‘The Boondocks’

Re “New Comic Steps Into the Racial Divide,” Commentary, June 13: Managing Editor for Features John P. Lindsay is quoted as equating the violence in “Calvin and Hobbes” with that in “The Boondocks”: “If [Calvin] had been black, you would’ve heard about it . . . it’s interesting that people find it acceptable for Calvin to be violent and mean, and then Huey comes along and he’s black and not acceptable.”

Hogwash! Calvin’s violence was always imaginary, fighting with his stuffed tiger, or doing battle with dinosaurs and extraterrestrial monsters. He would never try to kill another child and then complain, “You’re still alive!!”

The real difference between the two strips lies not in the race of the characters but in the talent, or lack thereof, of the cartoonists. “Calvin and Hobbes,” sometimes violent and fantastical, was always and unfailingly funny. “The Boondocks,” sometimes angry and mean-spirited, is invariably devoid of humor as, I suspect, is editor Lindsay.

MICHAEL COWELL

Norwalk