YOU PLAY THE EDITOR: The Post didn't run this 'ZITS' strip — would you?

By Michael Cavna

Washington Post Comic Riffs blog May 9 2012

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/you-play-the-editor-the-post-didnt-run-this-zits-strip--would-you/2012/05/09/gIQADIXYDU_blog.html

Boy, the Post just doesn't let up on protecting its few remaining readers of the comics pages -- or should that be infantilizing them? One wonders what pictures from the current wars they also decided not to offend our delicate sensibilities with...

Click on the 'censorship' tag below to see plenty of previous examples.

The Washington Post repeated two Doonesbury strips in the print newspaper last month (see above) - skipping the actual strips for December 15th and 16th, which can instead be seen at the Doonesbury archives. The Post didn't mention it, but the Toledo Blade explained why the strips were substituted for certain sensitive newspapers. My neighbor Bill. C came through with the print edition so I was finally able to confirm that the Post hadn't run them.

I haven't read this since the first edition came out, but I recall liking it quite a bit.

Howard Cruse's graphic novel "Stuck Rubber Baby," reviewed by Dennis Drabelle
By Dennis Drabelle
Washington Post August 21, 2010; C03

and here's a general who likes to use cartoons in his briefings. Herblock and Daryl Cagle are namechecked.

New intelligence chief Clapper brings sense of humor to serious job
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 21, 2010; A03

Back in the good old days of the '90s, Selcuk Demirel's cartoon illustrations appeared regularly in the Post's Book World. He's got a lovely cartoon in today's Real Estate section. It's not online of course.

The story's in tomorrow's Magazine, or online:

For their winning diorama based on the Pixar flick "Up," Michael Chirlin and Veronica Ettle of Arlington constructed a miniature Victorian house from plywood and Popsicle sticks, and placed it atop salvaged mattress springs to give it an airborne quality."

I just finished reading Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West by T. R. Reid (Random House, 2009), and while I love Reid when he is writing for the Post, I've got a few issues with his conclusions in this book. Or maybe even his starting premises.

But that's not the subject of this blog. Reid has 2 paragraphs on his favorite manga, coming after a discussion of Japan's view of America as crime-ridden:

While in Japan, I became a huge fan of mahnga, the ubiquitous comic-book magazines that sell tens of millions of copies every week. It seems to be conventional wisdom in the United States that Japan's "adult comic books" are routinely "adult" in the sense of being filthy, but this is not accurate. There are some filthy mahnga - so bad that stores won't carry them, and you have to buy them at vending machines. But the vast majority of Japanese comics are family fare. Some are funny, and some are serious novels - serial novels, really, like the one-chapter-per-month novels that Dickens and Thackeray used to write for Victorian magazines. I was particularly taken with the enormously popular weekly comic Section Chief Shima, about a junior executive named Shima Kosaku, who works for a giant electronics firm and fights a never-ending battle for truth, profits and the Japanese way.

In one extended episode, Section Chief Shima is dispatched to America to oversee his company's acquisition of a giant Hollywood movie studio (just like the acquisitions Sony and Matsushita had made in real life). One thing that deeply concerns the young executive is the possibility of a U.S. backlash if an Asian company buys a famous American firm (just like the reaction to the Sony and Matsushita purchases in real life). But an American-based executive tells Shima he need not worry: "The government won't be a problem, because we've already put a half-dozen ex-congressmen on the payroll, and they are lobbying for us." This exchange didn't bother me excessively, because it's probably what big companies actually do when they plan an acquisition. But it was disturbing to see what happened to Section Chief Shima personally during his stay in Los Angeles. When he sets out to see the beach, his rented Ford breaks down. When he tries to negotiate his business deal, an employee of the U.S. branch of his company sells corporate secrets to a competitor. When he walks outside his hotel, he's mugged on the sidewalk. Just your typical American business trip.

Our family grew increasingly angry at this depiction of a dirty, dangerous, dishonest America, partly because we found it hard to avoid, anywhere in Asia. (p. 208-209)

So 11 years later, I have no idea if this remains a common occurrence in manga, or views of Japanese, or even if Shima was ever translated. Reid is a good writer and a keen observer though, so I'm sorry the Post lost him as a foreign correspondent. He heads their Rocky Mountain Bureau now.

Big ideas, bright colors
Dan Kois
Washington Post Sunday, November 15, 2009

LOGICOMIX
An Epic Search for Truth
By Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna
Bloomsbury. 347 pp. Paperback, $22.95

I've got it, but haven't read it yet.

The print version has an Associated Press article, although Comic Riffs' Michael Cavna, a Post editor, is there.

Save Frazz: What Strip Would YOU Send to KidsPost? asks Cavna

See "The St. Louis Refugee Ship Blues: Art Spiegelman recounts a sad story 70 years later" for Spiegelman's full-page look at editorial cartoons on the St. Louis, a ship full of Jewish refugees from the Nazis that wasn't allowed to dock in the US. It's an excellent piece of cartoon journalism with a hat-tip to Herblock included. A piece like this shows what newspapers could still be for people.

A Cartoonist in Reverse
Washington Post Saturday, June 20, 2009

I have been a Post convert ever since moving to the area in 2001. While dissenting viewpoints are to be expected, Mike Luckovich's June 13 cartoon provoked me.

He depicted four frustrated burqa-clad Muslim women discussing their envy of first lady Michelle Obama, with a turbaned man in the foreground cursing President Obama.

I cannot fathom how this cartoon could have passed muster for inclusion. Surely America has come out of the Stone Ages.

Wasn't it just this month in Cairo that President Obama provided us with several reminders that we need to adjust our own lens to better understand the Muslim world? Speaking explicitly to perceptions of Muslim women, he stated "I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal" and that "it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit -- for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear."

I thought that this was finally the spirit of our discourse, but your cartoon diminished some of the strides we're making, reinforced old and tired stereotypes and took us decades back.

-- Vijitha M. Eyango

Silver Spring

Cartoonist Ward Sutton who turns his hands to quite a few things did an illo of a diner for the Wednesday, January 28th Food section in the Post. It's not online.

For the latest foolishness from the Post, see "Washington Post to End Book World as Stand-Alone Section," By Motoko Rich, January 28, 2009. Why, why, do they expect people to buy the paper?

Thanks to Tim for the tip.

The Post, scooped by the Times, has an article on their website confirming it now.

Schmucks. Tim the tipster says he's canceling his subscription. I don't really want to get into this, especially since everyone else is, but papers make no money online, don't pay for themselves by subscription, but rely on ad revenue which is proportionate to readership. So by cutting content, which affects both the physical and online papers negatively, they expect to increase readers how?

Richard mentioned the other day when I was interviewing him that he wasn't doing the little cartoons for the Washington Post's Tuesday Health section anymore, so we can all stop looking for them today.

Here's the Post ombudsman on an Oliphant cartoon about Palin, with a ho-hum sort of defense of free speech as it applies to cartoonists on the web, which after all, isn't really the newspaper, but if it had been the newspaper, well, then by god, we wouldn't have run the cartoon because it criticizes beliefs in god of 750 likely non-subscribers to the Post... aw, just read the thing - "The Power of Political Cartoons," By Deborah Howell, Washington Post Sunday, September 28, 2008; B06.

Dan Wasserman, the Boston Globe's editorial cartoonist had a better response in "Pentecostals peeved at Palin cartoon" basically arguing that if you mix your politics and religion, then perhaps other people won't bother to separate them either.

Gabriel Salguero, Pastor and Executive Member, Latino Leadership Circle, takes Oliphant to task in "Stereotyping Palin and Pentecostalism," Newsweek / Washington Post On Faith blog (September 22 2008).

He says, "Certainly, Mr. Oliphant is free to have an opinion concerning "tongue-speaking." I understand the genre of political cartoons, but I just think this is applying an old and unnecessary stereotype. To imply or even hint that good Christians who speak in tongues are naive or not able to lead is truly a leap to judgment. This may not have been Mr. Oliphant's intent but it has been construed in this way by some who have viewed his cartoon post. Certainly, very few would dare argue that the personal prayer practices of other religious groups makes them ill-equipped to lead."

Comic Riffs quotes Trudeau in "The Morning Line: "Doonesbury" Sings the Newspaper Blues," By Michael Cavna, September 16, 2008.

I read this earlier in the week, but the quotes didn't click until Brian Steinberg blogged about it in his Comics Examiner.

In a post with a lot of comments, Alan Gardner quoted my earlier post on this and linked to a letter to the Post from a Pentecostal minister: Pastor Bernard's Response to Washington Post Cartoon, Tuesday, September 16th, 2008.

Ken Gurley in his "Cartoonist Lampoons Palin's Pentecostal Faith," Houston Chronicle Houston Belief blog 9/15/2008, takes issue with a cartoon by Pat Oliphant that ran on the Post's website.

He wrote, Palin's Pentecostal faith is now being lampooned by Pat Oliphant, Washington Post cartoonist. Oliphant has been called by the New York Times Magazine the "most influential editorial cartoonist" now working.

Sadly, Oliphant is not a Washington Post cartoonist, but works for a syndicate.

Continuing his misrepresentation and misapprehensions, he concludes,

Speaking of the Danish cartoonist, the editor of that newspaper issued an apology for its extreme insensitivity to the Muslim faith. What about it Washington Post? Do you want to go down this slippery slope in the pick-and-choose mode of offending religions? Even your own ombudsman said this was beyond the pale. Why not pony up an apology?

Well, no, the Danish editor didn't apologize. In a Radio Free Europe interview from March 29, 2008, Fleming Rose said, And in fact, one of the leading Muslims who had tried to take me and my newspaper to court, and who had said at the time that this would never end until Flemming Rose apologized to 1.5 billion Muslims, this time came forward saying: "OK, we now know from the court decision that we live in a country where it is allowed to ridicule and defame our religion. We don't like it but we have to accept it."

In any event, one wonders why Ken Gurley would like his religion compared to one whose members, after months of inciting to be sure, rioted over cartoon depictions. Perhaps he'd like a story on Radio Free Europe about it.

And the Post, again, is not Oliphant's newspaper. What the ombudsman said was, "Readers were right to complain; I will deal with political cartooning in another column. Political cartoons and comics aren't selected at washingtonpost.com the way they are for The Post in print; they are automatically posted." I think Howell is wrong about the "right to complain" remark, but she says she'll address the issue of political cartoons in another article. The Post had... 350 complaints! Shocking! I wonder how many of them actually even buy the paper since the cartoon only ran online. I certainly didn't see it until people started complaining about it, so I appreciate the fact that they did and I could then enjoy the cartoon.

Christianity Today also blogged on the tempest "Readers say Washington Post cartoon lampooned their faith," by Sarah Pulliam.

Also, in That Darn Toles news, the Wall Street Journal's John Fund noted on his blog "A better riposte might have been to note that Mr. Obama seemed to be channeling a hard-left newspaper cartoonist named Tom Toles." Toles was not actually identified, but he is the Washington Post's cartoonist.

Ward Sutton's got a comics journalism piece in today's Washington Post business section, which annoyingly enough, just recapitulates the article it goes with "Adventures in Hypermiling". It's not online either.