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Wrathful Pittsburghers fail to see humor in comic
Syndicated cartoonist apologizes for suggesting Pittsburgh literally stinks
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
By Dan Fitzpatrick, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Darby Conley, creator of the nationally syndicated comic strip "Get Fuzzy," is learning what it means to use an outdated perception of Pittsburgh in 400 newspapers around the world.
It means hate mail, death threats and the scorn of Pittsburghers everywhere.
His "edgy" cat-and-dog cartoon -- which ran Thursday in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Italy, Denmark and Singapore -- lampooned Pittsburgh as a tourist destination known primarily for its smell, a reference to the noxious fumes that once belched from the area's many steel mills and manufacturing plants. After the strip appeared, between 300 and 400 people contacted Conley to remind him, sometimes not so gently, that many of the fumes disappeared years ago.
What began as an "inside joke," Conley conceded in e-mail, "has gone pretty horribly wrong." The 33-year-old artist said he unwittingly "touched a major nerve."
"I've never gotten death threats before, and I've done some pretty controversial cartoons."
In the four years since Conley's comic went national, the Boston-based artist does not remember a more visceral or vitriolic reaction to a single daily strip. Nor does he remember getting this many e-mails (he usually receives 50 to 80).
What makes the outpouring of pride and defensiveness even more remarkable is that Conley's comic does not even appear in Pittsburgh. The Post-Gazette is one of the few, big U.S. metropolitan papers not to carry "Get Fuzzy," which chronicles the life of bachelor Rob Wilco, a sarcastic feline named ''Bucky Katt" and a naively innocent dog named "Satchel Pooch."
The strip in question features Bucky Katt and Wilco trying to recover from the bad fortunes of Wilco's favorite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, by booking a trip out of town. They go to a travel agency.
Bucky Katt, being a cat, wants to know if the agency has "any packaged trips based primarily on smell."
The female travel agent hands the cat a piece of paper and delivers the offending punch line: "Have a look at this pamphlet from the tourism department of Pittsburgh."
Conley, who has visited Pittsburgh once, concedes he should have known better.
After all, he has a college friend living here who complains about the outdated perceptions of his adopted hometown. Plus, Conley was impressed with Pittsburgh during his trip here, believing it to be cleaner than Boston, which Conley claims is "coated in a layer of grime."
Nevertheless, Pittsburgh still became the punch line of his strip, in part because Conley wanted to tease his college friend. He also wanted to test "how many people from Pittsburgh would comment on it."
"I thought most people nowadays knew that Pittsburgh wasn't like that anymore," he said. "The bottom line is if there was any truth in it I don't think I would have done it."
He "didn't think people would take it that seriously."
As Conley is learning, though, the fight over Pittsburgh's image has become serious business indeed, with local economic development groups spending millions to reverse outdated perceptions about the area and land a positive appraisal in national magazines, newspapers and television.
"People here take this very seriously," said former KDKA-TV reporter Bill Flanagan, who led a recent effort to craft a new image for the Pittsburgh area. "There is a little bit of frustration about how hard it is to overcome these misperceptions."
When officials at the Greater Pittsburgh Convention & Visitors Bureau heard about the "Get Fuzzy" cartoon last week, they sent Conley a friendly e-mail thanking him for "free publicity" but urging him to check out Pittsburgh firsthand, according to bureau spokeswoman Laura Ellis.
"We actually smell great," Ellis said.
No response yet from Conley.
But Conley does plan to address Pittsburgh's image again in an upcoming strip. "It will be a light-hearted apology," he said. "I don't want to do a huge mea culpa."
But he does want to "make it clear I had second thoughts about naming of Pittsburgh as [a place] that has a smell."
"I hope most people are not too mad at me and accept my apology. I didn't mean anything by it at all."
Syndicated cartoonist apologizes for suggesting Pittsburgh literally stinks
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
By Dan Fitzpatrick, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Darby Conley, creator of the nationally syndicated comic strip "Get Fuzzy," is learning what it means to use an outdated perception of Pittsburgh in 400 newspapers around the world.
It means hate mail, death threats and the scorn of Pittsburghers everywhere.
His "edgy" cat-and-dog cartoon -- which ran Thursday in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Italy, Denmark and Singapore -- lampooned Pittsburgh as a tourist destination known primarily for its smell, a reference to the noxious fumes that once belched from the area's many steel mills and manufacturing plants. After the strip appeared, between 300 and 400 people contacted Conley to remind him, sometimes not so gently, that many of the fumes disappeared years ago.
What began as an "inside joke," Conley conceded in e-mail, "has gone pretty horribly wrong." The 33-year-old artist said he unwittingly "touched a major nerve."
"I've never gotten death threats before, and I've done some pretty controversial cartoons."
In the four years since Conley's comic went national, the Boston-based artist does not remember a more visceral or vitriolic reaction to a single daily strip. Nor does he remember getting this many e-mails (he usually receives 50 to 80).
What makes the outpouring of pride and defensiveness even more remarkable is that Conley's comic does not even appear in Pittsburgh. The Post-Gazette is one of the few, big U.S. metropolitan papers not to carry "Get Fuzzy," which chronicles the life of bachelor Rob Wilco, a sarcastic feline named ''Bucky Katt" and a naively innocent dog named "Satchel Pooch."
The strip in question features Bucky Katt and Wilco trying to recover from the bad fortunes of Wilco's favorite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, by booking a trip out of town. They go to a travel agency.
Bucky Katt, being a cat, wants to know if the agency has "any packaged trips based primarily on smell."
The female travel agent hands the cat a piece of paper and delivers the offending punch line: "Have a look at this pamphlet from the tourism department of Pittsburgh."
Conley, who has visited Pittsburgh once, concedes he should have known better.
After all, he has a college friend living here who complains about the outdated perceptions of his adopted hometown. Plus, Conley was impressed with Pittsburgh during his trip here, believing it to be cleaner than Boston, which Conley claims is "coated in a layer of grime."
Nevertheless, Pittsburgh still became the punch line of his strip, in part because Conley wanted to tease his college friend. He also wanted to test "how many people from Pittsburgh would comment on it."
"I thought most people nowadays knew that Pittsburgh wasn't like that anymore," he said. "The bottom line is if there was any truth in it I don't think I would have done it."
He "didn't think people would take it that seriously."
As Conley is learning, though, the fight over Pittsburgh's image has become serious business indeed, with local economic development groups spending millions to reverse outdated perceptions about the area and land a positive appraisal in national magazines, newspapers and television.
"People here take this very seriously," said former KDKA-TV reporter Bill Flanagan, who led a recent effort to craft a new image for the Pittsburgh area. "There is a little bit of frustration about how hard it is to overcome these misperceptions."
When officials at the Greater Pittsburgh Convention & Visitors Bureau heard about the "Get Fuzzy" cartoon last week, they sent Conley a friendly e-mail thanking him for "free publicity" but urging him to check out Pittsburgh firsthand, according to bureau spokeswoman Laura Ellis.
"We actually smell great," Ellis said.
No response yet from Conley.
But Conley does plan to address Pittsburgh's image again in an upcoming strip. "It will be a light-hearted apology," he said. "I don't want to do a huge mea culpa."
But he does want to "make it clear I had second thoughts about naming of Pittsburgh as [a place] that has a smell."
"I hope most people are not too mad at me and accept my apology. I didn't mean anything by it at all."
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