Entertainment

10:39 AM CST on Thursday, January 5, 2006

By MIKE PETERS / The Dallas Morning News

Cartoonist Dan Piraro, the creator of Bizarro, has apologized to newspaper readers for "a lapse in judgment" after last Sunday's cartoon was perceived by some to be anti-gay.

"I'm not homophobic, in spite of how it looks," said Mr. Piraro, who lived for many years in Dallas, "and I deeply regret the unfortunate timing of that cartoon."

In the Jan. 1 strip, one scruffy cowboy sings across the campfire to another: "Well, it's been six long weeks since I seen a woman, and yer startin' to look pretty good."

Some readers thought it was a playful joke on Brokeback Mountain, while others saw something more sinister: an attack on gay people. Mr. Piraro said he got numerous complaints from various parts of the country; The Dallas Morning News received one e-mail.

The reaction shocked Mr. Piraro, who says he's done a number of pro-gay rights cartoons over the years. But he was even more surprised by his failure to see it coming.

"I feel like a dope," he says, noting that Sunday comics sections are printed far in advance and Brokeback Mountain wasn't on his radar when he created that particular strip about eight weeks ago. "It was a dumb accident on my part," he says.

Making matters worse was the caption on the panel: "Jeremiah's Last Song." For some readers, that evoked the Matthew Shepard gay-bashing case in Wyoming.

"I was thinking about two hetero guys out on the trail for weeks away from women, and it evolved into this joke," he says. "There was no intention of making it a gay joke – it never occurred to me."

E-mail mpeters@dallasnews.com

Mike Peters writes a column on comics in the Sunday Life section.