Today's the day

Read more at the Cartoonists of Color Draw-In web page. I've posted several links to articles, and a couple mp3's of interviews I and the other guys have done regarding the action.

February 10 comics page demonstration mentioned in Newsweek

The upcoming February 10 minority cartoonists demonstration was mentioned in the January 28 issue of Newsweek, on page 14. Check it out or see the brief interview online.

Candorville bat-signal: Santa Rosa readers, contact your paper

The Santa Rosa Press Democrat's changed their comics page, and Candorville's one of several casualties. However, unlike many papers, they want to know what you think. If you live in Santa Rosa or somehow read the Press Democrat, and you want to see "Candorville" back on your comics page, write to them at comics@pressdemo.com.

The Press Democrat does listen to its readers, so go ahead and register your opinion.

Letter to Editor: Candorville's mockery of bigots offends me!

A reader was kind enough to send me a copy of his letter to the editor about today's Candorville:

Copy of Letter to the Editor-Austin American Statesman

Dear Editor:

As a white, Independent voter, I am appaled at the tastelessness of the “comic strip”, Candorville, that appeared in the Saturday Jan. 19, 2008 Austin Statesman.

This has a non-white male character talking to a non-white female character and I will quote the dialogue in it’s entirety for those who missed it.

He says, “I figured out what Obama needs to do if he wins the nomination. If he wins, you just know thousands of bigots are going bullet shopping. So he’s gotta pick a vice president that bigots’ll hate worse- Someone the bigots wouldn’t want to risk becoming president. Obviously, his running mate should be an illegal immigrant,”

To me this is patently offensive and the Statesman should not have run it. As I wrote earlier, “I’m a white, Independent voter and this appears to me to be race baiting of the worst kind.

I apologize to all my non-white friends for this bad taste on the part of the cartoonist, and the Statesman as well.

Rev. James A. Andrews D.D.

AKA Zpadre

Always nice to hear from a white person who takes it upon himself to be offended on behalf of minorities. I hear from such angels occasionally. Oddly enough, the minorities in question never seem to tell me themselves that those particular strips offend them. Thank God for the Reverend Andrews's of the world, otherwise I'd never know that I've done wrong.

My response:

I often hear from readers who tell me they're white, and that they're offended on behalf of minorities about something I said. When, in fact, I hear almost nothing but praise for those same comics by the supposedly-aggrieved minority readers themselves. I don't understand this phenomenon. I'm not sure I understand why you're apologizing on my behalf. Why would you, a white person, apologize to "all your non-white friends" for something another non-white person said? Why don't you ask THEM if they're offended? If THEY would like an apology, by all means, direct them my way so I can correct whatever misinterpretation they're laboring under. If you can find a single non-white friend of yours who hasn't already thought about the danger Obama faces, I'd be surprised.

I'm also unclear on why you feel it's race-baiting.

From the Encyclopedia Britannica online:

"Race baiting is the act of using racially derisive language, actions or other forms of communication, to anger, intimidate or incite a person or groups of people, or to make those persons behave in ways that are inimical to their personal or group interests."

Who exactly do you think today's cartoon was "DERISIVE" of? It wasn't derisive of black people. It wasn't derisive of illegal immigrants. If anyone, it was derisive of "bigots." Now, if you're saying today's Candorville was trying to anger or intimidate bigots, or trying to get them to behave in a way that's inimical to their personal or group interest (namely, trying to get them to stop being bigots), then you've got a point. I fail to see what's offensive about someone deriding bigots.

Also part of the definition of "race-baiting":

"This can also be accomplished by implying that there is an underlying race based motive in the actions of others towards the group baited, where none in fact exists."

Are you honestly - with a straight face - going to tell me there aren't bigots in this country who'd sooner see a black man dead than in the White House? Are you going to tell me there was no reason for Barack Obama to ask for and receive an uncommonly large contingent of secret service agents as protection? Are you going to tell me - an African American cartoonist who receives occasional death threats simply for publishing a cartoon with black characters in newspapers - that a black man running for PRESIDENT has nothing to fear?

Raleigh News & Observer adds Candorville

Sometimes introducing a comic strip to largely conservative readers by joking about hypocritical closeted Senators trolling for gay bathroom sex, is actually a good idea. If you read the previous post about the trial in Raleigh, N.C., you might be surprised to learn they're adding Candorville to their roster, come January 14.

Minority cartoonists plan February 10 comics page "crossover"

It's not a crossover in the traditional sense, it's something that's never been done before. If you're a cartoonist of any ethnicity and you want to participate, and you still have time to turn in a new strip for February 10, contact me at "candorville at gmail dot com" and I'll fill you in on the details.

From Editor & Publisher:

NEW YORK At least eight African-American cartoonists plan to take part in a Feb. 10 comics-page action to draw attention to the way their strips are perceived and purchased.

"Many editors and readers consider different 'black comics' to be interchangeable," said "Candorville" cartoonist Darrin Bell. This, he told E&P today in a phone interview, is among the reasons why many papers run only one or two comics by African-Americans and other creators of color -- no matter how many strips and panels are in their comics sections.

But, Bell said, comics by black cartoonists are obviously as different from each other as comics by white cartoonists are different from each other.

"Some are political, some are about friends, and some are about family," noted Bell, who organized the Feb. 10 action along with "Watch Your Head" cartoonist Cory Thomas. (Both are syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group.)

For the action, the cartoonists will all do a version of one of Thomas' comics. The theme and writing in each strip will be similar, though "we're all plugging in our own characters," said Bell. The idea is to satirically protest the erroneous notion of many editors and readers that comics by African-American creators are interchangeable.

What might the action accomplish? "I hope editors will start allowing minority cartoonists to compete for all their comics slots, not just one or two slots," replied Bell, whose 2003-launched "Candorville" strip runs in 60 to 65 papers.

The cartoonist -- who also does the "Rudy Park" comic with Theron Heir for United Media -- further noted that strips by African-American cartoonists are enjoyed by many white readers as well as black readers.

Bell said he's not sure the Feb. 10 action should be called a protest, noting that black cartoonists face a problem nowhere near as serious as, say, New Orleans residents still without housing after Hurricane Katrina. But it's still a problem.

"It's like a weather forecast of mostly sunny with patches of racism," Bell said wryly.

"Wryly." I like that. Read more...

Town Hall Defends Foxxx News from Candorville

An amused reader sent me an e-mail about a conservative blogger who took issue with a recent Candorville strip (and, though he didn't mention it, he probably wasn't too happy with the previous day either). From Town Hall:

The liberals hate Fox News with a passion because it is fast proving that Americans prefer not to be lied to [*ironic-licious link added -D. Bell*]. Fox brings both sides of political issues and probably have more liberal commentators on staff than do most other news services. Thus, they do not bring us only the liberal side. The liberals just can't stand that and try to trivialize them as often as they can. More evidence that politics should be kept out of comics is "Candorville's" Dec. 7 comic strip, which attempts to trivialize Fox News because it has many "foxes" on its staff who wear short skirts and show much cleavage, and they think that's the reason why Fox is "whipping up on" all the other Cable stations and networks. As if all of them don't have many foxes with short skirts and cleavage. Does this artist (and other liberals) really think we are so ignorant as to not be aware of this? Notice they also refer to it with three xes, as if the whole network is "triple-x." Subtle. Too bad. When he stays away from politics, I actually enjoy this strip. (Candorville, 12/7/07)

All I have to say to that is...



Oh, and this...



Oh yeah, there's also this...



(I probably should've warned you I was posting clips from Foxxx, they could probably get you fired if you watched them at work. Seriously.)

Yes, I'm sure just like Lemont, all those people who somehow think we found WMD in Iraq watch Fox News for the accuracy of their reporting. I don't know how I and "the liberals" could have been so wrong.

In fact, that's enough blogging, I have some accuracy to go watch...

Reader accuses Candorville of RAPE joke

It takes a certain kind of person to read today's Candorville strip and conclude I'm joking about rape. It takes the kind of person who can read Candorville for any length of time and still conclude that its author would find something like rape funny. It takes the kind of person who thinks the words "rape" and "pillage" are interchangeable (if they were, the usual phrase describing the horrors of war wouldn't be "rape AND pillage").

It takes this kind of person:

Hey.

Funny strip most the time. Racial commentary and all that.

But todays strip (12-20-07) appalled me. Unless I am reading that wrong, it seems to be a blatant and casual reference to rape. Who calls that humor? Rape is not something that should be include in anything labeled as “comic”.

I’m sure you are aware of racist issues. Try to be aware of sexist issues. They are not that far apart.


JW

I can't believe anyone who's read Candorville for any length of time would even entertain the notion that its author would find rape funny. If any other readers out there jumped to that same outlandishly offensive conclusion, please don't bother me with it. I spend hours each week going back and forth with irate or confused readers about the topics I raise in Candorville, and I do it gladly. I love that part of this job. But this misinterpretation is just way too insulting to comment on any further.

The South's Gayest Comic Strip

Bad timing can be a very funny thing.

This week, Candorville debuted in the Raleigh News & Observer on a trial basis. They'll be testing it out for four weeks. The Raleigh News & Observer is one of the largest papers in the South (Mason-Dixon line and geography notwithstanding, it is the South - you're not fooling anyone, "North" Carolina).

Naturally, the week with which we introduce their solidly-conservative readers to Candorville happens to be a week that discusses civil rights by lampooning a closeted Republican Senator who trolls for gay sex in public restrooms. The readership is predictably amused.

Apparently "Candorville is a hog farm lagoon" is some sort of affectionate Southern colloquialism.

Check out all the other praise, and add your own (ONLY if you live in North Carolina and read the News & Observer) in their online forum. And again ONLY if you're a local News & Observer reader (no cheating, please), the News & Observer wants to hear from you. Write to them and tell them whether you want Candorville at comics@newsobserver.com.

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Chauncey Bailey Assassinated in Oakland

When Al Gore ran for the presidency, his opponents mocked his military service, because he had carried a journalist's pen, not an AK-47, through the jungles of Vietnam. But the mounting death toll of journalists serving in Iraq should serve as a reminder that being a journalist in a war zone is a service every bit as dangerous. Some war zones are closer to home.

Oakland Post reporter Chauncey Bailey was struck down by a masked assassin on a busy intersection in broad daylight this morning. I lived in Oakland for 7 years and I only met Chauncey once, in 2004 at the New California Media convention. He was an Oakland Tribune reporter at the time. What a character. A no-nonsense "just the facts" kind of questioner, but at the same time, his writing showed a person eager to point out the larger picture facts sometimes obscure. That probably describes most journalists, but with most journalists I know, that's the hat they put on when they go to work, or else it's just one tool in their trade. With Chauncey, it seemed from our brief meeting and the e-mails that followed, that that was who he was. A reliably double sided coin: all business, but on the flip side, all compassion.

Chauncey was a race-conscious writer - a man who obviously wanted to use his talents to encourage the black community in Oakland and California to confront uncomfortable truths and to participate fully in society rather than remain balkanized and demoralized. Sometimes I disagreed with the conclusions he drew in his writing, but I never disagreed with his motivation or his idealism.

Chauncey became interested in helping Candorville gain the attention of the Oakland Tribune. It isn't easy for a new strip to break into new markets, even when it's your hometown paper. Oftentimes, editors won't look past the cover of the sales brochure, let alone read far enough to realize the cartoonist lives just 28 blocks from them. Chauncey gave my wife the publisher's phone number, and we called and introduced ourselves. About a year later, the ANG, which owns the Tribune, added Candorville. This was after my syndicate's editor flew out to encourage ANG to take a good look at the strip, but I don't doubt that Chauncey's help played a role.

He profiled me in 2004 and wrote an article about my work for the regional black press. Actually, he sent my wife Laura a list of questions (I guess he knew who the efficient one was), I gave her my answers and she e-mailed them back to him. I never did see the article, because we were out of town when it ran and I didn't want to bug him for a copy. But Laura and I looked through her old e-mail file and we still have the questions, and my answers. These pretty much sum up my impression of the man. Each question is concise, no-nonsense. All business. In that, you see Chauncey's mind. But if you look at the subtext, you see the man's heart.

===== Comments by cbailey@angnewspapers.com (Chauncey Bailey) at 6/09/04 3:08 pm
I can do a feature on (Darrin) for the regional black press. tell me (50 words or less per question)


1. His background.

Darrin: My father's black, and my mother is Jewish (white). I was born in South Central L.A. and raised in East L.A. and the San Fernando Valley. I was bused 40 miles per day to magnet schools. I graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a BA in Political Science in 1999, and chose to stay in Oakland.

2. How he got started?

Darrin:I edited my high school paper and continued pursuing journalism in college. I drew editorial cartoons and comic strips for the Daily Cal, and when I felt I was good enough I started faxing them every day to the LA Times, Oakland Trib and SF Chronicle. They all eventually started running them.

3. Why?

Darrin:I want to show a more developed view of Blacks and Latinos than I've seen in the comics pages. They're either angry about injustice 24-7 or they're the Cosby's. Reality is a mix of all that. I want to show minorities with a wide range of thoughts and goals.

4. Successes?

Darrin:To my knowledge I'm the first and only Black cartoonist to have two comic strips in syndication, and the youngest (of any race) to do so. At 20 (in 1995), I was the youngest editorial cartoonist to be published regularly in
the LA times. My work's been on CNN, and other television news broadcasts. I won several awards in college.

5. Setbacks?

Darrin:My first comic strip, "Rudy Park," focused on the dotcom revolution until that revolution crashed in 2000. Most of the magazines that ran the strip went out of business. Then it was syndicated. Editorial cartooning setbacks came when papers began using more syndicated work and less freelance work. "Candorville" hasn't had any setbacks - yet.

6. Goals?

Darrin:To reach as many readers as possible and present them with an image of African-Americans and Latinos that doesn't gloss over the downsides of life, but that never loses its appreciation for the good in life. I want to show you don't have to be angry to be passionate. You don't have to be disrespectful to get respect.

7. Tips for young Black artists

Darrin:Practice. Have something IMPORTANT to say and figure out how best to say it, whether it's visual or performing arts. But don't wait for someone to discover you. You've got to take initiative. Enter contests. Even if you don't win, you're getting your name out there. Submit your work in a professional manner to as many people as you can. Network - meet people in the industry you want to be part of, and do not be afraid to ask them for advice. Usually, they'll be glad to help you.

What I want to know is, what was Chauncey working on, what had he already written, or what else was he involved in, that may have gotten him assassinated? But this is Oakland. Who knows if the investigation will go farther than a fruitless sweep of the East side and a shrug of the shoulders.

"Stephanie Miller Show" goes slumming with Candorville's Darrin Bell

For some unknown reason, Elayne Boosler, guest hosting the Stephanie Miller Show on Jones Radio Network (& aired on many Air America affiliates), decided to spend a few minutes interviewing yours truly this morning. I didn't post about this beforehand or tell friends or family because it would scare the hell out of me knowing that people were actually listening to me live. "They" say most Americans fear public speaking more than they fear death, and for a cartoonist who's used to spending his days alone, half-naked in a tiny studio with only his characters to keep him company, death would be #3. #2 would be having to wear pants.

Still, I sit for interviews whenever I'm asked because, hell, this is a dream come true for me -- creating cartoons that strangers (who don't owe me anything) spend a few precious, irretrievable seconds out of their days to read -- and when someone asks me to talk about that on the radio or TV or a panel discussion, it's a reminder that it's actually happening, that that little kid who "wasted time" drawing Optimus Prime and Snoopy in his textbooks actually became what he wanted to be.

Here's the interview. Behind this buffer of time, it isn't so scary. From today's Stephanie Miller Show:

I Love LA

My wife and I decided to move back home to LA (after 14 years in the SF Bay Area), and then just a few weeks before we drove all our worldly belongings down the I-5 in a rented Penske truck, the LA Times canceled Candorville. We got a great apartment overlooking Griffith Park, and then just days before we move in, Griffith Park burned down. I was beginning to sense a pattern.

But as my Grandfather always says, "it's important to have faith. Everything works out in the end. And why isn't my cable TV working?"

In any case, as I was pedaling along the Santa Ana River yesterday, losing myself in the lazy dips and rises of the bike path and the warm desert breeze, thinking about faith, I realized one thing: I didn't know where the hell I was. So naturally, I kept going. This is the Southland, after all, I was sure to run into something that'd be familiar: a Carl's Jr., a Honda dealership, a mugger -- Something. Faith. Then it caught my eye...

A big halo fifty feet in the sky, and the familiar International Orange-colored "A" holding it up. Angel Stadium was just ahead, like a big, dilapidated anchor on the horizon. I crossed over the freeway overpass and looped down to the other side of the river-bank, and headed straight for the big A.

I'd been riding for nearly two hours, and as I sat under a tree next to the A, I began to relax. I began to think. I thought about how the last time I'd seen the Big Red A in person, I couldn't have been more than seven or eight. We'd driven down to catch an Angels game, and managed to lose our car. My dad, my brother and I wandered around the huge parking lot in the middle of the freezing night with no jackets, no light, and - for me at least - no hope. Hours later, when all the other cars had left, we saw ours, parked right under the Big A. I thought about how important it is to believe everything's going to work out, because it usually does unless you sabotage it yourself with doubt and anxiety (And if not, it just wasn't meant to be). I thought about how someday Griffith Park would be just as beautiful as it was three days earlier, when I'd hiked from Fern Dell Road to the observatory. I thought about how it's not a good idea to sit on a nest filled with red ants.

After shaking my clothes out and shrieking like a little girl, I crossed the river and headed for a restaurant I'd spotted earlier. Acapulco, by Century Theaters in the City of Orange. I ordered my shrimp enchilada and then checked my e-mail on my phone. There was a message from Sherry Stern the LA Times' Deputy Features Editor. The header read "Good news!" After nearly choking on my chip con guacamole, I closed the phone. I opened it again, fully expecting the message to have disappeared - it had to be a hallucination brought on by the Anaheim sun. It was still there. I closed the phone again and looked at it to make sure it was mine. I opened it again, expecting the message header to read "Just kidding." But it didn't. The LA Times had reconsidered its decision to cancel Candorville, she said. Candorville would return on Monday, with Sunday strips to return on or after June 3.

I resisted the urge to hug the waiter as he delivered my beans and enchiladas.

Someone else at the Times told me a couple weeks ago that the response from readers had been tremendous. Hundreds - maybe billions (but probably closer to hundreds) - of readers wrote in, called, and voiced their opinion about the cancelation. I'm sure that made all the difference. "Thank you" isn't enough, but then I know it wasn't for me. People didn't want Darrin Bell back, they wanted to continue to hear a young, dissenting voice in their newspaper - something Candorville provides with annoying regularity.

Score one for patriotic dissent, zero for the corporate media's dastardly plan to silence alternative viewpoints. Well, I guess that would be score 289,975 for the corporate media, and one for patriotic dissent, but you get my meaning.

As I waited at Acapulco for my wife to pick me up with the bike rack, sipping my Sierra Mist and downing a forkfull of sautee'd vegetables, I thought about faith. I thought about how hard it was to leave the SF Bay Area, the friends and the life we'd made up there. I thought about LA, the city where I was born and raised, and about how the city seems to have welcomed us back home. And I knew everything was going to work out in the end. Then I checked my socks for red ants, just in case.

LA Readers - how to follow Candorville

LA readers are continuing to write to the paper and myself asking how they can follow Candorville. Some have sent passionate e-mails, some have sent poems, which I truly appreciate. Some have threatened to cancel their subscriptions (which I think is a bad idea - not only do papers not listen to non-subscribers, but there's no point in cutting yourself off from a news source). I wish I could thank you all personally, but if I do that I wouldn't have time to write the strip.

Please keep writing or calling (calling is best, because it lets them know you're a real person) if you want to read Candorville in the Times, and keep in mind it sometimes takes months, or even years, for a paper to change its mind. In the meantime, if you'd like to continue following the strip, you can try writing or calling other papers you might be reading in the LA area (Daily News, Daily Breeze, OC Register, etc. - which are all open to running Candorville depending on reader requests). In the meantime, you can follow it online, at the Candorville website. You can sign up for a daily e-mail notifying you when a new comic has been posted.

Thanks again, everyone.

Candorville In The Loop

From today's In the Loop column (Washington Post):

Speaking of the House oversight committee, it's not often that someone below the rank of Cabinet member can merit a cameo appearance in a syndicated cartoon. But General Services Administration chief Lurita Alexis Doan, apparently to the amusement of some folks at the GSA, has won that unusual distinction, becoming a thinly disguised amnesiac in the cartoon Candorville.

Doan won the high honor after she repeatedly told the committee on March 28 that she could not remember details of a Jan. 26 videoconference presentation for top political appointees at her agency by White House deputy political director J. Scott Jennings, who works in Karl Rove's shop.

What's going on with the LA Times?

Readers are writing in today to ask why they don't see Candorville in the LA Times. They also note that La Cucaracha and Mallard Fillmore have been dropped. Honestly, I don't know what's going on and neither does my syndicate. We weren't informed of any change in status, and usually when papers make such a change, they do us the courtesy of informing us beforehand. If you'd like an answer today, or want to talk them out of whatever madness is going on, you're going to have to contact The Times directly.

Candorville Nominated for the Glyph Award (again)

Candorville's been nominated for a Glyph Award. Awards are ridiculous popularity contests signifying nothing. Unless Candorville wins, in which case awards are proof of quality and merit. Here's the list of nominees, as reported by Editor & Publisher and The Comics Reporter:

"Best Comic Strip"
Candorville, Darrin Bell
The K Chronicles, Keith Knight
Templar, Arizona, Spike
(th)Ink, Keith Knight
Watch Your Head, Cory Thomas

Smart money's on an upset by Ziggy.

Candorville and Chicago

Mail keeps coming in from Chicago readers upset about the Tribune's decision to cancel Candorville. Curiously, many in Chicago seem to have assumed it was my decision to pull Candorville out of the Tribune, or that Candorville has ended. For instance:

Dear Mr. Bell,
I suspect you must receive a ton of complaints from Chicago when you criticize the government, but that is no reason to pull Candorville out of the paper like The Boondocks did. Maybe you don't realize that a lot of us read Candorville every day and appreciate your take on current events and look forward to reading what you have to say about modern life. The comics aren't the same without Candorville. Please bring it back.

Just to clarify for Chicago readers, I haven't ended Candorville, it was cancelled by the Tribune. I have no control over whether Candorville appears in the Trib. If you'd like to see it return, e-mailing me won't do it (although I appreciate it). If you'd like to make your feelings known to those who make the decisions, I would suggest you contact the Tribune directly and tell them what you think.

It's been an honor to appear in the pages of the Tribune for this long, and I hope those of you from Chicago will continue to follow Candorville online, perhaps in one of the other Chicago papers should they choose to pick up the strip, or in book form.

Candorville: more respect for the truth than for the dead?

"Be to my faults a little blind, Be to my virtues very kind."

I'm not sure who originally wrote that phrase. I've seen it attributed to various people from John Lennon to Ben Franklin, and I have yet to come across a definitive account of its origin. Maybe that's because I haven't spent too much time looking, but I'd like to think it's also because it's such a universal desire that it actually goes back to the dawn of time. Maybe when the first doomed nucleic acid was spit out by a primordial chemical system, it's last words were "remember me well."

The desire to be remembered as a positive force once we're gone is probably as instinctive as it is universal. Every saint and every dictator wanted to leave behind a legacy they thought positive. And because we all want the same thing, we routinely, wilfully, whitewash people's lives once they're gone -- hoping that someday, when our time comes, the world will return the favor. Some believe that pays tribute to the departed. Perhaps most believe that. I believe the opposite. I believe that by sanitizing someone's effect on the world and their history, you don't pay tribute to that person, you pay tribute to some phantom you've created in their stead. When it's a person of historical significance, you run the risk of erasing history. And we all know the other saying about what happens to people who forget their history.

Here's today's Candorville, followed by a representative response to it from a Candorville reader:

Today's strip



Reader feedback

Dear Darrin Bell,
My paper just picked up your comic strip on the first, and I was okay with it. It was mildly funny, and I could relate to some of it. However, today, you published the comic about James Brown "explaining" about what he didn't do, while you showed Gerald Ford running away. I now refuse to read your strip. If you want to attack a person, at least do it while they're alive.

My response

Thank you for writing. That's exactly what tomorrow's comic strip deals with -- the notion that we should only speak well of the departed. You really shouldn't judge a comic strip by one edition of it, or you might miss out on something you'd otherwise come to enjoy.

The reason the strip is called "Candorville" isn't because I think I know the Truth. It's my promise to always say exactly what's on my mind, regardless of what everyone else is saying. It's my suggestion that honesty is always the best policy, even when it involves sacred cows. When the war in Iraq was popular, Candorville pointed out its counterproductivity. When Barak Obama, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice were being idolized as phenomena by the Media a couple years ago, I pointed out that they'd done nothing more than anyone else could do, and the only reason they were seen as exceptional was their race (What has Obama accomplished, really?). Everyone loves Oprah Winfrey, but I've commented on how she seems to regularly invite celebrity guests in order to fish for compliments from them, and I've pointed out that every single issue of her magazine features HER on the cover (which strikes me as a bit egotistical, even if it is good business sense). Not all these observations are equally important, but they're all candid assessments.

I "attack" people who are living 99.99999999% of the time, but I see no reason to sanitize someone's past just because they've died. And when the rest of the Media, from left-wingers on Air America to the mainstream media to right-wingers like Limbaugh, are ALL refusing to mention a person's drawbacks once they're dead, I believe in the case of a public official, that's dangerous. It's dangerous to ignore history, to sanitize it out of sentimentality. So I point out that the person isn't a saint, that his affect on history hasn't been as uniformly positive as the Media is telling us it has. I say "hold on a second, stop canonizing someone who has such a checkered record."

If you want to hear the sanitized line on issues, the rest of the Media provides that. If you want to hear candid opinions and truthful depictions of modern Americans and their actions & discussions, Candorville tries to provide that. If you're offended by that sort of candor, then perhaps Candorville isn't the strip for you, but I thank you for giving it a chance up 'til now. Thanks again for writing, and I hope you have a happy New Year.

***UPDATE***
Looks like I spoke too soon. The above feedback was representative of a handful of e-mails early in the morning, but the vast majority of the feedback since then (all of it, in fact) has been positive. Here's another note which is more representative of the feedback for this strip:

I have been a fan of Candorville since the git go. As a afro-cubano who was raised in Pasadena I can relate to Susana and the entire cast of characters. Since I was a teen in the mid-60s listening to KGFJ 1230am, I have been a fan of James Brown, I also lived the stain of Tricky Dick's scandal and the behind the scenes arrangement he made with Ford to get pardoned, all the while I was on the front lines of the struggle, freedom fighting and protesting the Nam conflict

Your Jan 8th strip with the Godfather at the pearly gates hit home and if not your best, fo sho it is in your top 5 im my book...

More on Candorville and Chicago

Some mention about this on the Web. From the Tribune's Letters to the Editor section:

I'm disappointed in the Trib's decision to cancel the comic strip "Candorville," by Darrin Bell ("Meet our new comic characters," Tempo, Jan. 2). This strip was one of the few highlights of the funny pages, and one of the more consistently funny strips I've seen in almost 30 years of reading them. The characters were fully fleshed out and very relevant. Please bring it back, as I have spoken to many others who feel the same way!

Fred Nickl
Arlington Heights

That thread also includes a typical comment about how Candorville "always" attacks conservatives, which - also typical - ignores Candorville's caustic treatment of Hillary Clinton, Ray Nagin, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Oprah Winfrey, etc... People all along the ideological spectrum, from left to right, have an amusing habit of ignoring countervailing evidence when it might get in the way of a good hate.

And then there are the obscure blogs (even more obscure than this one, if that's possible). From M. Rittle at Random Social Thoughts:

We are lucky if a comic strip in the newspaper depicts non-white characters, much less characters of multiple races and classes in the same strip. Candorville accomplishes this social reality with finesse. I read Candorville because the strip breaks racial stereotypes of poverty through depiction of white homeless men. I read Candorville because the highest paid character in the strip is Latina. I read the comics page in the hope to find a humorous depiction of everyday life realities, and no comic strip satisfies this goal as well as Darrin Bell's Candorville.

***Edit - Rest of the post removed for... oh hell, it's Midnight Friday after a long week, I'm too tired to keep typing. Let's just say it's been removed for the hell of it.***

And now for something good...

Hobbies always help when you need to take your mind off of a soul-crushing loss. One of my hobbies is playing around with Final Cut Pro, and I just recently put together a demo reel for my wife, Laura Bustamante, a beautiful and talented actor whose done voice-over work (in English & Spanish) for everyone from Spielberg to Kaiser Permanente. She also hosts & reports for a TV show about Latino culture, among other things. She just recently finished a run as Diana Morales in the 6th Street Players production of A Chorus Line. Oh, and she's also the inspiration for Susan Garcia. For a break from the madness, here's the demo reel. It's mostly in Spanish, but you'll enjoy it anyway.