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Does that panel from the May 19 edition of Judge Parker offend you? It did one reader who wrote to me, calling it "the most disgusting thing I have ever seen in your family newspaper, let alone in the comics!!"

She doesn't specify the offensive part, but I'm guessing it is the mode of dress, although I suppose she could be referring to the sexist language or the tree-hugging dialogue.

Judge Parker has always been one of our tamer -- some have said more boring -- strips. But these old-time serials have always depicted selected female characters in the revealing style and voluptuous shape of, say, Barbie. Remember Daisy Mae Yokum?

Actually, this is refreshing. Normally the complaints about the comics page center on rude and offensive language in some of the more modern cartoons. Having someone upset with Judge Parker simply reaffirms the notion that it takes all kinds.

Tim Rickard is interviewed on the Comic Riffs blog at The Washington Post. Tim is one of our staff artists, along with doing The Joke's on You and a weekly editorial cartoon. But he's interviewed about his job as creator of Brewster Rockit.

The interviewer describes Tim. He is laid-back and witty, delivering anecdotes with a warm Southern drawl. He is unassuming, never stooping to trumpet his MENSA-tested mind. And he wields the self-deprecating, occasionally dark humor of someone whose day job -- as a graphic artist -- depends on the health of the groaning newspaper industry.

The interview is primarily about cartooning, of course, and Tim's current series about the news business.

Tim's most telling quote: Pam is an interesting character. More so than any other I've created for "Brewster," she's developed her own personality independent from me. I haven't directed her development, I've followed it. Her affection for Brewster despite the fact he drives her crazy, her short fuse and explosive temper, and lately her surprising shallow materialistic streak.

Got to disagree with you on that one, Tim. You and Pam sound like twins to me. (I kid because I love.)

In any case, so that Tim doesn't get too big of a head, he should know that I get almost as many requests to cancel Brewster Rockit as I get to bring back Mark Trail.

The Doonesbury strip for Wednesday is set in Iraq with his military characters sitting around a television as Obama is declared the next President of the United States.

Risky? Reckless?

Not for a cartoonist, but there's some discussion on the journalism listservs that suggests that this assumed outcome of Tuesday's election is a limb too far for newspapers.

I don't understand that concern, given Trudeau's cartooning history. I'm thinking that if McCain wins, the embarrassment is Trudeau's, not ours. Isn't there anyone who doesn't think he's liberal? Besides, if McCain does win, just imagine how much fun it will be to watch how Trudeau handles the turnabout.

The syndicate is offering a replacement strip -- reruns from August -- which would be even stranger to run next week, seems to me.

Thoughts?

Update: Trudeau responds at washingtonpost.com: If I didn't call the election, I'd have no premise for the week and be forced to write about something else. I didn't want to write about something else. This is history.

If Obama wins, I'm in the flow and commenting on a phenomenon. If he loses, it'll be a massive upset, and the goofy misprediction of a comic strip will be pretty much lost in the uproar. I figure I can survive a little egg on my face.

I agree with him.

Early returns are in: More people have written in about dropping "For Better or For Worse" than about the elimination of three Op-Ed pages per week.

Draw your own conclusions.

Wednesday update: The ever-competitive Allen Johnson now reports he is getting a steady flow about the Op-Ed page and has caught up. I hope he's right.

Robert Niles has some good advice, and it makes me cringe.

If you call your readers stupid for reading the content in your newspaper, don't be surprised when they quit reading your paper altogether.

He's referring to an L.A. Times article about readers of the comic strip, "For Better or For Worse." I don't know that the writer is actually calling them stupid as affectionately poking fun at them. Or maybe with them.

Sad, isn't it, when you can't really tell what the writer's point is in an article.

Still, Niles is right. It's one thing for a newspaper reader to make fun of the stuff in the paper; heck, it's his right. It's another thing when it comes from the newspaper itself. If I were a "For Better or For Worse" reader, I'd be chagrined.

I say all this because, apparently unlike the Times, we are canceling the strip beginning Monday because it is going into repurposed reruns. Our practice is not to publish reruns. So, despite the strip's popularity, we're going to let it go. I expect some pushback, too. Happens.

On occasion, readers tell me that they don't like our comics selection. Not funny, is the common refrain, although one group thinks that Zits, Get Fuzzy and Pearls before Swine are terrible, and another group says that Ziggy, Family Circus and Beetle Bailey are snooze inducing.

Today we upset both by republishing last Monday's strips. (How can you tell, I asked one caller, who was not amused.) Tomorrow, we'll publish today's correct comics and Tuesday's, doubling either their pleasure or their pain, depending.

As I've often noted, while we journalists spend most of our time on the journalism, an abundance of readers want the regular things -- horoscope, comics, bridge -- that we add no value to, other than delivering them to their homes. That should tell us something.

Staff artist/cartoonist Tim Rickard draws a reader-participation cartoon each week called "The Joke's on You." It is popular and readers normally dozens of funny captions. This week, though, Tim raises a more interesting question.

This is his cartoon of May 2.

This is Parade magazine's cartoon of May 11.

Batman and Ironman sitting in a bar in Tim's. Batman and Superman sitting in a bar in Parade's.

Tim's nice about the uncanny coincidence: I don't know what kind of responses they'll get with a national audience, but I'll put you guys up against them any day. We'll compare their best with yours next week. Yes, it's a cartoon smackdown!

As you can read, there are at least 100 submitted captions for Tim's. Take that, Parade.

A reader thinks the current Dilbert series involving a character named Jesus is offensive. Here is today's.

Are you intentionally trying to see how many Christians read the comics? The Dilbert series that is running right now is so offensive during this season of Lent that I do not have ample words to express my dismay. The new employee Jesus (Hey-Zeus) turning coffee into wine, and giving Wally his normal sight back left me incredulous this morning.

Just wait until the sermons start rolling into your offices. Freedom of speech does not excuse a person from freedom of good judgment. I guess I found enough words to express my dismay.

What is it with cartoonists and religion? I readily admit that I don't understand why people get worked up over what cartoonists draw. When you make your living making fun of authority and institutions as Scott Adams does, religion is fair game. But it is just a comic strip, and it's meant to evoke a response. This series seems to be in questionable taste, but I don't find it offensive. Do you?

(I don't find it all that funny, either, but I know that humor takes all kinds.)

Thursday update: Other reactions here, here, here and here.

On Sunday, 11 newspaper cartoonists will protest the lack of a greater number of cartoonists of color on newspaper comics pages.

But for one day -- this Sunday -- 11 cartoonists of color will be drawing essentially the same comic strip, using irony to literally illustrate that point. In each strip, the artists will portray a white reader grousing about a minority-drawn strip, complaining that it's a "Boondocks" rip-off and blaming it on "tokenism." "It's the one-minority rule," says Lalo Alcaraz ("La Cucaracha"). "We've got one black guy and we've got one Latino. There's not room for anything else."

On Sundays, we have two comic strips with dominant minority characters -- Curtis and Jump Start. That's out of 22 total strips. Pretty bad.

I can't imagine an editor saying "we already have a black strip." But it is true that we look at categories -- a few serials, a few single panels, a few family based strips, a few based around kids, a few with animals. And then there are those old boring standbys that you can't get rid of because your audience goes ballistic. Some readers just don't like new. Bottom line: we look for funny and clever.

I've made my sentiments about the comics pages known: don't actively mess with them. The pain isn't worth the gain.

But when one of the current strips ends its run as happens every so often, it's time to further diversify the page.

Changing comic strips is in the news again. We newspapers love to write about this topic.

My advice: Leave the comics pages alone. Maybe back in our parents' days, comics sold newspapers, but I would like to see evidence from the 21st century supporting the notion that they do now. People have way too many other sources of amusement these days.

I used to buy the editor line that comics are the way to get kids into the paper habit. That argument made some sense 30 years ago. I doubt we get many new readers that way now.

Readers write to me about comics more than anything else. One sentiment is constant and dominant: Don't change any of the old standards.

Comics are geared to current readers. Unless you're adding space -- meaning you don't have to eliminate any you currently have -- I wouldn't mess with them.

You have more important things to worry about.