Papers Warned About Upcoming 'Doonesbury' Strip With 'Head on Platter'

Editor & Publisher ^ | May 14, 2004

[Dont Mention the War]

Papers Warned About Upcoming 'Doonesbury' Strip With 'Head on Platter'

By E&P Staff

Published: May 14, 2004 1:11 PM EST, updated at 2:23 PM

NEW YORK Clients of Gary Trudeau's "Doonesbury" comic were alerted today to the fact that the May 23 strip, drawn in April, "contains the image of a head on a platter." Lee Salem, editor of Universal Press Syndicate, referred to the strip's content as "an unfortunate coincidence," explaining, "Given its timing following the recent grisly tragedy in Iraq, and the realities of Sunday color-production cycles, we felt we should call this to your attention."

Universal will be offering a replacement strip to those newspapers that have not already printed that Sunday's comic section, but it is already too late to make the switch at many other papers. According to Universal, Trudeau plans to post this message on his Web site the morning of May 23, explaining his "chagrin," given the "grizzly tragedy" in Iraq: "Most Sunday sections are prepared five to six weeks in advance, and today's strip was unfortunately overtaken by events. I regret the poor timing and apologize to anyone who was offended by an image that is now clearly inappropriate."

"We do this routinely," said the spokeswoman Lillian Kuras. "If we feel there is [a comic strip] that will be controversial, we give our editors a heads-up. We respect their knowledge of the newspaper and their market."

[tiamat]

I've probably just gotten cynical in my own age.

[HungarianGypsy]

Our local paper put Doonesbury on a seperate page a few weeks ago for having swearing in the strip. My children know not to read that one (and Non-Sequitor), but I was still happy that the paper moved it anyhow. I hope they don't allow this thing in Sunday's paper.

[BlessedByLiberty]

Want to bet Doonesbutty is going to have Rummy or Bush's head on that platter?

[discostu]

You have to be old to be cynical?! Does that mean I'm cynical before my time?

[Michael.SF.]

Here are some details on the "changes" made in Dr. Strangelove. Note that the most serious change was made before the assasination:

***Major Kong's comment about the survival kit ("a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff") originally referred to Dallas instead of Las Vegas, but was overdubbed after President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas.

***Kubrick intended the film to end with a custard pie fight between the Russians and the Americans in the War Room (which is why we see a big table of food there). The footage was shot, but he decided not to use it because he considered it too farcical to fit in with the satirical nature of the rest of the film.

***Another reason for cutting the custard pie fight at the end of the film was that at one point, President Muffley took a pie in the face and fell down, prompting Gen. Turgidson to cry, "Gentlemen! Our gallant young president has just been struck down in his prime!" Kubrick had already decided to cut the pie fight before the Kennedy assassination, but this line (or possibly even the whole sequence) would certainly have been cut due to its eerie similarity to real events.

***Some references show the date of this film as 1963. Its world premiere was scheduled for December 12, 1963, but following John F. Kennedy's assassination on November 22, it was felt to be inappropriate to release such a film so soon afterwards, so it was not shown until January 1964.

[3AngelaD]

So, whose head do we suppose it is on that platter? A senior U.S. official, perhaps?

[tiamat]

discostu wrote:


You have to be old to be cynical?! Does that mean I'm cynical before my time?

---

Quite possibly.

I'm 43. I'm old by a global average.

I'm also cynical.

I'm betting odds are you are younger than I am!

[Paul Atreides]

That's the stuff I read, too.

On an episode of The Dick Van Dyke show, someone does a drawing of the Petrie family and Laura Petrie exclaims, "we look just like the Kennedys." That line was deleted.

Thanks for the post!

[hunter112]

Want to bet Doonesbutty is going to have Rummy or Bush's head on that platter?

That's what I first thought when I read the article. Let it come out, surely there will be some copy of it somewhere. Let the mushy middle see just what traitors the left wingers are, and what they advocate for our leaders.

Even during the worst of the Clinton scandal, the most extreme thing I ever heard called for was his removal from office, and his imprisonment. I never heard castration called for, even here at FR.

[discostu]

34, but I've been cynical since I was 12. Somehow it just seems like the right attitude in life.

[tiamat]

discostu wrote:


34, but I've been cynical since I was 12. Somehow it just seems like the right attitude in life.

---

I started earlier for various reasons.

Watch out!

You could grow up to be as nasty as I am ! LOL!

[atomicpossum]

No it probably is a coincidence. Most comic strips are done between 1 and 2 weeks before publication. Some strips run a month out, especially if they're non-topical. Today's technology might allow cartoonist to do their thing minutes before the papers print, but artists still run at artist speed and it's better for the business if every has a buffer zone inbetween what they're working on and what's being printed tomorrow.

This is a Sunday strip. According to King Features guidelines (the last time I saw them), these usually are done about 6-weeks in advance....

[Wacka]

Doesn't he hane a non-topical one in reserve he could substitute in this case?

Why not just not run that one at all. The syndicates have hundreds of strips sitting around waiting for a chance.

[Terriergal]

the strip's content as "an unfortunate coincidence,"

Ha, yeah *right!*

[atomicpossum]

Doesn't he hane a non-topical one in reserve he could substitute in this case?

Why not just not run that one at all. The syndicates have hundreds of strips sitting around waiting for a chance.

The problem is that, often, Sundays are printed well in advance (at least, they USED to be...).

[olde north church]

Why doesn't someone do a strip about a past his prime, has-been cartoonist in search relevance using the tragedy of others as topic material.

[ditto h]

In other words " You hate America, screw you..."

[MeekOneGOP]

Bad timing for 'Doonesbury' episode

Some already printed strip of head on platter; News isn't running it

08:26 PM CDT on Friday, May 14, 2004

By MIKE PETERS / The Dallas Morning News

An upcoming episode of Doonesbury put the comic strip back in the news on Friday, but the issue was one of timing, not cartoonist Garry B. Trudeau's satire.

The strip for May 23 ends with the Walden College president being handed his head on a platter. Although the Sunday strip is not about the war in Iraq, editors of newspapers across the country were in a quandary about an image so evocative of the videotaped beheading of American Nick Berg that made news this week.

"I regret the poor timing, and apologize to anyone who is offended by an image that is now clearly inappropriate," Mr. Trudeau said in a prepared statement.

Sunday color comics sections are printed more than a week in advance, so newspapers that publish Doonesbury with other Sunday comics had no opportunity to drop the strip or ask for a substitute. Lee Salem, the strip's editor at Universal Press Syndicate, said about three dozen papers that do not print the strip in advance had called asking about a substitute.

The Dallas Morning News prints Doonesbury on its Viewpoints page, which is not printed so far in advance. The News does not plan to publish the strip.

"We will run a small editor's note in that space on that day, explaining that we've decided not to publish Doonesbury for taste reasons," said Keven Ann Willey, editorial page editor of The News. The note will direct fans to the Web site doonesbury.com.

Although the strip in question isn't focused on the war, Mr. Trudeau has been.

He made news recently when longtime character B.D. lost his leg as a soldier fighting in Iraq. Responding in an op-ed column last week, conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly blasted the cartoonist for "using someone's personal tragedy to advance a political agenda."

E-mail mpeters@dallasnews.com

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Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/051504dnnewdoonesbury.a1bf9.html

[Nathaniel]

Trudeau is an elitist, holier-than-thou liberal. The timing of this whole thing is impeccable. There's no way the thing would have been printed if Gary-boy would have demanded it's being held.
He's a liar - pure and simple.