Many folks may not believe a cartoon can cause angst and ire, but every now and then — and based on society norms and issues at the time — cartoon strips have undergone a bit of their own cancel culture.
Indeed, there is a comical side to cancel culture.
Last week, I received some feedback on the cartoon strip Mallard Fillmore [see here], which the Enid News & Eagle chooses to place on the editorial page due to the fact that the strip is typically political in nature.
© King Features Syndicate
[A]pparently last week, his humor was too subtle, and a few conservative readers reached out to me to complain because they didn’t catch the nuances.
The gist of the strips in question were actually making fun of the generalities many in the left use in describing conservatives, particularly Trump supporters … So, a few readers saw the strip as making fun of conservatives rather than liberals, and they didn’t like it. In fact, the strips in question were pure sarcasm and just went over their heads.
Enid News & Eagle editor Cindy Allen explains Mallard Fillmore to a few of her readers.
She also talks of Pogo, Doonesbury, Beetle Bailey and the current Dilbert
as examples of cancel culture on the comics pages through the years.
She may have to deal with more feedback over today’s Mallard Fillmore.
nit pick:
The cartoonist, Bruce Tinsley, creates his strip from a conservative perspective.
A Bruce Tinsley Mallard Fillmore hasn’t appeared since December 2021,
Loren Fishman is the cartoonist of the comic strip these days.
Mallard Fillmore has never been funny.
If this installment of “Mallard” was actually, er, “fair and balanced” it was probably by accident.