Post censors comics again (so what else is new?)

Tom Spurgeon picked up the story that Berkeley Breathed's Opus was being censored by the Washington Post, as the cartoonist reported himself on his website. Breathed suggests going over to Salon (owned by the Post, iirc) and reading the strip on the next two Sundays. Somebody remind me, please.

Here's what Breathed posted (including that picture up there):

Note to Opus readers: The Opus strips for August 26 and September 2 have been withheld from publication by a large number of client newspapers across the country, including Opus' host paper The Washington Post. The strips may be viewed in a large format on their respective dates at Salon.com.

Longtime (hah!) readers may recall my earlier post on the Post's frequent censoring (and not mentioning it) of comic strips. If the Post wasn't one of the best papers in America, this probably wouldn't matter as much...

...although I'm not sure about that.

UPDATE: See the bigger picture at "Many Won't Run Next Two 'Opus' Strips With Sex Joke, Islam References" by Dave Astor, E and P Online August 24, 2007.

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.

Association of American Editorial Cartoonist Cartoonapalooza pictures again

I've added a few more pictures I took at Cartoonapalooza on July 3rd. If you already have seen the earlier ones, these are a few cartoon panels from Ruben Bolling, Mike Peters and Keith Knight including the first panel of the Post-censored Tom the Dancing Bug.

Censored Tom the Dancing Bug online now UPDATED

At Tuesday's Cartoonapalooza session, Reuben Bolling said the Post won't be running this week's Tom the Dancing Bug strip on Dick Cheney. It's online now, so you can see the strip the Post thought was piling on poor Dick after their reporters 5-days of articles about the V-P's creation of a fourth branch of government that certainly isn't the fourth estate. Bolling showed the censored strip which was of Cheney killing his aides when they brought bad news, but now we can all enjoy it.

Tom Spurgeon linked to my first post on this and reasonably said that he's not quite sure this is censorship and running one cartoonist over another can be a reasonable editorial policy. I don't disagree with that, but I do think when you choose not to run the strip the artist submits, for an admittedly political reason, and then run another older strip by the same artist, that's censorship, not just editing. But thanks for noticing Tom! Tom's got one of the two best blogs for consolidating comics news reports on the web and his site should be read every day.

To recap, as I've noted before, The Post has a pattern of censoring comics and not telling its readers as I reviewed here a few months ago.

UPDATE (after checking my notes): Just to show the Post is not alone, Ruben mentioned that the Richmond Post-Dispatch always drops the strip when God-man is featured.

Post censors Tom the Dancing Bug - AAEC breaking news

At tonight's Cartoonapalooza session, Reuben Bolling said the Post won't be running this week's Tom the Dancing Bug strip on Dick Cheney. It's not online yet, but enjoy last week's excellent King George strip, a clipping of which I got signed by Bolling tonight. Bolling showed the censored strip which was of Cheney killing his aides when they brought bad news. The Post has a pattern of censoring comics more than other pieces as I reviewed here a few months ago.

Links, more description of the event and fuzzy pictures to follow.

Toles Strikes Back

Slightly over a year ago, the Joint Chiefs of Staff took the probably unprecedented, and certainly questionable step of sending a letter into the Post condemning a Tom Toles cartoon.

Reprehensible Cartoon, Washington Post Thursday, February 2, 2006; A20

We were extremely disappointed to see the Jan. 29 editorial cartoon by Tom Toles.

Using the likeness of a service member who has lost his arms and legs in war as the central theme of a cartoon was beyond tasteless. Editorial cartoons are often designed to exaggerate issues, and The Post is obviously free to address any topic, including the state of readiness of the armed forces. However, The Post and Mr. Toles have done a disservice to readers and to The Post's reputation by using such a callous depiction of those who volunteered to defend this nation and, as a result, suffered traumatic and life-altering wounds.

Those who visit wounded veterans in hospitals have found lives profoundly changed by pain and loss. They also have found brave men and women with a sense of purpose and selfless commitment that causes battle-hardened warriors to pause.

While The Post and some of its readers may not agree with the war or its conduct, these men and women and their families are owed the decency of not having a cartoon make light of their tremendous physical sacrifices.

As the joint chiefs, we rarely put our hand to one letter, but we cannot let this reprehensible cartoon go unanswered.

PETER PACE
General, U.S. Marine Corps
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

EDMUND P. GIAMBASTIANI JR.
Admiral, U.S. Navy
Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

MICHAEL W. HAGEE
General, U.S. Marine Corps
Commandant of the Marine Corps

PETER J. SCHOOMAKER
General, U.S. Army
Chief of Staff

MICHAEL G. MULLEN
Admiral, U.S. Navy
Chief of Naval Operations

T. MICHAEL MOSELEY
General, U.S. Air Force
Chief of Staff
Washington
Today Toles struck back. Yee-hah! Toles' cartoon refers to the brewing controversy over General Pace's expressing an opinion about the morality of homosexuality and the military.

Since this blog didn't exist - here's a bit of the coverage at the time (which was also at the height of the Danish Islam cartoon controversy).

Joint Chiefs Fire At Toles Cartoon On Strained Army by Howard Kurtz, Washington Post Staff Writer, Thursday, February 2, 2006; C01.

PAULA ZAHN NOW - U.S. Military Up in Arms Over Political Cartoon, Aired February 2, 2006 - 20:00 ET has a transcript of an interview with Toles.

Tom Toles's Cartoon: Offensive or Incisive? Washington Post Saturday, February 4, 2006; A16 printed reader's letters.

Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of the Post said in "The Goal Of These Pages," Washington Post Sunday, February 5, 2006; B07

But that leads to an important distinction: The freedom to offend brings with it a responsibility not to offend gratuitously. That is the line that we at The Post were said to have crossed last week. The first alleged transgression was a cartoon by Tom Toles last Sunday. It took off on a comment by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who had denied that the Army was stretched thin and described it instead as "battle-hardened." The cartoon showed a quadruple amputee in a hospital bed, with "Dr. Rumsfeld" saying, "I'm listing your condition as 'battle hardened.' " The chart on the bed identified the patient as "U.S. Army."

On Thursday we published a letter describing the cartoon as "reprehensible," "beyond tasteless" and "a callous depiction" of wounded soldiers. The letter was signed by all six members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, something that doesn't happen often and that certainly got our attention.

Toles is on the staff of The Post and participates in our editorial board meetings, but he operates independently; I don't tell him what to draw. On the other hand, I am responsible for what appears on the editorial and op-ed pages; with Toles, as with independent columnists, it's my job to make sure the gratuitously offensive doesn't appear.

So why this cartoon? I respect the views of the chiefs, and of others who echoed their criticism, and I understand their reaction. But I don't agree with their reading of the cartoon. (Nor, by the way, did many other readers, who wrote to support Toles or take issue with the chiefs.) I think it's an indictment of Rumsfeld, who is portrayed as callous and inaccurate in his depiction of the Army and its soldiers. Whether that's fair to the defense secretary is a separate question. I don't believe Toles meant the cartoon to demean the soldiers themselves, and I don't think it did.

And Fox News weighed in with a moderate article: As Violence Continues, U.S. Cartoonists Refuse to Draw the Line, Fox News Tuesday, February 14, 2006, by Greg Simmons.

Post censors comic strips, again - Get Fuzzy this time

MetaDC and Ben Towle picked up that some papers, including the Post, were censoring marijuana jokes in Get Fuzzy last week. Ben's got the story, and the some of the strips in two posts - here and here. Fortunately Darby Conley's syndicate wasn't as worried as the Post and all the strips can be seen on the Comics.com website for a few weeks.

As is par for the course, the Post never mentioned this. You'd think the paper would have a bit more spine, and at least confess to their censorship.

Anyone like to try to recall other instances of the Post censoring, or "editing," (their preferred term) the comics? There have been several. In Sept 2005, a Dilbert strip showing assault by a porpoise was cut (Dave Astor had the story); in July 2005, they pulled a Boondocks strip and Suzanne Tobin defended their actions in a chat with Paul Gilligan of Pooch Cafe. (Hit refresh and the link will work - twofer!)

They had pulled Boondocks in 2004 and their ombudsman at the time Michael Getler noted, One year after refusing to publish a week's worth of the "Boondocks" comic strip drawn by Aaron McGruder, The Post did it again last week, only this time it didn't tell readers. The Post says that comics are edited just like any other feature of the paper and denies that this is censorship. Editors say last week's offering was racially offensive and used negative stereotypes of African Americans to lampoon TV reality shows. Last year The Post was the only paper, among 250 that buy "Boondocks," to drop it. This time seven other papers dropped it, including the Boston Globe. I disagreed last time, and this time, too. I think McGruder, who is African American, is a brilliant artist who has created young, black characters speaking with razor-sharp, satirical candor who say things that make us uncomfortable but also make us think. In January of 2004, Mike Peters of the Dallas Morning News noted that the Post dropped a BC strip, admittedly lame, The strip offered to newspapers today mocks the notion that two Asians could have flown the first airplane. The punchline: "Two Wongs don't make a Wright?" They've dropped other B.C. strips for religious sensitivity reasons too.

The aforementioned Boondocks was dropped in October 2003, the Boston Globe reported, "In an unprecedented move that angered readers and generated industry criticism, The Washington Post recently killed an entire week of "The Boondocks" comic strip with a story line suggesting the world might be a safer place if national security adviser Condoleezza Rice had a more active love life." As in the later event, the ombudsman Michael Gertler disagreed, noting on October 19, 2003 "I may need a refresher course in sensitivity training, but I also found the sequence of strips within the bounds of allowable satire. I don't know a thing about Rice's personal life, nor do the characters in the strip, and I think readers understand that. The "Boondocks" characters, and their creator, were being mischievous and irreverent, in their mind's view of the world, about a high-profile public figure, and that seems okay to me." A month earlier, a Doonesbury strip about masturbation was dropped. Boondocks also was skipped twice in January and October of 2002. There's a few more BC examples and Ted Rall's strip was dropped online in March of 2002 after his 9-11 Widows strip. Anyone else got any more?

Washington Post doesn't censor comic!

Dave Astor reported that newspapers were given an advance warning that "Pearls Before Swine" used the phrase...

...wait for it...

...'BITE ME' on December 2 in case newspapers wanted to pull the strip. Amazingly enough, the censorship-heavy Post ran the strip - if anyone cares, I'll try to dig up the cases where they did censor the comics.

Believe it or not!