TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: The Comic-Strip Revolution Will Be Televised

The Comic-Strip Revolution Will Be Televised

Monty Solomon (monty@roscom.com)
Mon, 31 Oct 2005 01:30:07 -0500

By LOLA OGUNNAIKE

Los Angeles

FANS fearing that "The Boondocks," the wildly scathing, racially
charged comic strip, will lose its bite when it appears on television
next week need not worry. Within the first 10 seconds of the new show
of the same name, viewers will be offered the following Molotov
cocktail of social criticism: "Jesus is black, Ronald Reagan is the
devil and the government is lying about 9/11."

Since its national debut six years ago, the strip, about two black
children living in white suburbia, has slaughtered its share of sacred
cows, eviscerating everyone from Condoleezza Rice and Strom Thurmond
to 50 Cent and Ralph Nader. President Bush has been a frequent
target. As a result, the strip has been suspended, banished to
editorial pages and dropped from some newspapers (it currently appears
in more than 300).

Trying to translate that incendiary spirit into great television will
be a challenge, an expensive challenge at that. Cartoon Network pays
Sony Pictures Television, producer of the series, an estimated license
fee of $400,000 per episode. Add to that the millions the network has
spent on marketing, including many billboards in New York and Los
Angeles trumpeting the show's premiere on Nov. 6 in the late-night
"Adult Swim" block, and "The Boondocks" becomes the most expensive
show the network has made.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/arts/television/30ogun.html?ex=1288324800&en=03145b7ea7594f93&ei=5090

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