Letter to the editor, the Ann Arbor News, March 5, 1998:

At last I have been driven to write to you. For years I have wondered what you folks found comical about someone with authority punching out someone under their control. Every time I read Beetle in your paper and Sarge had beat him up, I was upset rather than amused. So what. "It's only a comic strip." Well, this is what it was like for some in the service 40 years ago, and I would be naive to believe it doesn't still occur.

Why not a strip about a policeman pounding a suspect, a drunk beating his wife of girlfriend? Here you show the person with the power doing what is not acceptable and we are supposed to think this is somehow humorous. Maybe something is wrong with my thinking, but this has not set well with me, and I'm glad to express my feelings.

—Paul Wagner
Saline

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