while they are destroying lives.”
Isabella Bannerman, the Monday cartoonist for “Six Chix,” echoed similar sentiments, defending the comic as an “important dialogue” bridging both issues.
Bianca noted:
Xunise added that the comic went through two checkpoints: one with her editors and another with the newspaper editors that made the final decision to publish it.
“The editors at whatever newspaper it lands at should’ve read the comics and flagged it if they got offended,” Xunise said. “I’m just an artist; that’s your job.”
Yeah, like newspaper editors actually read and edit syndicated material.
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