A Matter Of Taste?

For at least the second time this year, The Chicago Tribune has decided that a "Get Fuzzy "comic strip drawn by Darby Conley does not meet their "Standards of Taste" and have replaced it with an older strip of the same comic. As soon as I read this I immediately want to go get online and see the offending strip. As a regular reader of "Get Fuzzy", I'm both interested and a little outraged that the Trib would censor it.

So, here it is:

Not that bad in my opinion. Adults would get it, and most kids probably wouldn't. Also, it's not as if we aren't assaulted with worse four letter words on a daily basis on TV and other media outlets.

Although I have to admit I'm a little surprised at myself. I'm often decrying the ever coarsening of our culture, the fact that I can't turn on the TV without worrying that my kids will hear some obscene language, yet here I am feeling like "Get Fuzzy" shouldn't have been censored. I'm opposed to censorship. I feel people should let their feelings be known with their purses, because as we know in a consumer economy, if people don't buy it, producers and sellers of goods will change what they sell to entice those buyers back. It's good economic sense.

And while we're on the topic of the Tribune's comic strip choices, I'd like to throw my two cents in about the recent comic strip changes. The editors chose to get rid of "The Humble Stumble" and "Dog Eat Doug" to put in two new strips. While I'm all for new comic artists getting a chance in a large syndicated market, the editors got rid of two fun and entertaining strips but kept such crap as "Raising Hector," "Broom Hilda," "Shoe," and don't even get me started on "Cathy." Raising Hector is a poorly drawn strip with boring and to be quite honest puerile humor. The other three are just also ran strips that recycle the same tired jokes over and over again. "The Humble Stumble" offered a perspective not often shown in strips, a single dad raising a teen aged daughter. They also show how much they love each other without being overly sappy and with a lot of the trappings of a teen/ parent relationship. "Dog Eat Doug" was cute and fun, though not as good as "The Humble Stumble." I would be impressed if the Trib brought back HS and got rid of some old worn out strip, but I'm not holding my breath.