Today’s “Doonesbury” is a rerun because a top editor deemed the original one inappropriate. It focused on masturbation and how “self-dating prevents cancer.”
In a rare note to clients, Lee Salem, executive vice president and editor of Universal Press Syndicate, alerted newspaper editors July 30 to the strip’s content. Accompanying his note was a copy of the comic, which is online at content.uclick.com/content/db.html and at doonesbury.com. Features Editor Maria Parham showed the comic to Managing Editor Bobbie Jo Buel, who opted for a rerun.
“The Sunday comics should be something that a 7- or 8-year-old can pull out without parental intervention,” Buel said. “I don’t think that a 7- or 8-year-old should be asking parents what the Doonesbury comic means this week.”
Salem explained in his note that the strip “refers to the widely reported Australian study linking lower prostate cancer rates with masturbation. The strip amusingly captures the ongoing confusion in the media and in the culture at large over sexual candor and appropriate language.
“Nevertheless, we also understand that for some papers, the use of the m-word per se, no matter how deftly it is referenced, may cross the line. For that reason, we are making an exception and offering a substitute Doonesbury (from 9/22/02) for those newspapers troubled by the original.”
The prostate story never appeared in the Star, said News Editor Bill Betterton. “I noticed the story late at night when we’d run out of space,” he said. However, that decision had no bearing on the Doonesbury action.
Kathie Kerr, a spokeswoman for Universal Press Syndicate, said she had no idea how many of the 1,400 daily and Sunday newspaper clients chose the rerun. Editors could make the change directly with their Sunday comics printers.
Cartoonist Garry Trudeau issued the following statement Aug. 29 through Universal:
“The strip isn’t really about masturbation or the prostate cancer study as such, but about the shifting nature of taboos and the inability of two adults to have a certain kind of serious conversation. It was inspired by a similar conversation I had recently with friends.
“The more traditional viewpoint (Boopsie’s) is represented without mockery, so readers who share her discomfort shouldn’t be offended. There’s a laugh in there, but not really at her expense.
“Still, I understand that the mention of certain words per se will not be acceptable to some family newspapers, which is why the syndicate is making an alternative strip available.
“This is certainly a departure from past practice, and it does not signal our intention to start supplying replacement strips (what Pogo’s Walt Kelly used to call his “bunny rabbit strips”) every time there’s a chance someone might be offended by the regular release.
“It’s (a) ‘South Park’ world now, and younger readers are unlikely to be shocked or confused by anything they find in ‘Doonesbury.’ Besides, our general experience is that most children don’t understand Doonesbury in any event, and thus sensibly avoid it.”
“Doonesbury” has switched from the daily editorial page to the daily comic page and back again. Since April 2000, it has run on the daily editorial page.
The Sunday strip appears in the color comics section. Other options aren’t suitable because of the strip’s size.
The comics generally are not evaluated individually before publication. Instead, readers vote periodically on what comics they want in the Star.
“The syndicate has no real feedback mechanism for individual newspapers, and readers’ comments have a larger impact when directed to the newspaper,” syndicate spokeswoman Kerr said.
As for the story lines getting back to normal, Kerr said, “It’s hard to say when it’s normal and when it isn’t.”
