Oh, the 70's Were an Idyllic Time

Steve Bunche got a bunch of old comics collections from a neighbor and found some gems, including several Pogo books and a copy of BACKSTAGE FROM THE STRIPS. Unbelievably, the above strip is from 1970. Bunche explains:

But the main reason why I’m happy to have received BACKSTAGE AT THE STRIPS is that it contains a strip I never forgot since I first saw it in there three decades ago, namely the following unbelievable DENNIS THE MENACE daily from 1970, and not 1917.

Yes, this actually ran nationwide in 1970, which beggars the question of just how out of touch creator Hank Ketcham was. Were the 1960’s something that didn’t happen for him? Whatever the case, the Cleveland Press printed this apology the day after the strip ran, printing it in place of what would have been that day’s DENNIS THE MENACE installment:

Yesterday’s DENNIS THE MENACE cartoon offended a number of Press readers. The Press apologizes for the affront caused by the cartoonist. It assures subscribers that such a thing will not happen again.

Yet, in the next day's edition, Mr. Mitchell told Dennis the way to beat Jackson was to throw a watermelon at him or to have Margaret stand along the race path. Shortly thereafter, Cleveland had a race riot. No one wanted to say what sparked it, but everyone stopped reading the comics for the next few months.