Comics, Censorship, and "The Boondocks"

[gnomi]

So, yesterday I read the comics page as published by The Boston Globe, and they ran this strip (I'm using the Washington Post feed because the Globe doesn't have The Boondocks as one of its on-line comics). This, however, was a strip that originally ran in 1999 and did not fit the current story line going on in Boondocks. Suspicious (as the Globe has, in the past, run filler strips (without notifying readers) when they felt the day's strip was too offensive), I checked uclick.com, which is the on-line provider of Boondocks strips. They ran this strip. Not that I found it at all offensive, but heck, I don't make editorial decisions at the Globe.

Today, same story. Again a filler strip in the Globe (and on the Washington Post's website). But one difference - no "real" strip on the uclick site. It's possible that uclick just hasn't updated yet. But I'm suspicious, because McGruder (who draws Boondocks) has said in the past that his humor has been seen as offensive by many, and he's been dropped by some newspapers after strips containing particularly biting commentaries that the newspapers felt were anti-American.

So...I'm waiting to see if uclick does actually come up with today's "real" strip. And to see if the Globe ombudsman has anything to say on the subject of censoring the comics (she commented once before when a Doonesbury cartoon was pulled due to questionable content).

Comments

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

Huh. uComics has been running the "what street do you live on" sequence, instead of the rest of the newspaper sequence. And here I figured an online site wouldn't censor without telling me.

There goes another shred of innocence and naivete...

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

uClick (which runs off uComics, I believe) has both the "real" sequence and the one that the Globe and the Post are running. Well, for yesterday. Today's strip, I hope, just hasn't made it up on the site yet. I'll have to check back tonight and see.

But, yeah, if the syndicate itself is censoring for what seems to me to be a tame strip, I will not be a happy camper at all.

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

uComics has had only the street sequence since Monday. I'll have to look at uClick.