Find your daily dose of Mallard online

To the editor:

The Gazette is considering bringing Mallard Fillmore back, despite poor ratings in the annual comics survey.

Mallard was carried for years under the fiction of being a 'balance” to the Doonesbury strip.

I remember conservative readers complaining about strips lampooning George W. Bush or other conservatives. There were differences between the two comics, for sure. Doonesbury frequently dealt with issues other than politics, while Mallard was, and still is, a near-constant rant against Obama, Democrats and liberals.

Doonesbury would occasionally satirize Democrats; Mallard gives Republican figures a pass. Doonesbury had a witty and usually sophisticated flavor. What passes for humor in Mallard is usually heavy-handed, often-conflated criticism that only a Fox News addict would find funny.

Doonesbury is long gone; the need for balance in cartoons also has passed. Those who need a daily dose of Mallard can easily find it online, the same way I do for strips that have been dropped.

Jerry Chilton

Cedar Rapids