THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 11, 1996 TAG: 9602100002
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
LENGTH: Long : 102 lines
Gross, tasteless, vulgar, crude, obscene, revolting. . . . Those words came flying through the phone lines this week, and all for one little comic panel tucked away on the bottom of the comic page.
The panel, ``Non Sequitur,'' is one of two new comics introduced in January when the beloved ``Calvin and Hobbes'' ended its reign. Given a choice from among three new strips, readers selected ``Mother Goose & Grimm.'' The second comic, ``Non Sequitur,'' was a bonus.
But it wasn't a bonus to nearly a dozen readers Wednesday. They thought it had no place in a family newspaper, especially not on a page that's popular with younger folks - and right next to ``Family Circus,'' too.
I'm probably going to get myself into trouble just describing it, but Wednesday's panel showed a (fully clad) chairman of the board greeting his directors, derriere first, under a sign saying ``Pucker up.'' In case you missed the point, a headline with the comic adds, ``The true function of board meetings.''
Anyone who's ever been to a board meeting would find it difficult to stifle a guffaw over this one. But the disapproval ratings were higher than usual.
``It was one of our more controversial ones,'' said Suzanne Whelton, comics editor for the Washington Post Writers Group, the syndicate that distributes ``Non Sequitur.'' (Or, as one irate caller dubbed it this week, the ``Washington Compost.'')
Whelton said six newspapers chose not to run the panel, and were provided with substitutes. But considering that the comic goes to 300 newspapers, that's not a whole lot. Many newspapers, like the Pilot, don't screen their comics in advance.
``Non Sequitur's'' creator, who goes by the single name Wiley, is a former editorial cartoonist for the San Francisco Examiner - and that may explain his ``darker perspective on things,'' said Whelton. Wiley himself says he got ``overwhelmingly positive'' e-mail for the Wednesday panel.
``There are a lot of people who identify very closely with it,'' he said, responding to my own e-mail inquiry. ``I also realize that it is pushing the envelope of comic-strip fare. However, as a satirist, that is what I am supposed to be doing.
``I do not try to please everyone,'' he continued. ``If you try to do that, you end up pleasing no one because the material will be so watered down, you'll just produce visual Muzak. I try to get at the truth through humor.''
Wiley went on to say that his cartoon ``pales in comparison to what is on TV in prime time as well as Saturday morning children's programming.''
You don't even have to look that far. Few comics these days are models of social decorum.
Last weekend, another ``Non Sequitur'' panel showed people buying ``urban-driving gloves'' - the middle fingers were missing. A few days earlier, a ``Curtis'' strip showed his parents in bed, talking (and more) about how it would be ``fun trying'' to have another baby. And the Pilot's very first ``Mother Goose & Grimm'' dealt with flatulence!
Probably, Wiley's rationale wouldn't make any of these more acceptable to certain readers.
``To see it was like, `Ouch, guys!' It doesn't belong in a newspaper,'' said Beverly Anderson, speaking of Wednesday's ``Non Sequitur'' panel.
Anderson, a Virginia Beach reader, thinks we should monitor our comics. ``We don't need all this put in front of our faces,'' she said.
Also objecting was Wally Cox of Virginia Beach - no relation to that TV comic of yore. Like Anderson, Cox believes the newspaper has a ``moral responsibility'' for what goes in the newspaper. And this comic, he believes, did not belong.
I'll agree we need to be responsible, but I'll be surprised if there's ever consensus on what is, or is not, acceptable. Look at the topics that cartoons deal with these days - death, drug abuse, suicide.
When Rex Morgan tackles sexual harrassment, and Blondie and Dagwood have to see a marriage counselor, and when the mother in ``For Better Or for Worse'' has a midlife crisis - well, ``Non Sequitur'' sounds funnier all the time!
Editorial-page latitude. Comic pages aren't the only targets of cartoon criticism.
Last weekend, one caller found it shocking that an editorial-page cartoon used Chelsea Clinton as its foil. The drawing, by Dayton Daily News cartoonist Mike Peters, showed Chelsea in bed holding papers and saying, ``Mom. . . the tooth fairy left more Rose Law Firm billing records under my pillow again. . .
``It's outrageous, insensitive,'' said the woman. ``If you don't like the parents, you don't have to pick on the child.''
Harvey Bryant of Virginia Beach disapproved of the Feb. 2 editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Constitution. It showed an aide telling Clinton, ``More bad news. The bloody gloves fit Hillary. . . .''
``I thought the cartoon was very inappropriate and insensitive, and I'm not even pro-Clinton,'' said Bryant. ``I thought it also trivialized the O.J. Simpson murder trial.''
I'm not sure how anyone could trivialize the Simpson trial any more than it trivialized itself, but I do feel the Clinton family is fair game when it comes to cartooning. A caveat: I thought our own Commentary front went too far a few weeks ago when it showed a bull's eye over Hillary Clinton's face.
In my opinion, a reader does not have to agree with a political cartoon to find it politically astute and amusing. Besides, at what point do ``appropriate'' and ``sensitive'' become simply bland? Or, as Wiley put it, ``visual Muzak.''
MEMO: Call the public editor at 446-2475, or send a computer message to
lynn(AT)infi.net
by CNB