Pacific Views

Guess what happened to this cartoon ...

... on the way to US daily newspapers? (Hint: Right wingers weren't going to like it.)

You can read the full story of why there is another version of this Dan Piraro cartoon here.

We thought the last part of Piraro's comments was particularly interesting:

Piraro said King Features has never tried to censor him or caused him any trouble with the content of his cartoon. But it is a fact of life, he said, that people in the "heartland" have much more conservative views. And they are not afraid to complain if they see cartoons with references to things like gay marriage, abortion or the war in Iraq.

"It's different with a comic strip like Doonesbury," he said. "That's billed as a comic strip with a political voice. Bizarro is not, so we get a lot of complaints and screaming when I get even vaguely political."

Most of the complaints, he said, come from editors. Not generally from readers.

Putting that together with the rest of that story, it's clear that what happened to the cartoon is that some newspaper editors were afraid that there would be a bad reaction from right-wing readers. Not that there had been reaction, just that there might be some bad reaction.

Our brain hurts.

From SF Chronicle, via Romenesko.

Posted by Magpie at August 15, 2005 12:29 PM | Media | Technorati links |