Star will run ‘Obama wins’ Doonesbury

By DAVID MARTIN

The Doonesbury comic strip predicting a Barack Obama victory will appear in the FYI section of Wednesday’s Kansas City Star.

Garry Trudeau, the strip’s author, trusts the polls, which show Obama with a comfortable lead heading into tomorrow’s election. Trudeau told the Los Angeles Times that newspapers face a greater risk their presses will break down than McCain will make him look stupid. “So I’ve been encouraging editors to choose hope over fear. And reminding them that if I’m wrong, it’ll be my face that’ll be covered with egg, not theirs.”

The Star prints the FYI section in the afternoon, forcing the paper to make a choice in advance of Tuesday’s results. Derek Donovan, the Star‘s readers’ rep, says in an e-mail that the Doonesbury strip will run as Trudeau wrote it, “along with a note that he was taking a risk in prognosticating.”

Donovan believes the Star‘s editors made the right call. “I say it’s a good choice,” he writes. “It’s interesting if Trudeau’s right or wrong. He’s a big boy and can make his own decisions.”