Community

Notre Dame’s Observer Discontinues ‘Mobile Party’ Comic Which Featured Gay-Bashing Cartoon


Notre Dame, IN–(ENEWSPF)– Staff at the University of Notre Dame’s student newspaper The Observer published a staff report Monday indicating that the Observer Editorial Board has discontinued the publication of the cartoon “The Mobile Party” following the submission and subsequent printing of the offensive Jan. 13 comic strip.

According to The Observer, the primary authors of the strip are Notre Dame seniors Colin Hofman, Jay Wade and Lauren Rosemeyer.

The Observer states:

Per Observer Viewpoint policies, commentaries, including cartoons, submitted to The Observer for publication become property of The Observer unless otherwise discussed with the Editor-in-Chief. The Observer has been made aware of an outside blog authored by the writers of “The Mobile Party” that republished copies of their cartoons as well as cartoons deemed inappropriate for print and correspondence between Observer staff and the writers. This blog is in clear violation of Observer policy.

The Observer reports that the blog has since been removed from the Internet.

Colin Hofman, Jay Wade and Lauren Rosemeyer issued an apology Friday, which reads in part:

We want to apologize for the offensive, distasteful and completely humorless joke that was made and acknowledge the grave error in its production. We cannot begin to express how apologetic we are for everyone who has been hurt by our comic and its implied message.

We do, however, believe that something positive can come from this ugly mistake and hope that we, as members of the Notre Dame community, can take this as an opportunity to readdress the complex issues surrounding homosexuality and its treatment on our campus. Intolerance of homosexuality is a major problem on Notre Dame’s campus. We tried to address it in our comics — using the tool characters to emphasize a mindset that we simply find ridiculous. In aour last comic, we had the human character, our voice of reason, not understand the joke because of its absurd nature. Reasons, however, are not excuses.

The staff reports that writers of comic strips are typically paid for their submissions to The Observer. “The Mobile Party” authors will not be paid for the offensive submission, the paper reports.

Related: Notre Dame’s Observer Apologizes for Gay-Bashing Cartoon


ARCHIVES