Komics Kerfuffle

Okay, I'm shouting it from the rooftops:

There are only two comic strips I have ever truly enjoyed on a consistent basis:  Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson, and Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller.  After Watterson retired, Non Sequitur became the only good reason to turn to the comics page.  Other strips might occasionally warrant a chuckle, or a brief time stuck to the fridge;  but Non Sequitur nearly always did.  The only times it didn't were when the fridge was already overloaded and I wasn't ready to let the displayed ones go yet.  Whether it was animal predators acting as business folk (and using their carnivorous natures in a manner that seems oddly appropriate to today's corporate world), the adventures of Danae (notice what her name rhymes with?) and her family (including, oddly enough, a horse), the whoppers of Eddie the Yankee fisherman (whose cat always rides on his shoulder as he sails his boat, the Anoesis--which means, according to the Urban Dictionary, an emotional response to something without understanding it), or all the cute cats and dogs (you can tell Wiley knows both, because he draws them in such realistic postures--my personal fave in that genre [still on the fridge!] is titled "The most ergonomic laptop for stress reduction", featuring a man relaxing in an armchair with both his cat and his dog peacefully sleeping on his lap...get it?), this strip just doesn't quit.

Unfortunately, it's now in danger, because Wiley goofed up.

About a month and a half ago, the Sunday Non Sequitur was a black-and-white "coloring page" featuring anthropomorphic ursines of the "Bearnaissance."  Fine so far...but in one of the sketches, depicting invention diagrams and notes by "Leonardo Bearvinci,"  one of the notes, waaay down in the corner, was a scribbled suggestion that a certain current President should go and engage in  reflexive sexual intercourse.

I'll wait while you work that one out...and then tell you that no, Wiley didn't say "fudge."

When I first heard about this controversy, I went back through my old Sunday comic pages to see if I'd bought that paper.  Turns out I had;  but I'd been so impatient for the resumption of a continuing storyline called "Nebbish" (about a mute simpleton around whom miracles happen, and who is being exploited by an evil duke who wants to take over the world), that I'd simply looked at the coloring page and dismissed it.  But now, I took off my glasses and peered very closely at each panel...and sure enough, it was there, though barely readable.

Now,  before you go collapse on your fainting couch, or tsk-tsk about how horrible it is that someone would drop the F-bomb into a comics page where children could see it, let's step away from our own anoesis and get some perspective.

Wiley says it was a scribble written only for himself, which he intended to white out later but forgot. 

I actually believe this to be true, for two reasons.  The first is that these strips are drawn quite a while in advance;  if Wiley follows a process similar to Watterson's, he was working on the "Bearnaissance" strip at least a couple of weeks--maybe even a month--before it was published, along with the six daily strips sandwiched between Sunday strips.  Erasing a scribble dashed off in a moment of irritation could easily get lost in the shuffle.  Which brings me to the second reason:  the government shutdown was in full swing when that strip was drawn, and the awfulness of the situation--that a mean clown-President with orange cotton candy on his head could throw a veto-powered hissy fit because Congress thought six billion dollars had better uses than building a border wall--would have tried the considerable patience of St. Teresa of Calcutta (you probably still know her as Mother Teresa).  I'd have needed to vent, myself;  and I might very well have forgotten to use that correction-fluid pen, too.

Besides all this, how did Wiley's syndicate editor not catch that scribble before it ever went out?  If a sharp-eyed reader could do it, a paid editor surely should have;  if he/she had, there would have been a supersonic e-mail sent--"Hey Wiley, what's with this strip?  You can't put this in the Sunday funnies!"  "Oh, shit, did I forget to erase that?  Thanks for the save, Ed!"

But alas, 'twas not to be.

And then, Wiley goofed again.

After the strip ran, and angry readers began contacting their papers, he tried to pass the scribble off as an intentional "Easter egg,"  thinking that might solve the problem.  Instead, it made things worse, and his apology for the mistake rang hollow with newspaper editors and layout folk, who were not amused. 

And papers began to cancel Non Sequitur.

Interesting thing here...

I was scrolling through a list of these cancellations, and many of them sounded nearly the same, if not exactly so:  that it wasn't the insult to Trump, it was the F-word that tipped the scales.  This smacks more of a corporate party line than a decision by individual newspaper editors.  Given that only a handful of super-rich moguls own nearly all our country's newspapers, the odds are in favor of my conclusion.

"But, Lisa, you can't have the Queen Mother of Dirty Words in a Sunday comic."

Yeah, but...the man has been writing and drawing this strip since 1992.  Nearly 10,000 strips later, he makes one mistake--two, counting his CYA maneuver.  Was it stupid?   Yep.  Immature?  I agree.  Worth ruining his livelihood?  Sorry, no.  Especially since his own editors were asleep at the wheel, too, and if Wiley needs firing, so does his entire syndicate--sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander, right?

So what now?

If your local newspaper was one of the ones that cancelled Non Sequitur (mine was), and if you love this comic as much as I do (or at least believe in  freedom of expression and giving folks a second chance), there are a few things you can do. 

One is call or write your paper.  Get all your friends to do it, too.  Tell the folks on the other end that you want Non Sequitur back.  If you subscribe, tell them you'll cancel if they don't restore it;  if you don't subscribe, tell them you'll stop buying copies.  Given how expensive a newspaper is these days, that might be an easy breakaway.

Another thing is, follow the strip on gocomics.com.  It's an awesome site, and setting up a free account is easy.

Also, find a paper that hasn't cancelled Non Sequitur and subscribe.  This is a good option if you're like me and prefer a physical newspaper.  If said paper is far away, however, you will probably have to pay extra for shipping, plus you'll get the news a couple days late.  On the plus side, you'll get a broader perspective on the state of the nation!

Finally, write a supportive e-mail.  Wiley Miller's e-mail address is wileyink@earthlink.net. 

In closing...

I've spent a lot of time on this issue, haven't I?

But I wouldn't have done so if I didn't believe that Wiley's comic is a real treasure that we should fight to preserve.  If a few fat cats who own a bunch of papers can dictate what comic strips we see and cancel the ones they don't like over some flapette du jour,  and if we just let them do it, then we're actually aiding and abetting censorship. 

And I won't do that.