Washington Blade article on Kameny comic

Kameny story told in comic
By Lou Chibbaro Jr.
A D.C.-based online comics site called ReDistricted earlier this month published an illustrated story of the life of pioneering gay rights leader Frank Kameny.
Read the article.

Washington Blade returns while Times fades

The Washington Blade, the gay paper, returned to the stands last week after a several months absence. The paper's name and assets were bought by its former staffers who had been publishing as the DC Agenda. None of the political cartoons or comic strips the Blade had previously published have returned as of the first issue.

Meanwhile, the Washington Times has confirmed that it is for sale. The Times dropped all of its comics months ago.

No more comic strips in Blade?

The Washington Blade may have dropped the last comic strip it was carrying - Kyle's Bed & Breakfast by Greg Fox. It hasn't been in the last two issues. The syndicated political cartoon is still there, although last week's was not by Paul Berge who had been the main editorial cartoonist lately.

That darn Berge!

I apologize for insensitive cartoon
Washington Blade (May 22 2009): 19

To the Editors:
Re: “Disappointed by insensitive cartoon mocking blindness” (letter to the editor by Eric Peterson, May 1)

In response to the letter by Eric Petersen, I am writing to apologize for my recent cartoon about New York Gov. David Paterson. In drawing the cartoon, I had worried that some readers might perceive it as a slam against the governor’s blindness, rather than, as I was intending, a comment on LGBT leaders’ lack of readiness when he brought marriage rights issues to the fore.

Please accept my explanation that while the cartoon took Gov. Paterson’s blindness as a given condition, I in no way wanted readers to think that the cartoon was attacking him for it. I appreciate Gov. Paterson’s extraordinary courage and leadership on this issue, and I hope the drive for marriage equality in New York proves successful.

I thank Mr. Petersen for his thoughtful response to the cartoon, and I sincerely apologize.

PAUL BERGE
Sturtevant, Wisc.

Blade's Year in Cartoons issue

The current Washington Blade (January 2nd), on the newstands until Thursday, has two tabloid pages of 28 of Paul Berge's cartoons from the past year, making this the most complete 'year in cartoons' I've seen to date. ... although they're all generally on topics of interest to a homosexual newspaper of course...

More bad news from City Paper?

The December 28th issue doesn't have any comics in it, except for local cartoonist Ben Classen's Dirt Farm. Unfortunately, I'm afraid this will carry into the new year as a cost-cutting measure. The Blade seems to be having similar issues, and certainly hasn't realized that Bechdel's gone back to bi-monthly for Dykes to Watch Out For, if they're even still running it.

On the positive side, they did hire Harvey Pekar-collaborator and nice guy Ed Piskor to do an illustration.

So the new year may bring far less reason to pick up two of the local free papers...