The Dallas Morning News will stop running a cartoonist who embedded an insulting expletive toward President Donald Trump in an editorial cartoon that appeared in hundreds of newspapers last weekend.

The cartoon by Wiley Miller, the artist behind the widely distributed Non Sequitur cartoon strip, depicted a seemingly harmless bear in the likeness of Leonardo DaVinci. The bear is shown re-creating DaVinci's famous works with bears as the characters.

The vulgar statement directed at the president can be found written almost unintelligibly at the bottom right-hand corner of the second of three panels. "We fondly say go [expletive] yourself Trump," the panel said. It set off a backlash on social media that started Sunday night.

Mike Wilson, editor of The News, said the newspaper had published plenty of Miller's controversial comics, but this one went too far.

"We don't mind political commentary in comics, as long as we have a chance to vet it and it meets our standards for publication," Wilson said. "Unfortunately, this time the artist decided to go around his editors and even his own syndicate to publish something he must have known we wouldn't accept. We can't trust him, so we are done with Non Sequitur."

Wilson called it one of "the easier editing decisions we will make all year. We'll have no trouble finding a better way to spend the $8,000 we would've paid for that strip."

In a tweet Sunday night, Miller urged readers to look for the remark. "Some of my sharp-eyed readers have spotted a little Easter egg from Leonardo Bear-Vinci. Can you find it?" Miller wrote.

The version of the comic strip hosted Monday on GoComics.com doesn't include the controversial statement. Image previews created when a link is shared on messaging or social media sites shows the cartoon with the controversial statement, suggesting the words were likely removed after being published on GoComics.com. The cartoon published in The News on Sunday contained the offensive phrase.

The syndicate that distributes Miller's carton, Andrews McMeel, took the blame for not catching the phrase in its editing process. The syndicate said it would have insisted on the phrase's removal.

Miller released his own statement, saying he created the strip about eight weeks ago and never intended to let it publish with the vulgar sentiment.

"I now remember that I was particularly aggravated that day about something the president had done or said, and so I lashed out in a rather sophomoric manner as instant therapy," he said. "It was NOT intended for public consumption, and I meant to white it out before submitting it, but forgot to. Had I intended to make a statement to be understood by the readers, I would have done so in a more subtle, sophisticated manner."

Miller said he has been drawing the cartoon for 27 years and "in all that time, I have never done anything like this, nor do I intend to do so in the future."

The Butler Eagle newspaper in Pennsylvania dropped the strip from regular publication Monday after hearing from angry readers, according to a statement from the paper's publisher and general manager Ron Vodenichar.

"We apologize that such a disgusting trick was perpetuated on the reading public. The Butler Eagle will discontinue that comic immediately," Vodenichar said.

The News was among four or five newspapers that had dropped the cartoon by Monday afternoon, according to a spokesperson for Andrews McMeel.

While it may not show in his comics, Miller's disdain for the president is evident from his Twitteraccount. Miller regularly tweets statements that include vulgar words directed at the president.

The Dallas Morning News had published Miller's Non Sequitur cartoon strip daily. In 2014, Wiley won the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.