→2021→12→03→Comic strips→Controversies→Los Angeles Times Discontinues 9 Chickweed Lane, GoComics Erases Dec. 1 Episode from Internet
Comic strips Controversies

Los Angeles Times Discontinues 9 Chickweed Lane, GoComics Erases Dec. 1 Episode from Internet

1 minute 70 comments

The Los Angeles Times served notice to its readers that it will no longer carry
Brooke McEldowney’s 9 Chickweed Lane comic strip.

Since November 22 the comic strip has been featuring The Outer Space Adventures of Flight Lieutenant Charge Chucker, RAF, with Chapter One focusing on Pen Sallywright, Space Slattern.


© Brooke McEldowney

The current strip format contains a script heavy middle panel bookended by two illustrations.
It was the script in the December 1, 2021 which struck a nerve with some.

                   

 

The description of the attacking aircraft led to the L. A. Times dropping the strip
and GoComics deleting that date’s strip from the 9 Chickweed Lane archives.

 

: Jim Ellwanger

 

December 4 UPDATE

GoComics didn’t post the December 3, 2021 issue of 9 Chickweed Lane.
I would guess because of another word used in the block of script.

 

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Comments 70

  1. One can only hope that the LA Times comes to it senses, like it did when they “dropped” Non Sequitur a few years ago. Don’t the editors read these strips before they publish them? Clearly, this was a slip In the context of a World War II story given the sensitivities we have now.

  2. 9 Chickweed Lane. Just the name of the strip sounds sexist. I was taught not to refer to women as chicks. The comic strip has not appealed to me for a while, and although I am a faithful reader of the comics page(s), I have regularly skipped over this one. I would venture to say that the creator of this strip has demonstrated over the years a certain lack of sensitivity.

  3. So if the LA Times needs to come to its senses, what does the GoComics website need to do?

  4. Chickweed Lane is perhaps my most favorite comic strip. I often save it for last, enjoying the anticipation of fine art, great vocabulary, and entertaining storyline. I do hope it comes back!

  5. Editors do not often see comic strips before publication. Those pages are laid out in the back shop or sometimes at distant places either central to the newspaper chain or overseas. In the old days, an alert layout person might tip the editor to a problematic strip, but even when it’s done in-house, it’s automated to a point now where the person doing the job may not go beyond making sure it fits the box.

    Someone should check the page along with other proof-reading before okaying the next day’s paper, but at that stage, deadlines loom and nobody has time to read the comics.

    Perhaps not how it should be, but how it is.

  6. The syndicate editors, on the other hand, should be working with the artists and authors, to catch these things before they get sent out.

    As for “chickweed,” it’s a real plant. Naming streets for plants is an old practice. Still, I wouldn’t put the double entendre out of consideration.

  7. I believe that the LA Times is over reacting to the incident. An attempt to write a fictional story using WWII slang, that to many is offensive was a mistake, but an apology from the author, I think, should be sufficient. The comic strip is witty and artfully drawn and is one of my favorites. I think it will be missed and that dropping it completely is a “political correctness” mistake.

  9. Far be it from me to argue with any paper wishing to drop 9CL, but honestly, there are far better reasons to do so than his use of a colloquialism appropriate to his setting. This, for example, does not hold a candle to the “de-gaying of Seth” storyline, the fundamental misogyny of his portrayal of women as narcissistic vipers accepting their due from their submissive men, or the fact that every story of late seems to constitute a specious narrative frame to portray sexual congress among his cast. Call me a “beefwit” if you will, but it is the cat, alone among his characters, who has any redeeming qualities at all.

    But as for this as a reason? Call me when you’ve canceled Roger Waters over “If it wasn’t for the Nips being so good at building ships/The yards would still be open on the Clyde.”

  10. Putting it all in context of WWII, I can assure you that the word “J*p” was not the worst designation given to the planes of the attacking planes of the Empire of Japan. “9 Chickweed Lane” has always been my favorite strip. Grow up!

  11. Seems a bit overreactive to me, in the context of this strip’s brilliant history. Please reconsider, L.A. Times. 9 Chickweed Lane is my favorite strip.

  12. Well let us see now. We can’t say “Happy Holidays” because it offends Christians. (Do we an Bing’s early forties recording?). Because we can’t say”J#?” in context do we ban all WWII movies that use the word? Are we banning “Tom Sawyer” and “Huckleberry Finn?Yes it is a derogatory term. It was used during the war. I would assume that the readers of 9 Chickweed Lane would be able to be discerning enough to realize the context. This seems to be faux outrage. Are they outraged by the violence in other sttips? Are they outraged by strips that have infidelity in them? The drawings that show “perfect” body’s that are not realistic? How about the I vigilantism of the superheroes? Maybe the word should not have been used however maybe the past should’ve shown for what it was instead of sanitizing it.

  13. its a cartoon, very funny one. the company should you put the comic to a vote from the money paying readers as to keep or not keep?

  14. What’s next. Being ostrasized for a d-day scene using the term “kraut “. Is

  15. I assume what happened here was that the complaints about the slur led an editor to actually look at the strip, and THAT is what caused its demise. It’s been offensive and wildly inappropriate for a newspaper for many years now. The repeated strips where small children watch their parents having sex, for example, or, yes, the de-gaying of Seth. It’s a little odd that this is what has finally led to the strip being cancelled, but all anyone who’s ever read it can say is “it’s about darn time!”

  16. Meh. I won’t miss it. It’s been oversexed and under interesting for a long time. Bye.

  17. Ummm…much ado about nothing, especially in the context of WWII. This strip routinely crosses over lines of greater or lesser political correctness, which, of course, is part of its allure. It’s a cartoon, for goodness sakes, not an op-ed piece. A thicker skin may well be in order here, so as not to toss Baby out with the bath water. To the LA Times: bring it back, and please move the heck on.

  18. McEldowney has always been on thin ice. Does he get off the ice? No! He jumps up and down on the ice like a crazy man! I remember when he wrote a pompous comment about how his inability to understand what a WAY station is meant he was the smart one. Once someone with an actual brain (MRS McEldowney) whispered in his ear that he was full of hot gas, he took it down without admitting to being in the wrong.

  19. As Paul Gosar said, ‘It’s only a comic!’ or words to that effect. I’d be more upset about use of the word ‘slattern’. And then, it’s ok to murder two people in the street in Kenosha, or four in a school in Michigan, but THIS is what draws the ire. SMH.

  20. Good riddance to this unfunny, horny comic that thinks that it’s smart because it uses the most dated terms in the thesaurus(it’s a bed, literally nobody says counterpane.) The recent strips with the twin children and the weird conversion therapy plotline where Seth is cured of homosexuality were bizarre and uncomfortable too. If Brooke wishes to continue whatever this meandering plotline is about sleeping with Nazis(a second time??) and a rambling fictional story, I guess that the public is powerless to stop him. That said, it’s reasonable that the LA Times would decide not to publish this, and I would not be surprised if other papers follow suit.

  21. It looks like the L.A.Times is doing all it can to kill the newspaper industry. I have subscribed to the Times since 1974, and this takes the cake for the stupidest move by them yet.

  22. This strip has its long year but the art is always dynamite and the stories are delightful. Why not settle for an apology (yours, LA Times) for running Dec 1 against your policy, and resume It? It’s one of the only strips that’s not fully predictable

  23. Correction: I wrote the French word l-o-n-g-u-e-u-r, not “long year”!

  24. I smiled to myself when I read the strip on December 1st. I thought there would be some backlash. I also think it’s overblown and was normal for the time period. I enjoyed the conversation and artwork and I’m sorry to see it go. I have also subscribed to the Times since 1974 and unfortunately it’s going the way most print media is now. I really hated it when they dropped the weekly outdoors column and the horse racing results from the sports page!

  25. The LA Times has merely revealed the depths of their ignorance and intolerance by attempting to suppress the genius of The Master. I look forward to seeing these sniveling worms come to regret their betrayal and come groveling prostrate before The Master.

  26. Well, here is more moral outrage. I did read the strip, and saw the offending reference and pondered about anticipated blow-back.

    Several question arise, not the least of which is did anyone at the LA Times actually go the trouble of READING what they were going to distribute to the declining many that still peruse obsolete information impressed on dead tree matter that appears in driveways early in the morning?

    No question…the slur is at the least very inappropriate for our times, but was written as the voice of someone in 1941.

    Compare this to, say, the Times’ hand slap of “cancelling” Wiley’s strip over a Trump observation some time back. Notice that the strip has returned.

    Now that there is a “Space Open” at the Times, perhaps a counterbalance to “Doonesbury” and “La Cucaracha” can be considered…perhaps “Mallard Fillmore” anyone?

    Guess not. That would be about like running a strip that featured a self-styled alien (there’s another bad word!) from the Horsehead Nebula writing about being an RAF officer.

  28. I’m still waiting to see, read, the racist intent. This is way beyond stupid, discontinued one of the most revolutionary comic strip ever. Political correctness has gone out of its mind. So stupid. I’m never political corrected. I can take a joke, a rib, a slapstick. It’s only entertainment. Just another way to weaken America, & direct it to socialism.

  29. The word was period correct. How many WWII vintage movies on TCM use that or worse? The Times overreacted and I say bring the strip back.

  30. I’m glad Chickweed has been removed from LA Times Comics not only for the use of a racial slur but also for inappropriate sexualized content like a suggestive nude couple in a bathtub together. The strip seemed like a strange anomaly on the page. Goodbye and good riddance!

  31. I go back to the days when “Remember Pearl Harbor” was part of US culture. Back in 1957, I worked in a store where one of the owners spent much of his time in the workshop repairing electronic apparatus. This was when transistor radios were first becoming common. Some of them used 9-volt batteries which he kept in a box labeled “J*p radio batteries.”. I remember a photo from the 1940s showing a scrap rubber collection bin with a sign behind it, showing a caricature of a Japanese person (buck teeth, dark rimmed glasses) and the slogan “Slap the J*p in the yap.” So those days are gone but not forgotten.

    Getting back to the subject at hand, I think the main problem is using an authentic term from the war years, and I don’t think it’s a serious enough case of offensive usage to warrant permanently cancelling the strip.

  32. There’s politically correct and there’s stupid, and in this case, they’re the same.

  33. Now starting next week, what could take the place of “9 Chickweed Lane” in the Los Angeles Times daily and Sunday comics? Maybe the return of the Garfield comic strip? Or maybe another comic strip that hasn’t appeared in the L.A. Times yet like maybe Wallace the Brace?

  34. I also wish the L.A. Times dropped the Get Fuzzy reruns and/or the off/on first run and rerun mode Candorville.

  35. A number of years ago, I would have said 9CW was the best thing on the comics page. I have a couple of his books. But I’ve stopped reading it. It turned into endless series of “stories” all of which featured extremely horny hot women practically tearing the clothes off of nerdy men. And I noticed this started to happen when Brooke stopped allowing comments (even though the vast majority of them were complimentary).

    Won’t miss it, but it’s odd that THIS – which is pretty minor – was what made them remove it, and not all the receding stuff.

  36. In this case I’m afraid that the LA Times has just needlessly given fodder to the right wing lunatic fringe who hate everything left and constantly make fun of everything they do. This was a stupid decision to 86 the strip because of a word used in context in a fantasy situation involving science fiction and history. Yes, our language is evolving to try to mitigate stereotypes of all types and that is generally good. But to try to revise history and deny that certain words were used is exactly what the right is complaining about when they attack “critical race theory.” In the case of critical race theory the objective is to more accurately reflect history and in the case of the LA Times dumping 9 Chickweed Lane for the use of one word in historical context it is exactly the opposite thing.

    And in response to all the complaints about how women are treated I would counter that in this strip women are consistently the smarter and more articulate and more self actualized of the characters. If it was reversed people would certainly say it was sexist because the men were being shown as superior.

  37. As a Japanese American whose parents and older relatives were incarcerated in military “camps” during WWII just for being of Japanese descent, I completely felt the sting of that racial slur. And the artist’s rationalizations don’t work for me. Especially when he says thing like: “Now I am finding that my dreams are to be shattered, just as the dreaded Jazz shattered our beloved pure white classical, all because of the sensitivity of minority voices.”

    And his daughter wants people to “stand up for old white guys to say whatever they want about whatever race they want.“ Is the fact that his comic includes “two hypersexualized one dimensional Asian characters that my father uses to play out his extremely sophisticated sexual fantasies in public” supposed to endear him to me? Frankly it just creeps me out.

  38. Ignatz makes a good point in how the current and for some time now, the Nine Chick stories are heaped in lurid borderline pornography. I remember when Mc’s Comments were stricken at Gocomics and our abject horror, sadness and anger when they suddenly disappeared. I think McEldowney is now feeling that sting we felt when his talk part of the page went away.
    .
    In the intervening time, the loss of Nine Chick and Pibgorn comments has allowed me to focus more heavily on my other Gocomics love, the talk at Dick Tracy, which also has its share of strip experts who can relate current characters and events to stories that appeared long ago.
    .
    Those two “words” did not see the light of day in the Dec 1 edition of the Times comic section but I bet they gave very detailed coverage on the “I can’t breathe” guy. Aren’t Black Americans and African Americans (immigrants) offended to see the pictures and vids run over and over ? Justice needs serving in these blatant abuse incidents and then let’s move on, only when people have been properly convicted and doing time for it. GMH

  39. Imagine my relief upon hearing that the one comic that regularly dabbles – no – dives headlong into regressive homophobia (most recently in a story arc that began during Pride Month), one-dimensional, faux-feminist, misogynistic portrayals of women as mercurial, inscrutable sex objects, and an unseemly fascination with the sexuality of underage children was finally pulled from newspapers over an unvarnished racial slur. To say the least, the defense of “the story in which it was used (a WWII farce including such whimsical elements as 4th dimensional beings and Nazi seductresses) was meant to be absurd and surreal, but also historically accurate in terms of the slur itself” is an eyebrow-raising, almost laughable defense. Anyway, good riddance to the biggest purveyor of questionable taste ever to grace the comics medium. Brooke McEldowney should be ashamed, yet his cohort has had nothing to offer – unsurprisingly, given his past bristling at any sort of criticism – but righteous indignation.

  40. Dear Editor, LA Times

    Ref: LA Times Comics, Dec. 3, 2021

    The LA Times has cancelled cartoonist Brooke McEldowney’s popular cartoon series “9 Chickweed Lane” over an alleged “ethnic slur.” This is the second recent sanction against a popular cartoonist after Wiley’s “Non Sequitur” was demoted to the bottom of the strip. Brooke’s strip is popular because it engages in romantic fantasies and because Brooke draws the human form with such beauty and grace. Readers who follow his cartoons know that he never engages in offensive stigmatizing of others as do several of the other cartoonists on the comics page. The context of this particular cartoon series was a fantasy about a World War II romantic encounter. The “ethnic slur” was calling an enemy war plane a “Jap Zero.” The text was not directed toward any person or even an ethnic group. To call that enemy war plane a “Japanese Zero” would have distorted the context of the World War II fantasy and would have sounded contrived. (The LA Times often used the word “Japs” meaning people during WW II.) Obviously, the LA Times cancelation decision was made by someone who does not follow 9 Chickweed Lane and who has no appreciation for the importance of context. Humor and cartoons are by nature “edgy,” and our culture is enriched by those who dare to stretch our imaginations with their edginess. Please reconsider your stance on Brooke McEldowney’s delightful cartoons.

  41. I’m so relieved that the Times has dropped 9 Chickweed Lane. I was just about to write in just prior to the December 1 strip which triggered the strips demise. I agree that the strip that day was out of line, using an expression that harks back to a dark period of racism in this country. But the reason I was planning to write in was that the strip has gotten farther and farther off in the weeds, exploring sexual themes that are outdated and downright smutty. Thank you for pulling the plug!

  42. I’m late to the outrage fest but had two cents to add.

    I’m kind of with Ignatz. At one time, 9CL was one of my must-reads, but it lost me. That’s fine, not everything’s for me, but I thought that was a shame.

    Mostly, I can’t imagine what Mr. McEldowney was thinking. I mean, he had to know. He had to type that word, give it first, second, and third thoughts, and decide to go with it. I faced a similar decision once: a chapter in one of my graphic novels was set in the 1950s and I had a character refer to “Negroes,” which was the perfectly acceptable and polite term at the time. My editor and I discussed it, and I finally wrote around it because we agreed it could hurt people now and we didn’t want to hurt people. That was the nub: we erred on the side of not hurting people when it was just as easy not to. The 9CL strip would have lost nothing by writing “Zero” without the adjective.

    Now, I’m a free-speech purist who’d have all the respect in the world for someone who decided the opposite and was ready to take the consequences. Losing a major-market client is a consequence.

    Finally, I’m still trying to decide whether the comments above from Mr. McEldowney and his daughter Nicola are sarcastic parodies by someone else, because they read a lot like something someone who hates them would write.

  43. 9 Chickweed Lane ran a gay conversion storyline.

    During Pride month.

    This strip is borderline hate speech and the LA Times (finally) made the correct decision.

  44. #42 Brian – I have attempted to contact both Brooke and Nicola about the validity of those letters.
    I agree with you and until I get confirmation those letters have been put on hold.

  45. Still no word on what comic strip will take 9 Chickweed Lane’s place in the Los Angeles Times?

    How many papers still carry 9 Chickweed Lane? Despite being a Tribune Content Agency owned strip, not even the Tribune owned Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, and Orlando Sentinel newspapers carried the strip.

  46. And the next thing you know in 2022: Brooke will officially end the strip for good after the L.A. Times dropping incident.

    Be glad Non Sequitur is still going in many newsoaoers that didn’t drop the strip for good back in 2019 after some incident.

  47. While hardly a day goes by without either LaCucaracha or Candorville insulting white people. But of course the Times would never even consider dropping either one.

  48. Interesting difference in perception. I read Candorville and La Cucaracha every day, and can’t recall Darrin or Lalo EVER insulting white people. They may sometimes have white characters behave like antagonists or fools, but that’s not the same thing.

  49. Many years ago, I enjoyed this comic strip, but it lost me as it became incessanty focused on sex, sex, sex and women and teenage girls in tight, revealing clothes. I feel it’s been blatantly pornographic for a long time and I’ve wondered why the Times continued to publish such garbage. I’m glad and relieved it’s finally gone. And for a replacement, please bring back Brewster Rocket. That was consistently entertaining, unless you were from the planet of the donut people.

  50. GoComics also hosts “9 CHICKWEED LANE CLASSICS” — earlier strips which are often funny and almost always likable and relatable. Had I been seeing it back in the day, it wouldn’t have been one of my five favorite strips, but it probably would have been in my top twenty: not great, but good and often very good.

    The current 9CL though has been a “hate read/watch the trainwreck” experience for me for years now, so somewhere back in the period between those two varieties, it seems to me we must have had a clear example of “jumping the shark” — or, in 9CL translation, “failing to jump the unicorn.” OUCH.

    But as others have pointed out, given its continual manifold sins and silliness, suddenly sending it to coventry for printing a period-appropriate epitaph in the middle of a solid wall of hogwashy text in an incomprehensible alleged story is itself pretty silly, like giving Al Capone a pass on various bigname crimes but jailing him for income tax evasion.

  51. I’ve thought that Brooke McEldowney had lost interest in 9 Chickweed Lane years ago, and was just killing time in hopes that
    it would fade away and end when nobody was looking. I indeed I’m surprised to hear that it was still running in a newspaper and not just on line. Since I’m not a newspaper editor (thank goodness), I don’t have to worry about what’s best for my paper, and I personally can just add it with all those other strips that are for other people.

  52. For those who dismiss the offending word as a period appropriate epithet, may I remind you that the N-word was too. Had he used THAT word in his comic, even for period authenticity, the outrage would have been almost universal.

    If the cartoonist was writing a novel about World War II and wanted to recreate the period as authentically as possible, then it would be excusable. But, using it in a comic strip, which by definition is a gentle distortion of reality for humorous and entertaining effect, is stupid, if not unconscionable. He certainly is tone-deaf.

    The L.A. Times has been receiving complaints about 9CL and the cartoonist’s soft-porn fantasies for some time. I was surprised that they printed the clear illustration of a hyper-sexed straight woman brought to orgasm by a gay man in a bathtub. The whole “Gay conversion” arc last summer, published during Gay Pride Month, was a slap at many of his readers.

    The Times, with this latest controversy, was conveniently given the opportunity to finally cancel the strip. They took it. That is their prerogative. The comic strip itself continues online. Let the syndicate decide whether it should continue. Frankly, I think it is more appropriate as a web comic strip for adults. If the cartoonist wishes to indulge in his extravagant sexual fantasies and tone-deaf writing, he could join the many other scatalogical artist online, but it really shouldn’t be printed on a comic page for the general public.

  53. “And for a replacement, please bring back Brewster Rocket”
    .
    Brewster Rocket is alive and thriving and where Winky’s spare spleens are in generous supply.
    .
    If you are not at Gocomics it is free to read or do the paid option but you must sign up to talk, that part is a given.

  54. Being one who has always enjoyed this comic for being on the edge. I also happen to hold a degree in history and take a look at things in historical context. I also like historical fiction that includes many things that people would find offensive if it was said in context of today. People today are we seem to put our 21st century morals upon people of a time period before. If the character is in the 1940s during a war he’s going to talk the way people who were involved in the war talked even if they are fictional character.

    Now the LA Times has censored a cartoonist for what a character based in the 1940s during the war has said basically they erased that offending cartoon to be Politically correct. I also wonder are they going to go back through all their newspaper archives and remove the offending phrase from existence. For example July 2, 1943 headline”U.S. DOWNS 101 JAP PLANES AT RENDOVA”.

    That’s how people talked during World War II including the LA Times.
    But that’s just my humble opinion.

  55. Just found out 9 Chickweed Lane never runs on Sundays in the Los Angeles Times according to the recent Sunday L.A. Times issues on PressReader.com – but we still may find out this week at least what will replace 9 Chickweed Lane in the daily Los Angeles Times comics pages.

  56. This is a dreadful strip whose existence had baffled me for years. I am delighted that it has finally been removed.

  57. If you have decided to stop printing what some (most) readers find offensive that is certainly your right, but it is your selectivity that troubles me. As a no party preference I have found many of your op-ed political cartons to be slanderous. (I have been a subscriber for well over 20 years). But then I always told myself “hey it’s a cartoon”. Well so is “9 chickweed lane”. If you have decided to move the goal posts on what is acceptable so be it just apply that same limitus test to op-ed cartons which would mean STOP PRINTING OP-ED CARTOONS.

  58. Concerning Brooke McEldowney’s use of the ethnic slur “Jap” in his ‘9 Chickweed Lane’ comic strip, Richard Nixon’s vice-presidential running mate Spiro Agnew did the same thing in 1968.

    From “https//timidsoul.wordpress.com/2016/03/17/spiro-agnews-fat-jap-flap-1968”:

    “Shortly after characterizing Polish-Americans as ‘Polacks,’ Spiro T. Agnew, the Greek-American Republican candidate for vice president on Richard Nixon’s ticket, referred to Gene Oishi, a Japanese-American campaign reporter from the Baltimore Sun, as ‘the fat Jap.'”

    For other reasons, I’ve wondered why this comic strip was tolerated by the Los Angeles Times. Confession: I read it on-line almost every day.

    Tom Fox
    Yuma, Arizona

  59. The only reason I gave 9 Chickweeed Lane a pass was because I I thought it was written by a woman. If she wants to draw her various female characters in quasi-erotic poses well and weirdly hard to follow story lines then OK. But “Brooke” is actually a guy.

    WTF? Oh well, no more legs in the funny pages.

  60. Bring it back. It was a period piece. One of the best comics in the paper. So many of the comics are not funny. 9 Chickweed Lane IS funny and interesting.

  61. 9 Chickweed Lane has been going downhill for a while. My guess is that the LA Times is just using this as a way to get rid of it.
    Hopefully, they’ll find a good replacement. I’d vote for “Buckles” even though it’s in rerun. At least that one is funny.

  62. So, D.D., did you get any response from either of the McEldowneys?

  63. Why not drop Argyle Sweater instead for the crimes of being stupid and unfunny and ripping off Gary Larsen?

  64. No way. I love Argyle Sweater. Chickweed Lane is for pervies.

  65. In todays world The LA Times discontinues “9ChickeeedLane”because of its perceived use of racist speech.

    Has humor really been replaced in our world today by political correctness? God forbid we make fun of anything today, as feelings might be hurt. Feelings will heal, a world without humor will not.

    Sincerely,
    Phil Wachovsky

  66. I feel that this was a very foolish and short-sighted move by the L.A. Times. I wrote a letter to the editor and a direct email to the managing editor, and each one responded with a mealy-mouth boilerplate text. It’s sad when just a few hyper-sensitive people can spoil the fun for millions. 9 Chickweed Lane is an absolutely brilliant strip, one of the most intelligent ones around in my opinion. You can still read it at GoComics online, but I think the Times really stuck their foot in it with this decision. You can’t “sanitize” history. Huckleberry Finn just doesn’t have the same feel using “slaves” as the everyday term for humans kept in bondage, nor carry the same powerful abolitionist sentiment. Django Unchained used the N-word 137 times, if I recall aright, and grossed $425.4 million worldwide; but let a cartoonist (who has been immensely respectful of all humanity, in my experience) use a historically-accurate term in a historical context, and everybody loses their minds. I can only hope that the Times will ultimately reverse their decision, but if they choose not to, it’s certainly not to their credit.

  67. “but if they choose not to, it’s certainly not to their credit.”
    .
    I doubt their circulation numbers will suffer based on this one strip.

  68. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving comic. This pretentious and perverted bore of a strip already ran a bafflingly homophobic “story” during Pride Month which should have earned its cancellation across the board.

  69. 9 Chickweed was never a comic strip. Never funny, and took too much time to read.
    Its trash, like your Newspaper

  70. I just want to point out that when the Dixie Chicks changed their name they dropped the “Dixie” and not “Chicks” from their name. As far as these women were concerned “Dixie”was the offensive word to be dropped and not “Chicks” which they’ve stuck with. If those three very successful women are cool with it then I am…
    ????

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