Was the Latest Doonesbury Comic Strip 'Banned' by Gannett-Owned Newspapers? (2024)

Welcome to the 920th installment of Comic Book Legends Revealed, a column where we examine three comic book myths, rumors and legends and confirm or debunk them. In the first legend of this installment, we take a look into whether people are correctly getting to the truth about a recent social media controversy involving Doonesbury and Gannett's newspapers.

A recent social media outcry over the latest Doonesbury comic strip by Garry Trudeau has led a number of posters online to believe that the strip, a criticism of teaching restrictions in Florida schools, was "banned" by Gannett, the United States' largest newspaper publisher (in terms of circulation) due to the subject of the new strip. Cracked did a whole article titled Conservative Newspaper Conglomerate Proved Their Opponents’ Point When They Banned This ‘Doonesbury’ Comic Strip.

However, the reality is that the strip had already been dropped by all Gannett-owned newspapers weeks before this newest strip was released. Doonesbury, the first comic strip to win the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning, was one of a number of newspaper comic strips to lose its spot in Gannett-owned newspapers due to a unified approach by Gannett towards the "funny pages" of its newspapers.

The February 18 edition of Doonesbury featured a teacher telling her students about the history of the Civil War, including the fact that seven of the states that seceded from the United States specifically cited slavery as one of their reasons for seceding, and also that tens of thousands of White southerners volunteered to fight on the side of the Union during the Civil War. Her students are all worried about her, as one student notes, "This is Florida, isn't it against the law to teach us the full story?" She explains that her husband is in his truck outside, and her students implore her to run and text them after she crosses the border.

Former Iowa State Representative Bob Hughes noted that his local newspaper, the Gannett-owned Des Moines Register, did not print the strip, so he shared it on his social media account...

This has led to a social media outcry over Gannett "banning" this strip. Doonesbury comic strips HAVE been "banned" in the past (something that I've covered in a past Comic Book Legends Revealed), so it is not an unreasonable thing for some people to believe, but that was not the case in this particular instance.

When did Gannett decide to drop Doonesbury from its newspapers?

You see, as reported by The Daily Cartoonist last year, Gannett, citing research it has done of its readers' interests, decided to come up with a unified approach to the comic strip sections of the newspapers that it owns. Generally speaking, individual newspapers have decided what comic strips they run, but now Gannett has determined that its newspapers will select their comic strips from a specific list of daily comic strips and Sunday strips. So the individual papers still get to decide, they are just limited in their possible options. As Gannett noted in a statement to the Daily Cartoonist, "We are unifying our print comics package, but our comics may still vary by market. The majority of our publications will maintain a similar number of comics after the transition." Gannett added, “Our mission to provide essential journalism in the communities we serve means we are always evolving our content to ensure we are relevant. Refreshing our comics provides a consistent and modern presentation for our audience while incorporating beloved favorites they love.”

While the unifying news was announced back last Fall, the newspapers were allowed to take their time implementing the changes, and each individual newspaper announced its changes at different points in time, as well as their own distinct choices from the unified list of options, so many fans missed the news at the time, and did not really notice anything until the strips were actually changed. For instance, The Akron Beacon Journal made its announcement on January 7. TheAustin American-Statesman made its announcement on January 20. The Daytona Beach News-Journal made its announcement on January 21. As did the The Arizona Republic, and The Tennessean.

Doonesbury only does new strips on Sundays (the daily strips are reprints billed as Classic Doonesbury), and both the dailies and the Sunday strips were dropped by all of Gannett's newspapers. In fact, The Akron Beacon-Journal even ran a letter to the editor last month from a reader complaining about Doonesbury being removed, so this is old enough news that there have already been printed complaints over it! In this instance, then, a number of fans only noticed Doonesbury was even GONE from all of Gannett's newspapers when they were called to the attention of a strip being possibly "banned" due to its content.

Doonesbury is still available online at Andrews McMeel Universal's GoComics, and, of course, in a number of non-Gannett owned newspapers across the United States (although a number of those newspapers are wary of the content of the strips, as well, and print the comics in their editorial cartoon section).

Check out a Movie Legends Revealed!

In the latest Movie Legends Revealed - Was an American actor actually officially hired to play James Bond at one point?

Be sure to check out my Entertainment Legends Revealed for more urban legends about the world of film and TV. Plus, Pop Culture References also has some brand-new Entertainment and Sports Legends Revealeds!

Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com.