A sharp-eyed Butler Eagle reader alerted the newspaper of a scribbled message that took a vulgar shot at President Donald Trump in the Feb. 10 cartoon section.

The sloppy script appears to begin with “We fondly say go ...” was scribbled in the bottom right corner of the middle panel in “Non Sequitur” by cartoonist Wiley Miller.

The comic was pulled from the newspaper’s rotation in February, a decision made by Ron Vodenichar, the Eagle’s general manager and publisher, who said the decision was not a political one.

Other papers across the nation followed suit.

“If the same thing had happened when President Obama was in office, I would have taken the exact same position,” Vodenichar said.

He said the Eagle’s goal of being a family newspaper was the key motive in halting the comic on its pages.

He said the instance was frustrating because the comic is commonly consumed and colored upon by children. The strip is purposefully done in black and white for children to do so, according to the accompanying text.

“He intentionally entices children onto the page to find (the vulgar message),” Vodenichar said. “He laid it out for children to color it.”

Miller responded that he forgot he had put the vulgar comment in because he had drawn the cartoon eight weeks before.

Miller replied to an Eagle interview request with the email addresses of his representatives at his syndication company, Andrews McMeel Syndication. The company later issued an apology.

“If we had discovered it, we would not have distributed the cartoon without it being removed,” the company said in its statement. “We apologize to Non Sequitur’s clients and readers for our oversight.”