FIRST OFF . . .

The Doonesbury comic strip goes to China for a week beginning today, and its distributor hopes events there in real life don’t turn ugly. Officials at Universal Press Syndicate of Kansas City, Mo., said a violent clash with authorities at the student protests in Beijing could make the strip’s humor appear unseemly. “We have our fingers crossed,” said Lee Salem, editorial director at the syndicate, which distributes Doonesbury to 900 cities. “Assuming there’s not mammoth bloodshed, I think the week (of strips) would still hold up,” Salem said. “The really troublesome part would come if the army would have to resort to violence to remove the students.” The students, however, are due to cease demonstrating on Tuesday. In the series, Uncle Duke’s bespectacled assistant, Honey Ching, wanders into the student demonstration in Beijing’s Tian An Men Square and thinks it’s her class reunion. Running into an old classmate who says, “Reunion? Hee, Hee! Forget it!” Honey replies, “I know! You’re the only classmate I’ve actually seen.”