I wrote Sunday of reader unhappiness over the subbing of the Sunday “Doonesbury” comic in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette with an old strip. The strip that was omitted didn’t seem too controversial, if not necessarily likely to be popular with many readers. It drew a connection between pitched dislike of the president today with Southern tendencies in 1861.
I got an answer today on the reason for the substitution from Frank Fellone, the deputy editor:
We sometimes sub out a comic for language we believe does not pass the breakfast test.
Example: “puke.”
We have recently subbed out two Sunday comics for objectionable language. One was Baby Blues; the other was Doonesbury.
We sub rather than change the language because of copyright considerations.