Monday, 05/19/2008 - 5:00 am
by Chris Williams
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The Paper’s Cartoon Closet
After Elton’s story entitled “Cartoon Closet” does more than just highlight the notable points about gay characters and creators in the syndicated cartoon press. Brent Hartinger examines the impact cartoon diversification of race and gender in cartoons has made, how editors regard these issues and how newspapers simply drop cartoons rather than risk controversy.
In 1993, Canadian cartoonist Lynn Johnston introduced a gay character, 17 year-old Lawrence, into her enormously popular daily newspaper comic strip For Better or For Worse. The four-week storyline, which dealt sensitively with the character’s coming out and his parents’ and friends’ reactions, was one of the first of its kind, and it inspired a firestorm of controversy.
“At the time, I was in a panic, because I had no idea how contentious it would be,” Johnston tells AfterElton.com. Forty newspapers refused to run the “gay” strips at all. “One editor in a small town, his dog was spray-painted, and his kids were attacked at school,” Johnston says, also noting that most of the controversy was religiously based, much originating in the southern United States.
(Via AfterElton.com)