'Candorville' Cartoonist Reveals Killed Jackson Joke

By: E&P Staff "Candorville" cartoonist Darrin Bell has revaled on his blog an alteration to his July 7 cartoon that was requested by the Washington Post Writers Group. The subject? Who else? Michael Jackson.

The strip was part of a running series in which the deceased King of Pop visits the dreams of the strip's main character, Lemont Brown. As Lemont and Jackson wait to board a train, the subject of Jackson's bizarre personal life, including the accusations of child molestation brought against the singer in 1993 and 2005 comes up.

The original strip has Jackson saying to Lemont, after Lemont describes the effect Jackson's music had on his life, "I sure did touch people, didn't I?" Lemont responds, "So you admit it?" The final panel depicts Jackson and Lemont saying "What?" to each other.

"My editor [Amy Lago of the Washington Post Writers Group] sent me an e-mail a few days before [the] strip was going to press saying 'I can?t let you do this,'" Bell wrote on his blog, candorville.com. "It had all the urgency of an intervention. My editor was refusing to let me OD. She was pouring my vodka down the drain."

Bell rewrote the last two panels for publication. The third panel of the published version features Lemont saying, "What the heck. You entertained me so I'm willing to overlook your stupid decisions, your possible depravity, and your embarasing naivete. In the last panel Jackson responds, "Thanks," with Lemont saying "It's the least I could do."

"I had to come up with something that would fit the existing art and I had about ten minutes in which to do that," Bell wrote on his blog. "It still works. In fact, all I did was replace the offending last two panels with an earlier draft of the strip, so this is still something I wanted to say."

Speaking to The Post's Comic Riffs blog, Lago said, "There are certain detestable acts, such as rape and pedophilia, that can stop some readers from finding any humor whatsoever in a strip -- or in a column or in a standup routine. Darrin's original strip brought back the pedophile accusation in Panel 3. And also turned it into a punchline. I found that insensitive and felt it would have been hard to defend to anyone who has been the victim of a pedophile and feels that the subject is no joking matter."

Bell responded on his blog, "[A]s much as I admire [Jackson] and his music, he handed people who don?t believe him plenty of reason to doubt his veracity. And I?ve never believed that we should only speak well of the dead. That?s dishonest."

To see both the original and changed strip, go here.