Mostly forgotten comic strip Broom-Hilda made headlines yesterday after it appeared to be making light of the tragic Aurora movie theater shooting with a poorly timed joke.

The Chicago Tribune, sister company of Tribune Media Services which distributes Broom-Hilda, issued a formal apology for not catching and pulling the strip in time.

How did this strip get in the newspaper?

We review all comics a week before we begin publishing them (and in the case of the preprinted Sunday funnies, two weeks earlier). During that review we inspect 164 strips in one sitting. If a strip doesn't meet our standards of fairness and taste, we routinely ask for substitutes from the features syndicates that provide our comics. When news breaks that turns a harmless cartoon into one of bad taste, someone flags it in time.

But not this time. Today's "Broom-Hilda" had passed from memory by the time the slayings occurred.

No word yet from Broom-Hilda cartoonist Russell Myers.

Earlier this week, Sally Forth writer Francesco Marciuliano was also compelled to post an apology for the comic's Sunday strip which mentioned opening night of The Dark Knight Rises.

"Such comics are written three months in advance...and so the strip...was in no way a direct comment on–or reaction to–the unbelievable tragedy that occurred this weekend," wrote Marciuliano.

[H/T: The Daily Cartoonist]