Doonesbury recently made headlines when the cartoon strip featured a character who lost a limb in Iraq. Now, in an unfortunate coincidence, the strip will also feature a severed head.

From Editor & Publisher:

Clients of Gary Trudeau's "Doonesbury" comic were alerted today to the fact that the May 23 strip, drawn in April, "contains the image of a head on a platter." Lee Salem, editor of Universal Press Syndicate, referred to the strip's content as "an unfortunate coincidence," explaining, "Given its timing following the recent grisly tragedy in Iraq, and the realities of Sunday color-production cycles, we felt we should call this to your attention."

Universal will be offering a replacement strip to those newspapers that have not already printed that Sunday's comic section, but it is already too late to make the switch at many other papers. According to Universal, Trudeau plans to post this message on his Web site the morning of May 23, explaining his "chagrin," given the "grizzly tragedy" in Iraq: "Most Sunday sections are prepared five to six weeks in advance, and today's strip was unfortunately overtaken by events. I regret the poor timing and apologize to anyone who was offended by an image that is now clearly inappropriate."

I, obviously, haven't seen the strip yet so I'm withholding any judgment until then. From the article, however, it does sound like an honest coincidence. I don't agree with Trudeau's politics, but I doubt he'd have the bad taste to make light of the Nick Berg murder.