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:

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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.

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