News outlets are dropping a long-running staple in their comic strip sections after the artist inserted an obscured message saying, “go fuck yourself Trump.”
“Non Sequitur” publisher Andrew McMeel Syndication confirmed to the Washington Post that more than 12 newspapers have dropped the comic due to the profanity in the bottom right corner of Sunday’s panel.
The rest of the comic was an ursine twist on Leonardo da Vinci, depicting the famous painter and his work as bears.
Here is the image of the Non Sequitur comic strip.
With the oh-so clever Trump insult pic.twitter.com/rlHwKqbHFj— Fran Warren (@FranWarren) February 11, 2019
Artist Wiley Miller said he had created the scribbled profane message weeks ago after getting upset with President Trump, but forgot to remove it from the piece, which then made it through the editorial process.
“When I opened the paper Sunday morning and read my cartoon, I didn’t think anything of it, as I didn’t notice the scribbling that has now caught fire,” Miller told the Washington Post. “It was not intended for public consumption, and I meant to white it out before submitting it, but forgot to. Had I intended to make a statement to be understood by the readers, I would have done so in a more subtle, sophisticated manner.”
One outlet that removed the strip after a reader pointed out the profane note was the Butler Eagle in Pennsylvania.
A reader also alerted the Post-Standard from Syracuse, N.Y., to the comic. “Mr. Miller made a juvenile and vulgar decision that does not meet our standards for the syndicated content we pay to have in the newspaper and is offensive to our readers, regardless of their political affiliations,” The Post-Standard said.
Although Miller claims he forgot to remove the profane line, in a now-deleted tweet on Sunday he teased a “little Easter egg” in the strip and asked other readers if they could find it.
He hasn’t addressed that tweet in any statement thus far.
“Non Sequitur” has been running for 27 years since its launch in February 1992 and is a daily comic strip in many papers throughout the U.S.
