Misaimed Fandom/Newspaper Comics

Examples of Misaimed Fandom for characters in Newspaper Comics.


 * Darby Conley's Get Fuzzy has attracted a moderately sized vegan high school and collegiate fanbase due to numerous appearances of PETA apparel. The catch? Bucky uses PETA as a shield for misbehaving under the guise of a revolt against whatever stick is up his butt during that installment, while Satchel is too dumb to know what they're really all about. This isn't official support from the organization - just many younger members without enough English courses under their belt to recognize the mockery of their hijinks. (And maybe a few who don't care.) Will usually occur in forums, blogs, journals, or news commentary box debates.
 * FWIW, Rob is a vegetarian in the comic, regardless of his opinion (if any) on PETA.
 * Obviously not a supporter as PETA speaks against "exploiting" animals, even as pets, and he obviously owns pets.
 * No one can claim Rob is exploiting his pets. Bucky is flagrantly exploiting Rob and Satchel enjoys being Rob's pet.
 * Berke Breathed used to complain that, no matter how unsympathetic he made Steve Dallas seem in The Academia Waltz, many University of Texas students couldn't help but LOVE the character.
 * A similar thing happened with Bill the Cat. No matter what he did with the character, including making him a coke addict, a communist spy, an illegal arms dealer, and Jeanne Kirkpatrick's lover, people couldn't get enough of him. Breathed created Bill to be the anti-Garfield. Breathed must have failed to realize how many people in his audience hate comics!Garfield..
 * To give an example of how ridiculous this was at the time, a UC Berkeley student ran for an elected position at the school as Bill the Cat and won.
 * An in-universe example in (possibly) Drabble: the main character notes that he only realized how very conservative his father is when they went to see Star Wars a New Hope and Dad cheered for Darth Vader.
 * Many real-life human resource directors love Catbert from Dilbert, despite him being a (usually) exaggerated caricature of how thoughtless and self-serving most HR directors are. Nonetheless, there still have been some HR directors out there that have asked Scott Adams to make Catbert nicer, so as to make the portrayal more fair. Thankfully, Adams has not abided their wishes.
 * Catbert is likely an Escapist Character for some of those in the job.