Reader likely wants to flush comic from memory

I received a note recently from a Gazette reader who took issue with a specific “Bizarro” comic that ran in the paper on Jan. 19. I am going to mention the note in my Sunday, Feb. 5, column in the paper.

This particular cartoon showed urinals and a punch line related to urinating -- " Stop me before I urinate again!" written in red as graffiti -- didn't connect with the reader. Here's a link to the pay site where you can see the comic. Or, if you are a Gazette subscriber, or interested in the monthly subscription, you can check it out on the Jan. 19 comic page at My Green Gazette.

“I can see that some may think ‘Close to Home', “Working It Out”, and even “Mallard Fillmore” may be funny commix, but remember the kids read them, too,” the reader noted. “This, however,” she wrote above a clipping of the offending comic, “does not belong in the newspaper … let alone in the cartoon page.”

It was a fair enough complaint, although the site of a urinal likely is tame compared to the things to which young people are exposed.

While on the topic of comics in the paper, you may have heard that Universal Uclick, the syndicate that provides the cartoon “Cul de Sac” by Richard Thompson, has sent a note to papers that carry Thompson's strip about it being in a four-week period of reruns. Those newspapers include The Gazette.

Thompson is in a new treatment for Parkinson's disease. He describes the treatment on his blog, and is funny doing so.

Original comics will return but with help from artist Stacy Curtis. Thompson still will write the strip and do some art work with Curtis, Universal president Lee Salem says in his note to newspapers but Curtis' help will be needed in varying degrees over time.