Bizarro is brought to you today by Animal Husbandry.Last week my cartoon was drawing attacks from all quarters. Yesterday's post was a bout a plagiarism accusation, today's is about my mistreatment of preschool icons. Below is the email I received, in its entirety:
I usually do not take the time to write someone about a comic strip. But this time I could not just ignore it.
I take EXTREME OFFENSE at your comic today. I am surprised Sesame Street hasn't talked to you yet. (How does she know they haven't?)
The Birds (Capitalized?) in the your comic strip today are very obviously Big Bird and Foghorn Leghorn.
You are making these characters out to be bullies. That is NOT what these characters stand for.
They are good characters, and I feel you are beating up on their images by using them.
I have two younger children that love to read the comics everyday with me (age 7 & 10).
When they saw what you had drawn, I'm not sure they will never want to see your comic strip again.
They were both extremely offended (as was I) and at the ages they are they knew that Big Bird would
NEVER do anything like that!!!!!! (Then what is the problem?)
It is NOT FUNNY to bully someone's image like that, to infer that they would do anything like that.
(I believe she means "insinuate." "Inferring" is what she's doing.)
To pick on an image that has been out in this world doing nothing but good for over 40 years is SHAMEFUL!!!
You should be ashamed of yourself for picking on something as PURE as Big Bird!
Sincerely,
Name withheld because I'm embarrassed for her.
I responded politely to her note, as I invariably do, and told her that everyone knows that Big Bird would never act this way and that is what makes it funny. I suggested that if she explained that to her children they would no longer be upset by the cartoon and learn a little something about the way humor works, too. I got no response.
Oh, the tremendous weight of social responsibility that a cartoonist bears.
