Kneel before my awesome power!

I am oh-so-powerful … and I’m Luke’s daddy, too! Image from pickywallpapers.com.

Uh … yeah …

Today I got an email from one of the “problem children,” complaining about a cartoon that ran today. Not on the letters or editorial pages. In the features section. You know, because I edit everything that we print, including syndicated comics. Because apparently I’m just that powerful.

I may have talked about this guy before. He had been sending in jokes for about a year, quite often crossing the line with jokes about Viagra and defecation. Though I’d talked to him before about what’s acceptable in a family newspaper, he began getting pissy about it over the last few months because I wouldn’t print what he believed were the funniest ones (they weren’t).

He said he’d stop sending letters, but apparently that promise didn’t apply to bullying emails. He’s just such a delight (and one of the reasons I have a picture of a duck butt on my desk … It’s my “Serenity Now!”)!

So here’s the deal: I have no control over what comic strips are printed, especially in sections other than my own, and a Tyrannosaurus on the toilet struggling to reach the toilet paper is completely different from unfunny one-liners about taking Viagra and then having to urinate. While it may be funny to you and your drinking buddies, one of the elements of humor is surprise, and there’s none there. And if you can only be funny by going “blue,” perhaps you need comedy boot camp … and a trip out of the era of Andrew Dice Clay.

“The first woman of Fleet Street,” Rachel Beer, edited both The Observer and The Sunday Times in London in the late 1800s. Perhaps the feather was to torment people who thought they were funnier than they were. Image from The Jewish Chronicle Online.

The times may have changed, but lowering our standards to coarsen the dialogue to please one reader won’t fly with me or the people for whom I work.

Considering who signs my paycheck (and the predominant readership of my page, which includes not only grandmas but school kids, too), I believe I’ll stick with the standards my bosses want. (And hey, why not get a blog, dude? You can be as offensive as you want there!)

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On a side note, while I understand the reasoning behind dropping Get Fuzzy in favor of Wumo (The Washington Post and other big papers did the same thing), I’ll always be a Get Fuzzy fan (yep, it’s in my favorites on GoComics).

Yeah, maybe it’s because if Luke could talk he’d probably be Bucky. Or it could just be because it’s funny. You know, that stuff that makes you laugh.

Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley, United Feature Syndicate

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Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while. Between working my butt off (and yet the Arp ass remains, dammit), trying to find time to get Luke to the vet and me to the doctor (still haven’t) and dealing with the latest trial in my mom’s cancer fight (shingles, and not even those cool shake shingles!), I’ve been lucky to find a moment to force myself to eat, much less update my blog.

Now if I can just get the fat cat off my legs, I can head to the bathroom. I’m late for my scheduled tinkle.

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• “WuMo” makes a splash in American newspapers (blogs.gocomics.com)
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