Letters to the Editor
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Outland? Not So Much.
Hi, hedonistpoet,
I'd like to agree with you about Breathed's intent, but it's all the needless lines like "messy secrets" and-- mainly-- Breathed's need to present himself as a fictionalized gay stereotype in (rolling eyes) a lavender sweater. If Breathed does a cartoon on racial issues, does he appear in blackface?
If Breathed wanted to make a joke about his own cowardice on gay characters in his strip, he might have just pointed out that while Doonesbury's Garry Trudeau outed one of his main characters fifteen years ago (and even the family strip "For Better or For Worse" tackled a character coming out as gay in the early 1990's), Breathed meely used Steve Dallas's outing as a cheap joke when he ended "Bloom County" and thought he wasn't going to be using the character anymore, and then later when "Outland" didn't work and he needed his old characters back, de-gayed Steve Dallas with what Breathed charmingly titled "De-Poofta" therapy.