Posted on 07/22/2004 5:12:46 PM PDT by Paul Atreides
NEW YORK Garry Trudeau said an "unfair process" led to a vote to drop his "Doonesbury" comic from a consortium of 38 newspapers.
These mostly Southeast papers carry a Sunday comics section produced by Continental Features, whose president polled Continental clients to see if they wanted "Doonesbury" pulled. Of the 36 that had a preference, 21 voted yes and 15 no.
"The popularity of individual comic strips naturally waxes and wanes, and newspaper lineups will naturally reflect the evolving preferences of editors and readers," said Trudeau, in an e-mail response to an E&P request for comment. "Moreover, a consortium of papers will reflect those tastes imperfectly, a price the individual papers pay for joining it. However, in this case, 'Doonesbury' was singled out for internal polling because of the views of a single individual; other competing strips were not put to the same test. In this way, one opinion drove a process that eliminated the strip from 38 newspapers across the entire region, including 15 papers that wanted to keep it."
One of the 15 was The Anniston (Ala.) Star. Trudeau said: "I greatly appreciate the Star's speaking out against such an unfair process, asserting its right and responsibility to put in front of its readers a diversity of opinion. This seems particularly important during a time of war, with all its grave implications to public life."
The cartoonist concluded: "Some years ago, the armed services paper Stars and Stripes received some criticism for carrying 'Doonesbury.' Shortly thereafter, the paper dedicated an entire page to responses from military personnel, almost all in support of the strip. Even some who didn't care for 'Doonesbury' or its politics felt the strip should remain. More than most citizens, it seems, professional soldiers give a great deal of thought to what it is they're defending. A free press that welcomes dissenting views is one of those ideals."
Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes "Doonesbury" to more than 1,400 newspapers, also released a statement about Continental's action. "It is regrettable that the decision was made right now when Garry Trudeau and 'Doonesbury' seem to be riding a new wave of popularity, what with the August cover story in Rolling Stone magazine and his selection as a 2004 Pulitzer Prize finalist," said Director of Communications Kathie Kerr. "But we do respect the right of a newspaper's management to make decisions of this nature."
Continental President Van Wilkerson said in E&P's July 21 story that his decision to conduct the poll "was not a political statement of any kind. I personally don't have an opinion about 'Doonesbury' one way or another." He said he conducted the survey because Trudeau's strip generated more complaints than the other 21 comics in Continental's package, and that the 21-15 vote reflected majority opinion.
It is not yet known when "Doonesbury" will actually be removed from Continental's package.
Princess Irulan
"Doonesbury" is relic of the 9-10 era.
Crazy Al Gore once tried to claim that the 1st Amendment guarantees unfettered access to consumer's wallets.
Trudeau: "Drop Doonesbury Poll Was Unfair"
Its not like your comic was "fair" to begin with.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. Just don't whine about it afterwards.
It's unfair, I tell you.
I demand that every paper buy MY comics! I can be just as unfunny and talentless as this loser. Who cares what the people want? Since when does the American citizen know what he wants? It's up to US to tell him what he wants. < /sarcasm off>
Mourir pour Doonesbury?
Ha! Doonesbury is a relic of 1976!
Actually its originally from the Johnson-Nixon era (just to further illustrate Troo-does age and bias).
Your comment reminds me of the time some greenie-weenies were insisting Staples or Office Max or someone push recycled office products. They seemed to think it's the stores job to tell me what I need, rather than as it really is, to listen to what customers want and go get it for them. If the envirowackos wanted to go about it the right way, they would have concentrated on buying the stuff themselves, and if there were enough of them to create a viable market, the store would just automatically carry the products. They were the tail trying to wag the dog.
Trudeau can blow it out of his Jane Pauley.
"If the envirowackos wanted to go about it the right way, they would have concentrated on buying the stuff themselves, and if there were enough of them to create a viable market, the store would just automatically carry the products."
Or they could just start their own recycled products store. The Free Market's flexible that way.
Face it, you liberal puke, you don't draw a "comic strip", you draw an editorial cartoon. And your audience is getting smaller every day. When people don't agree with your crap, it loses money for the newspapers. They correct by dumping you in the trash, where you belong.
FMCDH(BITS)
My heart goes out to Jane and the children.
That year, they'd decided family strips were in and nobody wanted simple line drawings of cute characters saying witty, satirical things. So they bought a totally generic family strip instead. It ran in our local paper for about two months before they dropped it. The next big hit strip turned out to be "Dilbert," which featured simple line drawings of cute characters saying witty, satirical things. Since then, "Pearls Before Swine" has become a big hit, and it's amazingly similar to my wife's old strip.
All this rambling is just to give you all an inside peek at the cut-throat world of comic strip syndication, where everyone but Gary Trudeau understands that there are no guarantees your strip will get into ANY newspaper, much less into ALL newspapers, particularly if the quality noticably declines over time.
A few years ago, my local rag did a poll of which strips the readers liked best. One of the strips that was dropped from the daily paper was Snuffy Smith. Trudeau needs to get over himself.
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