Exceptional Examples Of How A Comic Strip Should Be Written Funny Pages : Doonesbury Controversies by Brett Matthew West Artwork by avmurray at FanArtReview.com

Running the gamut from pioneering to being highly criticized, over the course of the last fifty years "Doonesbury" has created somewhere around the neighborhood of twenty-nine seperate incidents of controversy pertaining to political and social issues. The first of these occurred in November 1972. A Sunday strip depicted the character known as Zonker. He told a young boy playing in a sandbox a fairy tale. Zonker's reward? "His weight in fine, uncut Turkish hashish." One of "Doonesbury's" most famous comics was a Watergate Era strip showing the character Mark on the radio with a "Watergate profile" of then Attorney General of the United States John Mitchell declaring him "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" Several newspapers dropped the strip. Not to be outdone, when Richard Nixon died, the same "Doonesbury" strip reran. All the instances of "Guilty!" were crossed out and replaced with "Flawed!" In September 1973, the Lincoln Journal, in Lincoln, Nebraska, became the first newspaper to place "Doonesbury" on its Editorial page. By far, it would not be the last. In November 1976, the romance between the characters Rick Redfern and Joanie Caucus, a four day strip, ended in the two of them engaged in premarital sex. This instance became the first time a nationally-run comic strip portrayed premarital sex in this fashion. On more than one occasion, "Doonesbury" has proven itself to be a real trendsetter. Hasn't it? The first time "Doonesbury" was yanked out of a newspaper because of "deference to a corporation" happened in December 1988 when its strip in The Winston-Salem Journal featured the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company, and one of its executives, not able to deny the link between smoking and cancer without laughing. "Doonesbury's" claim for this was "it would be personally offensive to its [RJ Reynolds] employees. A February 1998 strip dealt with Bill Clinton's well documented sex scandal. It was removed from newspapers because the words "oral sex" and "semen-stained dress" had been included. Wanna talk about censoring? The final example of "Doonesbury's" controversial strips happened the week of March 12-17, 2012 when the comic lampooned changes in abortion laws. This resulted in "Doonesbury" being permanently relocated to the Editorial page of most newspapers. Some, such as the Tulsa World, and the Orlando Sentinel, displayed "Doonesbury" on their Opinions page. Over the years, "Doonesbury" has irritated, angered, pissed off, and been rebuked by many of the politicians who have been portrayed, or referred to, in the strip. Poor little crybabies. WAAAGH! Wonder if they want their ba-bas? George H.W. Bush complained, "Trudeau is coming out of deep left field!" Charles M. Schulz, of "Peanuts" fame, referred to Trudeau as "one of the country's Most Overrated People in American Arts and Letters." An equal opportunity insulter, Conservatives, Liberals, Democrats, and Republicans alike have all bitched about "Doonesbury." The comic must have done something right. (Next Time: Comics In The Modern World) Author Notes No News is Good News, by avmurray, selected to complement my posting.

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