It used to be, in the old days, that a comic strip character might occasional spout out an exclamation of “@#$%*!”. It was up to the reader’s imagination to decide what might that might represent. It was artful to see a generic outburst voiced by a character while avoiding anything that would offend the sensibilities of the average reader.
There has been more a trend these days, possibly associated with the general decline of civilization, of using a more obvious statement. Rather than being generic, it substitutes in a more well-known phrase for the obvious word. The watershed moment for me was this week, in the Washington Post, where a punchline was “Tell him to #$%* off”.
This seems to be a general trend, though, more like blacking out a word rather than the artful cartoonist’s rendition of “he said something bad”. I have seen others like, “What the @%?" or "I don't give a @*&.” I expect this kind of thing in alternative papers (heck, even just spell it out) but this seems to now be a trend in mainstream cartooning.
It’s not that I personally find it offensive. This is not a complaint–I am just noting what looks to me like a trend. I am wondering if professional cartoonists discuss this sort of thing. Are there any reading this?