Current status / schedule Semi-weekly | Launch date September 25, 2003 Syndicate United Media | |
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Website Universal Uclick website Genre(s) Topical humor, satire, current events Similar Ink Pen, The Fusco Brothers, The Duplex, Tank McNamara, You Can with Beakman | ||
Bad Reporter is a semi-weekly editorial cartoon in comic strip format that first appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on September 25, 2003.
It typically contains four panels, the first a simple black panel with a caricature of creator Don Asmussen and the slogan "The lies behind the truth, and the truth behind those lies that are behind that truth". The remaining three are spoofs (parodies) of newspaper articles containing a mock-up of a prominent newspaper masthead (such as the Chronicle or the New York Times), a headline, a simulated photograph, and a short text introduction or lead. Images are often obviously doctored file photographs or images from recent newspapers. Often there are humorous sidebars and other graphics.
The strip grew out of an earlier effort for the paper titled The San Francisco Comic Strip. Its first topic was the recall of Governor Gray Davis. It then moved on to cover the 2004 presidential election and events beyond.
The humor is generally topical and absurdist, describing one local or national current event in the terms and context of another. The strip often focuses on political scandals in San Francisco, California. For example, a panel from one 2007 strip describes a notorious brawl between students at a local Catholic high school and a visiting Yale University a cappella glee club in terms usually used with respect to the Iraq War (the 2003 United States military action in Iraq), with local celebrities the Brown Twins humorously portrayed as "warlords" who want the college singer "occupiers" out "right now."
The strip is syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate.