Weingarten on his comic strip and Tom the Dancing Bug

Gene Weingarten*, the Post's main humor writer, is a hardcore comic strip fan and his weekly chat frequently has a comics contest to pick the best strip of the preceeding week. This past week, Chatalogical Humor, as it's known also had two bits on comic strips.

In the first, Mr. W is queried about his plans to do his own comic strip:

Dangenecomic, AL: Welcome back. I know the book's been pressing, but what about the comic you and Dan are doing? When's it coming out? Have you contacted a syndicate? Will Gary, Jeff and Patty be giggling maniacally over your effort(s)?

Gene Weingarten: Dan and I and David Clark, the cartoonist, have finished 12 weeks worth. And as of basically today we are starting to write again. I anticipate you will see it some time after we finish 24 week's worth.

We're trying to make it as unfunny and derivative as possible, because we want to penetrate as many newspaper comics pages as possible.

Ouch. And then a story from this blog, that Comics Reporter picked up, namely the Post dropping Tom the Dancing Bug last week for Cheney-bashing, comes up:

Washington, D.C.: Since The Post did not mention it, most readers are unaware that it did not publish the current "Tom the Dancing Bug." It replaced the strip, which was harshly critical of the Vice President with an old strip. It did link to the strip on the Web site.

While I think that "Tom the Dancing Bug" is generally the the best comic in The Post not written by Richard Thompson, this one is too angry to be good. But as Comics Reporter noted: "...the Post's recent tendency to take a pass on controversial strips for no stated reason and then not tell anyone they're doing so is crappy editorial policy that badly serves the Post's readership..."

Gene Weingarten: I agree about The Post. I want to know when they kill a strip. I also don't understand why they would have the original strip on the website. We are told repeatedly that the fairness standards are the same. So I don't get it.

I believe at this time it is impossible to be unfair to Cheney. I called him "Satan" once. In the high school graduation speech I say he is "the root of all evil."

I mean, really. He makes a decision and a million fish die.

I think this Dancing Bug is quite funny. So over the top it's actually LESS critical that some criticism.

I would have liked the (missing) link to go to me, and not just Tom's blog, but que sera.

*my apologies for initially getting Mr. Weingarten's name wrong; obviously I've got to stop doing these when I'm tired.