Me and Sheila

Bizarro is brought to you today by Aesthetic Assassinations.

Here's another one of those editing screw ups on my part. The cartoon shown here is as it was when I sent it in to King Features. Shortly thereafter, I received a call from my editor explaining that they'd had a lot of complaints about the word "freakin" in other comic strips lately and that it would be wise to change it. Apparently, there are numerous newspaper readers across the country who are offended by even a euphemism of a "bad" word and are willing to make their local editor's life miserable if they see one in their paper.

So the fine folks at King changed the word to "stupid" or something and I was to change it on the color version I sent in later. Both this editing discussion and the one I mentioned a couple of posts ago happened while I was out of town and by the time I got back to the Command Center at Bizarro Global Headquarters, I'd forgotten about them and didn't make the changes.

So x number of newspapers and web sites published the cartoon above one week ago yesterday, with it's magical, taboo, "evil" letter order in tact, but I've not heard of any complaints. Which is good.

On the subject of the GPS, I think this is the coolest invention since Scotch. But I can't say I'm fond of the voice that tells you what to do. I've gotten into shouting matches with that person before, whom I call "Sheila," and even though I always win, she remains smug and unflappable, which annoys me even more. Nowadays, I use the one on my iPhone, which is silent. I miss more turns, but at least Sheila isn't there to point it out.