Politics Cause of Dropping Bottom Liners

After months of complaints about the political jokes in the Bottom Liners panel, the Wilmington Star News has dropped the panel. While editorial comments have long been a part of the Teitelbaum Brothers repertoire, they seem to gotten more partisan and frequent this past year. A couple of harsh Adam Schiff gags found readers writing letters.

 
above: Bottom Liners by Eric and Bill Teitelbaum (© Tribune Content Agency)

EDITOR: It is long past time to discontinue the cartoon Bottom Liners until…

EDITOR: Recently [Bottom Liners] has become blatantly right…

EDITOR: If you don’t like Bottom Liners, skip over it.

So the Star News dropped the panel, and naturally got taken to task.

EDITOR: I was disappointed when you sided with readers that found Mallard Fillmore intolerable and removed the comic strip.
I was again disappointed when the same recently happened with Bottom Liners.
In the hopes of preserving the possibility of finding humor in today’s disruptive political times, why not place these comics on the Viewpoint page.
Often, some of the viewpoints published are quite more inflammatory and questionable than these comic strips.
I wonder what will disappear next?

and

EDITOR: Of all places, I never thought I would see censorship in the printed media. Removal of Bottom Liners by the so called executive editor appears to be a politically correct move.

Censorship in any form turns the news media into a propaganda platform which in turn causes one to question if you are being misled with misinformation, innuendos, embellishments and omissions in the printed media.

I remain deeply concerned with what appears to be increasing censorship on a daily basis and the intentions and unclear directions in which the news media appears to be headed.

and

EDITOR: Censorship is alive and well at the StarNews. First Mallard Fillmore was moved to the Op-Ed page. Then he quietly “disappeared” completely. Now the Bottom Liners has been removed too. What’s next? Pearls Before Swine? Or some other comic that you feel is not politically correct?

The business panel goes political at least once a week of late.

 
above: the Tribune Content Agency panel Bottom Liners is titled Bottomliners on GoComics

I do not know what took the Bottom Liners spot at Star News,
here is a lineup of the page when the panel still appeared:

For Better or For Worse....Blondie
Pearls Before Swine........Baby Blues
B.C........................Zits
Baldo......................Beetle Bailey
Hi & Lois..................Wizard of Id
Dilbert....................JumpStart
Hagar the Horrible.........Shoe
Pluggers...................Pickles
Dennis the Menace..........Bottom Liners
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith
Born Loser