Doonesbury
Encyclopedia
Doonesbury is a comic strip
by American cartoonist Garry Trudeau
, that chronicles the adventures and lives of an array of characters of various ages, professions, and backgrounds, from the President of the United States
to the title character, Michael Doonesbury, who has progressed from a college student to a youthful senior citizen in the 40+ years of the strip's daily existence.
Frequently political in nature, Doonesbury features characters representing a range of affiliations, but the cartoon is noted for a liberal bias. The name "Doonesbury" is a combination of the word doone (prep school
slang for "someone who is out to lunch") and the surname
of Charles Pillsbury
, Trudeau's roommate at Yale University
.
Doonesbury is written and pencilled by Garry Trudeau, then inked and lettered by his assistant Don Carlton.
Doonesbury began as a continuation of Bull Tales, which appeared in the Yale University
student newspaper, the Yale Daily News
, beginning September 1968. It focused on local campus events at Yale. The executive editor of the paper in the late 1960s, Reed Hundt
, who later served as chair
of the FCC
, noted that the Daily News had a flexible policy about publishing cartoons: “We publish[ed] pretty much anything.”
As Doonesbury, the strip debuted as a daily strip
in about two dozen newspaper
s on October 26, 1970 — the first strip from Universal Press Syndicate
. A Sunday strip
began on March 21, 1971. Many of the early strips were reprints of the Bull Tales cartoons, with some changes to the drawings and plots. BD’s helmet changed from having a “Y” (for Yale) to a star (for the fictional Walden College). Mike and BD started Doonesbury as roommates; they were not roommates in the Bull Tales.
Doonesbury became well known for its social and political commentary, always timely, and peppered with wry and ironic
humor. It is currently syndicated in approximately 1,400 newspapers worldwide.
Like Li‘l Abner
and Pogo before it, Doonesbury blurred the distinction between editorial cartoon and the funny pages. In May 1975, the strip won Trudeau a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning
, the first strip cartoon to be so honored. That month, Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, the publishers of collections of Doonesbury until the mid-1980s, took out an ad in the New York Times Book Review, marking the occasion by saying: It’s nice for Trudeau and Doonesbury to be so honored, “but it’s quite another thing when the Establishment clutches all of Walden Commune to its bosom.” That same year, then-U.S. President Gerald Ford
acknowledged the stature of the comic strip, telling the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association
at their annual dinner, “There are only three major vehicles to keep us informed as to what is going on in Washington
: the electronic media
, the print media, and Doonesbury, not necessarily in that order.”
In 1977, Trudeau wrote a script for a 26-minute animated special. A Doonesbury Special was produced and directed by Trudeau, along with John Hubley
(who died during the storyboarding stage) and Faith Hubley
. The Special was first broadcast by NBC
on November 27, 1977. It won a Special Jury Award at the Cannes International Film Festival for best short film, and received an Academy Award nomination (for best animated short film), both in 1978. Voice actors for the special included Barbara Harris
, William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
, Jack Gilford
and Will Jordan
. Also included were two songs “sung” by the character Jimmy Thudpucker (actually actor/singer/songwriter/producer James Allen "Jimmy" Brewer), entitled “Stop in the Middle” and “I Do Believe,” also part of the "Special." While the compositions and performances were credited to “Jimmy Thudpucker,” they were in fact co-written and sung by Brewer, who also co-wrote and provided the vocals for "Ginny's Song," a 1976 single on the Warner Bros. Label, and Jimmy Thudpucker's Greatest Hits, an LP released by Windsong Records, John Denver
's subsidiary of RCA Records).
The strip underwent a significant change after Trudeau returned to it from a 22-month hiatus (from January 1983 to October 1984). Before the break in the strip, the characters were eternal college students, living in a commune
together near “Walden College”, which was modelled after Trudeau’s alma mater. During the break, Trudeau helped create a Broadway musical of the strip, showing the graduation of the main characters. The Broadway adaptation opened at the Biltmore Theatre
on November 21, 1983, and played 104 performances. Elizabeth Swados
composed the music for Trudeau’s book and lyrics.
.
Prior to the hiatus, the strip’s characters had aged at the tectonically slow rate standard for comic strips. But when Trudeau returned to Doonesbury, the characters began to age in something close to real time, as in Gasoline Alley
and For Better or for Worse
. Since then, the main characters’ ages and career developments have tracked that of standard media portrayals of baby boomers, with jobs in advertising, law enforcement, and the dot-com boom
. Current events are mirrored through the original characters, their offspring (the “second generation”), and occasional new characters.
Garry Trudeau received the National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Comic Strip Award for 1994, and their Reuben Award for 1995 for his work on the strip.
, a 1989 series set in Tiananmen Square
in Beijing
, China
, a 1993 series involving Zoë Baird
, and a 2005 series involving Harriet Miers
. Trudeau has also displayed fluency in various forms of jargon
, including those of real estate
agents, flight attendant
s, computer scientists, journalist
s, presidential aides, and soldiers in Iraq.
(the same state as Yale), and depicted as devolving into a third-rate institution under the weight of grade inflation
, slipping academic standards, and the end of tenure
—issues that Trudeau has consistently revisited since the original characters graduated. Many of the second generation of Doonesbury characters are attending Walden, a venue Trudeau uses to advance his concerns about academic standards in America.
President King, the leader of Walden College, was originally intended as a parody of Kingman Brewster, President of Yale, but all that remains of that is a certain physical resemblance.
s, they are rarely depicted with their real faces. Originally, strips featuring the President of the United States would show an external view of the White House
, with dialogue emerging from inside. During the Gerald Ford
administration, characters would be shown speaking to Ford at press conferences, and fictional dialogue supposedly spoken by Ford would be written as coming “off-panel.” Similarly, while having several characters as students in a class taught by Henry Kissinger
, the dialogue made up for Kissinger would also come from “off-panel” (although Kissinger had earlier appeared as a character with his face shown in a 1972 series of strips in which he met Mark Slackemeyer while the latter was on a trip to Washington). Sometimes hands, or in rare cases, the back of heads would also be seen.
More recently, personal symbols reflecting some aspect of their character have been used. For example, during the 1980s, character 'Ron Headrest' served as a doppelgänger
for Ronald Reagan
and was depicted as a computer-generated artificial-intelligence, an image based on the television character Max Headroom
. Members of the Bush family
have been depicted as invisible. During his term as Vice President, George H. W. Bush
was first depicted as completely invisible, his words emanating from a little “voice box” in the air. This was originally a reference to the man’s perceived low profile and his denials of knowledge of the Iran-Contra Affair
. (In one strip, published March 20, 1988, the vice president almost materialized, but only made it to an outline before reverting to invisibility.)
Later, George W. Bush
was symbolized by a Stetson
hat atop the same invisible point, because he was Governor of Texas
prior to his presidency (Trudeau accused him of being “all hat and no cattle”, reiterating the characterization of Bush by columnist Molly Ivins
). The point became a giant asterisk
(a la Roger Maris
) following the 2000 presidential elections and the controversy over vote-counting. Later, President Bush’s hat was changed to a Roman
military helmet (again, atop an asterisk) representing imperialism. Towards the end of his first term, the helmet became battered, with the gilt work starting to come off and with clumps of bristles missing from the top. By late 2008, the helmet had been dented almost beyond recognition. No symbol for Barack Obama
has appeared in the strip; the May 30, 2009 strip showed Obama and an aide wondering what the reason for this might be.
Other symbols include a waffle
for the indecisive Bill Clinton
(chosen by popular vote—the other possibility had been a “flipping coin”), an unexploded (but sometimes lit) bomb for the hot-tempered Newt Gingrich
, a feather for the “lightweight” Dan Quayle
and a giant groping hand for Arnold Schwarzenegger
(who is addressed by other characters as “Herr Gröpenfuhrer,” a reference to accusations of sexual assault against Schwarzenegger). Many minor politicians have also been represented as icons over the years, like a swastika
for David Duke
, but only for the purposes of a gag strip or two. Trudeau has made his use of icons something of an in joke to readers, where the first appearance of a new one is often a punchline
in itself.
The long career of the series and continual use of real-life political figures, analysts note, have led to some uncanny cases of the cartoon foreshadowing a national shift in the politicians’ political fortunes. Tina Gianoulis in St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture observes: “In 1971, well before the conservative Reagan years, a forward-looking BD called Ronald Reagan his ‘hero.’ In 1984, almost ten years before Congressman Newt Gingrich
became Speaker of the House, another character worried that he would ‘wake up someday in a country run by Newt Gingrich.’ ” In its 2003 series “John Kerry
: A Candidate in the Making” on the 2004 presidential race, the Boston Globe reprinted and discussed 1971 Doonesbury cartoons of the young Kerry’s Vietnam War protest speeches.
The main characters are a group who attended the fictional Walden College during the strip’s first 12 years, and moved into a commune together in April 1972. Most of the other characters first appeared as family members, friends, or other acquaintances. The original “Walden Commune” residents were Mike Doonesbury
, Zonker Harris
, Mark Slackmeyer
, Nicole, Bernie, and DiDi. In September 1972, Joanie Caucus
joined the comic, meeting Mike and Mark in Colorado and eventually moving into the commune. They were later joined by BD and his girlfriend (later wife) Boopsie, upon B.D.'s return from Vietnam
. Nicole, DiDi, and Bernie were mostly phased out in subsequent years, and Zonker's Uncle Duke
was introduced as the most prominent character outside the Walden group, and the main link to many secondary characters.
The Walden students graduated in 1983, after which the strip began to progress in something closer to real time. Their spouses and developing families became more important after this: Joanie's daughter J.J. Caucus married Mike and they had a daughter, Alex Doonesbury. They divorced, Mike remarried Kim Rosenthal, a Vietnamese refugee (who had appeared in the strip as a baby adopted by a Jewish family just after the fall of Saigon), and J.J. married Zeke Brenner, her former boyfriend and Uncle Duke's former groundskeeper. Joanie married Rick Redfern, and they had a son, Jeff. Uncle Duke
and Roland Hedley
have also appeared often, frequently in more topical settings unconnected to the main characters. In more recent years the second generation has taken prominence as they have grown to college age: Jeff Redfern, Alex Doonesbury, Zonker's nephew Zipper Harris, and Uncle Duke's son Earl.
of Peanuts called Trudeau "unprofessional" for taking a long sabbatical.
In 1975, the Editorial Cartoonists' Society passed a resolution condemning the Pulitzer Prize committee's decision to award Trudeau the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for Doonesbury. After confirming that the award could not be revoked, Trudeau supported the resolution.
Some conservatives
have intensely criticized Doonesbury. Several examples are cited in the Milestones section. The strip has also met criticism from its readers almost since it began syndicated publication. For example, when Lacey Davenport’s husband Dick, in the last moments before his death, calls on God, several conservative pundits called the strip blasphemous. The sequence of Dick Davenport’s final bird-watching and fatal heart attack was run in November 1986.
Doonesbury has angered, irritated, or been rebuked by many of the political figures that have appeared or been referred to in the strip over the years. Outspoken critics have included members of every US Presidential administration since Richard Nixon’s. A 1984 series of strips showing then Vice President George H.W. Bush placing his manhood in a blind trust
—in parody of Bush’s using that financial instrument to fend off concerns that his governmental decisions would be influenced by his investment holdings—brought the politician to complain, “Doonesbury’s carrying water for the opposition. Trudeau is coming out of deep left field.” There have also been other politicians who did not view the way that Doonesbury portrayed them very favorably, including former U.S. House Speaker Tip O'Neill
and former/current California Governor Jerry Brown
.
The strip has also met controversy over every military conflict it has dealt with, including Vietnam
, Grenada
, Panama and both Gulf Wars
. When Doonesbury ran the names of soldiers who had died in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, conservative commentators accused Trudeau of using the American dead to make a profit for himself, and again demanded that the strip be removed from newspapers.
After many letter writing campaigns demanding the removal of the strip were unsuccessful, conservatives changed their tactics, and instead of writing to newspaper editors, they began writing to one of the printers who prints the color Sunday comics. In 2005, Continental Features gave in to their demands, and refused to continue printing the Sunday Doonesbury, causing it to disappear from the 38 Sunday papers that Continental Features printed. Of the 38, only one newspaper The Anniston Star
in Anniston
, Alabama
, continued to carry the Sunday Doonesbury, though of necessity in black and white.
Some newspapers have dealt with the criticism by moving the strip from the comics page to the editorial page, because many people believe that a politically based comic strip like Doonesbury does not belong in a traditionally child-friendly comics section. The Lincoln Journal started the trend in 1973. In some papers (such as the Tulsa World
) Doonesbury appears on the opinions page alongside Mallard Fillmore
, a politically conservative
comic strip.
On the weekend before the November 4, 2008 presidential election, Trudeau submitted a strip that was scheduled to be published on November 5. That the strip depicted soldiers celebrating a win by Barack Obama
brought some criticism that led to Trudeau making a replacement strip available to subscribers who requested one. When asked whether he created the original strip with complete confidence in an Obama victory, Trudeau replied: "'Nope, more like rational risk assessment. Nate Silver
at Fivethirtyeight.com
is now giving McCain a 3.7% chance of winning – pretty comfortable odds. . . . Here's the way I look at it: If Obama wins, I'm in the flow and commenting on a phenomenon. If he loses, it'll be a massive upset, and the goofy misprediction of a comic strip will be pretty much lost in the uproar. I figure I can survive a little egg on my face'."
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
by American cartoonist Garry Trudeau
Garry Trudeau
Garretson Beekman "Garry" Trudeau is an American cartoonist, best known for the Doonesbury comic strip.-Background and education:...
, that chronicles the adventures and lives of an array of characters of various ages, professions, and backgrounds, from the President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
to the title character, Michael Doonesbury, who has progressed from a college student to a youthful senior citizen in the 40+ years of the strip's daily existence.
Frequently political in nature, Doonesbury features characters representing a range of affiliations, but the cartoon is noted for a liberal bias. The name "Doonesbury" is a combination of the word doone (prep school
University-preparatory school
A university-preparatory school or college-preparatory school is a secondary school, usually private, designed to prepare students for a college or university education...
slang for "someone who is out to lunch") and the surname
Family name
A family name is a type of surname and part of a person's name indicating the family to which the person belongs. The use of family names is widespread in cultures around the world...
of Charles Pillsbury
Charles Pillsbury
Charles A. Pillsbury is a mediator, lawyer, and community activist in New Haven, Connecticut, where he is the executive director of Community Mediation, Inc. He is the great-grandson of Charles Alfred Pillsbury, founder of the Pillsbury Company in 1872...
, Trudeau's roommate at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
.
Doonesbury is written and pencilled by Garry Trudeau, then inked and lettered by his assistant Don Carlton.
History
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
student newspaper, the Yale Daily News
Yale Daily News
The Yale Daily News is an independent student newspaper published by Yale University students in New Haven, Connecticut since January 28, 1878...
, beginning September 1968. It focused on local campus events at Yale. The executive editor of the paper in the late 1960s, Reed Hundt
Reed Hundt
Reed E. Hundt was chairman of the United States Federal Communications Commission from 1993 to 1997. Appointed by President Bill Clinton, he served for most of Clinton's first term. He was succeeded by William Kennard.- Biography :Hundt attended high school in Washington D.C at the prestigious St....
, who later served as chair
Chair
A chair is a stable, raised surface used to sit on, commonly for use by one person. Chairs are most often supported by four legs and have a back; however, a chair can have three legs or could have a different shape depending on the criteria of the chair specifications. A chair without a back or...
of the FCC
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
, noted that the Daily News had a flexible policy about publishing cartoons: “We publish[ed] pretty much anything.”
As Doonesbury, the strip debuted as a daily strip
Daily strip
A daily strip is a newspaper comic strip format, appearing on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays....
in about two dozen newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s on October 26, 1970 — the first strip from Universal Press Syndicate
Universal Press Syndicate
Universal Press Syndicate, a subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, is the world's largest independent press syndicate. It distributes lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and other content. Popular columns include Dear Abby, Ann Coulter, Roger Ebert and News of the Weird...
. A Sunday strip
Sunday strip
A Sunday strip is a newspaper comic strip format, where comic strips are printed in the Sunday newspaper, usually in a special section called the Sunday comics, and virtually always in color. Some readers called these sections the Sunday funnies...
began on March 21, 1971. Many of the early strips were reprints of the Bull Tales cartoons, with some changes to the drawings and plots. BD’s helmet changed from having a “Y” (for Yale) to a star (for the fictional Walden College). Mike and BD started Doonesbury as roommates; they were not roommates in the Bull Tales.
Doonesbury became well known for its social and political commentary, always timely, and peppered with wry and ironic
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
humor. It is currently syndicated in approximately 1,400 newspapers worldwide.
Like Li‘l Abner
Li'l Abner
Li'l Abner is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe, featuring a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished town of Dogpatch, Kentucky. Written and drawn by Al Capp , the strip ran for 43 years, from August 13, 1934 through...
and Pogo before it, Doonesbury blurred the distinction between editorial cartoon and the funny pages. In May 1975, the strip won Trudeau a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning
Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning
The Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning has been awarded since 1922 for a distinguished cartoon or portfolio of cartoons published during the year, characterized by originality, editorial effectiveness, quality of drawing, and pictorial effect...
, the first strip cartoon to be so honored. That month, Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, the publishers of collections of Doonesbury until the mid-1980s, took out an ad in the New York Times Book Review, marking the occasion by saying: It’s nice for Trudeau and Doonesbury to be so honored, “but it’s quite another thing when the Establishment clutches all of Walden Commune to its bosom.” That same year, then-U.S. President Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
acknowledged the stature of the comic strip, telling the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association
Radio and Television Correspondents' Association
The Radio and Television Correspondents Association is an American journalism group best known for holding an annual dinner in Washington, D.C., not to be confused with the higher profile White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.-Officers:...
at their annual dinner, “There are only three major vehicles to keep us informed as to what is going on in Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
: the electronic media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
, the print media, and Doonesbury, not necessarily in that order.”
John Hubley
John Hubley was an American animation director, art director, producer and writer of traditional animation films known for both his formal experimentation and for his emotional realism which stemmed from his tendency to cast his own children as voice actors in his films.- Biography :Hubley was...
(who died during the storyboarding stage) and Faith Hubley
Faith Hubley
Faith Hubley was an animator, known for her experimental work both in collaboration with her husband John Hubley, and on her own following her husband's death.-Biography:...
. The Special was first broadcast by NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
on November 27, 1977. It won a Special Jury Award at the Cannes International Film Festival for best short film, and received an Academy Award nomination (for best animated short film), both in 1978. Voice actors for the special included Barbara Harris
Barbara Harris (actress)
Barbara Harris is an American actress who was a Broadway stage star and later became a film actress. She appeared in such films as A Thousand Clowns, Plaza Suite, Nashville, Family Plot, Freaky Friday, Peggy Sue Got Married, and Grosse Pointe Blank...
, William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
William Sloane Coffin
William Sloane Coffin, Jr. was an American liberal Christian clergyman and long-time peace activist. He was ordained in the Presbyterian church and later received ministerial standing in the United Church of Christ....
, Jack Gilford
Jack Gilford
Jack Gilford was an American actor on Broadway, films and television.-Early life:Gilford was born Jacob Aaron Gellman on the lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, and grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn...
and Will Jordan
Will Jordan
Will Jordan is an American character actor who is best known for his resemblance to—and ability to do uncanny impressions of—television host and newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan.-Career:...
. Also included were two songs “sung” by the character Jimmy Thudpucker (actually actor/singer/songwriter/producer James Allen "Jimmy" Brewer), entitled “Stop in the Middle” and “I Do Believe,” also part of the "Special." While the compositions and performances were credited to “Jimmy Thudpucker,” they were in fact co-written and sung by Brewer, who also co-wrote and provided the vocals for "Ginny's Song," a 1976 single on the Warner Bros. Label, and Jimmy Thudpucker's Greatest Hits, an LP released by Windsong Records, John Denver
John Denver
Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. , known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer/songwriter, activist, and humanitarian. After growing up in numerous locations with his military family, Denver began his music career in folk music groups in the late 1960s. His greatest commercial success...
's subsidiary of RCA Records).
The strip underwent a significant change after Trudeau returned to it from a 22-month hiatus (from January 1983 to October 1984). Before the break in the strip, the characters were eternal college students, living in a commune
Commune (intentional community)
A commune is an intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, and, in some communes, work and income. In addition to the communal economy, consensus decision-making, non-hierarchical structures and ecological living have become...
together near “Walden College”, which was modelled after Trudeau’s alma mater. During the break, Trudeau helped create a Broadway musical of the strip, showing the graduation of the main characters. The Broadway adaptation opened at the Biltmore Theatre
Biltmore Theatre
The Samuel J. Friedman Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 261 West 47th Street in midtown-Manhattan.-History:...
on November 21, 1983, and played 104 performances. Elizabeth Swados
Elizabeth Swados
Elizabeth Swados is an American writer, composer, musician, and theatre director. While some of her subject matter is humorous, such as her satirical look at Ronald Reagan, Rap Master Ronnie, and Doonesbury - both collaborations with Garry Trudeau - much of her work deals with dark issues such as...
composed the music for Trudeau’s book and lyrics.
After the hiatus
The strip resumed some time after the events in the musical, with further changes having taken place after the end of the musical’s plot. While Mike, Mark, Zonker, BD, and Boopsie were all now graduates, BD and Boopsie were living in Malibu, where BD was a third-string quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams, and Boopsie was making a living from walk-on and cameo roles. Mark was living in Washington, DC, working for National Public Radio. Michael and JJ had gotten married, and Mike had dropped out of business school to start work in an advertising agency in New York City. Zonker, still not ready for the “real world”, was living with Mike and JJ until he was accepted as a medical student at his Uncle Duke’s “Baby Doc College” in HaitiHaiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
.
Prior to the hiatus, the strip’s characters had aged at the tectonically slow rate standard for comic strips. But when Trudeau returned to Doonesbury, the characters began to age in something close to real time, as in Gasoline Alley
Gasoline Alley
Gasoline Alley is a comic strip created by Frank King and currently distributed by Tribune Media Services. First published November 24, 1918, it is the second longest running comic strip in the US and has received critical accolades for its influential innovations...
and For Better or for Worse
For Better or For Worse
For Better or For Worse is a comic strip by Lynn Johnston that ran for 30 years, chronicling the lives of a Canadian family, The Pattersons, and their friends. The story is set in the fictitious Toronto-area suburban town of Milborough, Ontario. Johnston's strip began in September 1979, and ended...
. Since then, the main characters’ ages and career developments have tracked that of standard media portrayals of baby boomers, with jobs in advertising, law enforcement, and the dot-com boom
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
. Current events are mirrored through the original characters, their offspring (the “second generation”), and occasional new characters.
Garry Trudeau received the National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Comic Strip Award for 1994, and their Reuben Award for 1995 for his work on the strip.
Style
With the exception of Walden College, Trudeau has frequently used real-life settings, based on real scenarios, but with fictional results. Due to deadlines, some real-world events have rendered some of Trudeau’s comics unusable, such as a 1973 series featuring John EhrlichmanJohn Ehrlichman
John Daniel Ehrlichman was counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon. He was a key figure in events leading to the Watergate first break-in and the ensuing Watergate scandal, for which he was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury...
, a 1989 series set in Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square is a large city square in the center of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen Gate located to its North, separating it from the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is the third largest city square in the world...
in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, a 1993 series involving Zoë Baird
Zoë Baird
Zoë Eliot Baird is an American lawyer who is president of the Markle Foundation. She is most known for her role in the Nannygate matter of 1993.-Biography:...
, and a 2005 series involving Harriet Miers
Harriet Miers
Harriet Ellan Miers is an American lawyer and former White House Counsel. In 2005, she was nominated by President George W. Bush to be an Associate Justice of the U.S...
. Trudeau has also displayed fluency in various forms of jargon
Jargon
Jargon is terminology which is especially defined in relationship to a specific activity, profession, group, or event. The philosophe Condillac observed in 1782 that "Every science requires a special language because every science has its own ideas." As a rationalist member of the Enlightenment he...
, including those of real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
agents, flight attendant
Flight attendant
Flight attendants or cabin crew are members of an aircrew employed by airlines primarily to ensure the safety and comfort of passengers aboard commercial flights, on select business jet aircraft, and on some military aircraft.-History:The role of a flight attendant derives from that of similar...
s, computer scientists, journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
s, presidential aides, and soldiers in Iraq.
Walden College
The unnamed college attended by the main characters was later given the name “Walden College,” revealed to be in ConnecticutConnecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
(the same state as Yale), and depicted as devolving into a third-rate institution under the weight of grade inflation
Grade inflation
Grade inflation is the tendency of academic grades for work of comparable quality to increase over time.It is frequently discussed in relation to U.S. education, and to GCSEs and A levels in England and Wales...
, slipping academic standards, and the end of tenure
Tenure
Tenure commonly refers to life tenure in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause.-19th century:...
—issues that Trudeau has consistently revisited since the original characters graduated. Many of the second generation of Doonesbury characters are attending Walden, a venue Trudeau uses to advance his concerns about academic standards in America.
President King, the leader of Walden College, was originally intended as a parody of Kingman Brewster, President of Yale, but all that remains of that is a certain physical resemblance.
Use of real-life politicians as characters
Even though Doonesbury frequently features major real-life U.S. politicianPolitician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
s, they are rarely depicted with their real faces. Originally, strips featuring the President of the United States would show an external view of the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
, with dialogue emerging from inside. During the Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
administration, characters would be shown speaking to Ford at press conferences, and fictional dialogue supposedly spoken by Ford would be written as coming “off-panel.” Similarly, while having several characters as students in a class taught by Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger
Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...
, the dialogue made up for Kissinger would also come from “off-panel” (although Kissinger had earlier appeared as a character with his face shown in a 1972 series of strips in which he met Mark Slackemeyer while the latter was on a trip to Washington). Sometimes hands, or in rare cases, the back of heads would also be seen.
More recently, personal symbols reflecting some aspect of their character have been used. For example, during the 1980s, character 'Ron Headrest' served as a doppelgänger
Doppelgänger
In fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger is a paranormal double of a living person, typically representing evil or misfortune...
for Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
and was depicted as a computer-generated artificial-intelligence, an image based on the television character Max Headroom
Max Headroom (TV series)
Max Headroom is a British-produced American science fiction television series by Chrysalis/Lakeside Productions that aired in the United States on ABC from March 1987 to May 1988. The series was based on the Channel 4 British TV pilot Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future...
. Members of the Bush family
Bush family
The Bush family is a prominent American family. Along with many members who have been successful bankers and businessmen, across three generations the family includes two U.S. Senators, one Supreme Court Justice, two Governors, one Vice President and two Presidents...
have been depicted as invisible. During his term as Vice President, George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
was first depicted as completely invisible, his words emanating from a little “voice box” in the air. This was originally a reference to the man’s perceived low profile and his denials of knowledge of the Iran-Contra Affair
Iran-Contra Affair
The Iran–Contra affair , also referred to as Irangate, Contragate or Iran-Contra-Gate, was a political scandal in the United States that came to light in November 1986. During the Reagan administration, senior Reagan administration officials and President Reagan secretly facilitated the sale of...
. (In one strip, published March 20, 1988, the vice president almost materialized, but only made it to an outline before reverting to invisibility.)
Later, George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
was symbolized by a Stetson
Stetson
Stetsons are the brand of hat manufactured by the John B. Stetson Company of St. Joseph, Missouri.Stetson eventually became the world’s largest hat maker, producing over 3.3 million hats a year in a factory spread over . Today Stetson remains a family-owned concern...
hat atop the same invisible point, because he was Governor of Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
prior to his presidency (Trudeau accused him of being “all hat and no cattle”, reiterating the characterization of Bush by columnist Molly Ivins
Molly Ivins
Mary Tyler "Molly" Ivins was an American newspaper columnist, populist, political commentator, humorist and author.-Early life and education:Ivins was born in Monterey, California, and raised in Houston, Texas...
). The point became a giant asterisk
Asterisk
An asterisk is a typographical symbol or glyph. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often pronounce it as star...
(a la Roger Maris
Roger Maris
Roger Eugene Maris was an American Major League Baseball right fielder. During the 1961 season, he hit a record 61 home runs for the New York Yankees, breaking Babe Ruth's single-season record of 60 home runs...
) following the 2000 presidential elections and the controversy over vote-counting. Later, President Bush’s hat was changed to a Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
military helmet (again, atop an asterisk) representing imperialism. Towards the end of his first term, the helmet became battered, with the gilt work starting to come off and with clumps of bristles missing from the top. By late 2008, the helmet had been dented almost beyond recognition. No symbol for Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
has appeared in the strip; the May 30, 2009 strip showed Obama and an aide wondering what the reason for this might be.
Other symbols include a waffle
Waffle (speech)
The term waffle, particularly outside the U.S., denotes language without meaning; blathering, babbling, droning. One might waffle throughout an essay or a presentation, when not having enough material, or needing to fill in time. Etymologists say the term was derived from waff, a 17th-century...
for the indecisive Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
(chosen by popular vote—the other possibility had been a “flipping coin”), an unexploded (but sometimes lit) bomb for the hot-tempered Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich
Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich is a U.S. Republican Party politician who served as the House Minority Whip from 1989 to 1995 and as the 58th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999....
, a feather for the “lightweight” Dan Quayle
Dan Quayle
James Danforth "Dan" Quayle served as the 44th Vice President of the United States, serving with President George H. W. Bush . He served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from the state of Indiana....
and a giant groping hand for Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
(who is addressed by other characters as “Herr Gröpenfuhrer,” a reference to accusations of sexual assault against Schwarzenegger). Many minor politicians have also been represented as icons over the years, like a swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
for David Duke
David Duke
David Ernest Duke is a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan an American activist and writer, and former Republican Louisiana State Representative. He was also a former candidate in the Republican presidential primaries in 1992, and in the Democratic presidential primaries in...
, but only for the purposes of a gag strip or two. Trudeau has made his use of icons something of an in joke to readers, where the first appearance of a new one is often a punchline
Punch line
A punch line is the final part of a joke, comedy sketch, or profound statement, usually the word, sentence or exchange of sentences which is intended to be funny or to provoke laughter or thought from listeners...
in itself.
The long career of the series and continual use of real-life political figures, analysts note, have led to some uncanny cases of the cartoon foreshadowing a national shift in the politicians’ political fortunes. Tina Gianoulis in St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture observes: “In 1971, well before the conservative Reagan years, a forward-looking BD called Ronald Reagan his ‘hero.’ In 1984, almost ten years before Congressman Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich
Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich is a U.S. Republican Party politician who served as the House Minority Whip from 1989 to 1995 and as the 58th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999....
became Speaker of the House, another character worried that he would ‘wake up someday in a country run by Newt Gingrich.’ ” In its 2003 series “John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
: A Candidate in the Making” on the 2004 presidential race, the Boston Globe reprinted and discussed 1971 Doonesbury cartoons of the young Kerry’s Vietnam War protest speeches.
Characters
Doonesbury has a large group of recurring characters, with 24 currently listed at the strip’s website. There, it notes that “readers new to Doonesbury sometimes experience a temporary bout of character shock,” as the sheer number of characters—and the historical connections among them—can be overwhelming.The main characters are a group who attended the fictional Walden College during the strip’s first 12 years, and moved into a commune together in April 1972. Most of the other characters first appeared as family members, friends, or other acquaintances. The original “Walden Commune” residents were Mike Doonesbury
Mike Doonesbury
Michael James "Mike" Doonesbury is the main character in Garry Trudeau's comic strip Doonesbury. He started out as a nerdish freshman from Tulsa at the fictional Walden College, and shared a dorm room with B.D. Currently he is married to Kim Rosenthal, and divorced from J.J. Caucus. Mike's...
, Zonker Harris
Zonker Harris
Zonker Harris is the stereotypical hippie character in Garry Trudeau's comic strip Doonesbury. He made his first appearance as a perennial pot-smoking pest plaguing B.D.'s football team in 1971...
, Mark Slackmeyer
Mark Slackmeyer
Mark Sheldon Slackmeyer is a character in the comic strip Doonesbury. Mark starts out as a radical at Walden College, and leads several peace rallies . The character was initially modeled after Mark Rudd, then in the news as a leader of Columbia University's student protests of 1968...
, Nicole, Bernie, and DiDi. In September 1972, Joanie Caucus
Joanie Caucus
Joanie Caucus is a character in Garry Trudeau's comics strip Doonesbury.She first appeared in September 1972 in which she has a fight with her husband, Clinton, over her rights as a woman. She finds that her recently acquired feminist beliefs clash with his idea of how a wife should behave, and she...
joined the comic, meeting Mike and Mark in Colorado and eventually moving into the commune. They were later joined by BD and his girlfriend (later wife) Boopsie, upon B.D.'s return from Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. Nicole, DiDi, and Bernie were mostly phased out in subsequent years, and Zonker's Uncle Duke
Uncle Duke
Uncle Duke is a fictional character in the comic strip Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau.He is nominally Zonker Harris's uncle, albeit an "uncle by courtesy" only. Duke was originally a straightforward caricature of the late gonzo journalist Hunter S...
was introduced as the most prominent character outside the Walden group, and the main link to many secondary characters.
The Walden students graduated in 1983, after which the strip began to progress in something closer to real time. Their spouses and developing families became more important after this: Joanie's daughter J.J. Caucus married Mike and they had a daughter, Alex Doonesbury. They divorced, Mike remarried Kim Rosenthal, a Vietnamese refugee (who had appeared in the strip as a baby adopted by a Jewish family just after the fall of Saigon), and J.J. married Zeke Brenner, her former boyfriend and Uncle Duke's former groundskeeper. Joanie married Rick Redfern, and they had a son, Jeff. Uncle Duke
Uncle Duke
Uncle Duke is a fictional character in the comic strip Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau.He is nominally Zonker Harris's uncle, albeit an "uncle by courtesy" only. Duke was originally a straightforward caricature of the late gonzo journalist Hunter S...
and Roland Hedley
Roland Hedley
Roland Burton Hedley, III is a fictional character in the comic strip Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau, inspired by the on-air style of the veteran US reporter Sam Donaldson....
have also appeared often, frequently in more topical settings unconnected to the main characters. In more recent years the second generation has taken prominence as they have grown to college age: Jeff Redfern, Alex Doonesbury, Zonker's nephew Zipper Harris, and Uncle Duke's son Earl.
Milestones
Doonesbury delved into a number of political and social issues, causing controversies and breaking new ground on the comics pages. Among the milestones:- A November 1972 strip depicting Zonker telling a little boy in a sandbox a fairy tale ending in the protagonist being awarded “his weight in fine, uncut Turkish hashishHashishHashish is a cannabis preparation composed of compressed stalked resin glands, called trichomes, collected from the unfertilized buds of the cannabis plant. It contains the same active ingredients but in higher concentrations than unsifted buds or leaves...
” raised an uproar.
- During the Watergate scandalWatergate scandalThe Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...
, a strip showed Mark on the radio with a “Watergate profile” of John MitchellJohn N. MitchellJohn Newton Mitchell was the Attorney General of the United States from 1969 to 1972 under President Richard Nixon...
, declaring him “Guilty! Guilty, guilty, guilty!!” A number of newspapers removed the strip and one, The Washington Post, even ran an editorial criticizing the cartoon. Following Nixon's death in 1994, the strip was rerun with all the instances of the word "guilty" crossed out and replaced with "flawed", lampooning the media's apparent glossing-over of his image in the wake of his death.
- In June 1973, the military newspaper Stars and StripesStars and Stripes (newspaper)Stars and Stripes is a news source that operates from inside the United States Department of Defense but is editorially separate from it. The First Amendment protection which Stars and Stripes enjoys is safeguarded by Congress to whom an independent ombudsman, who serves the readers' interests,...
dropped Doonesbury for being too political. The strip was quickly reinstated after hundreds of protests by military readers in the U.S. Army.
- September 1973: The Lincoln Journal became the first newspaper to move Doonesbury to its editorial page.
- In February 1976, Andy LippincottAndy Lippincott-Publication history:The character first appears in January 1976, in a law library. Joanie Caucus becomes attracted to him while working before Lippincott confesses he is gay. Joanie is heartbroken, and takes some time to recover. Lippincott contributes position papers to Virginia Slade's failed...
, a classmate of Joanie’s, told her that he was gay. Dozens of papers opted not to publish the storyline, with Miami Herald editor Larry Jinks saying, “We just decided we weren’t ready for homosexuality in a comic strip.”
- In November 1976, when the storyline included the blossoming romance of Rick Redfern and Joanie Caucus, four days of strips were devoted to a transition from one apartment to another, ending with a view of the two together in bed, marking the first time any nationally run comic strip portrayed premarital sex in this fashion. Again, the strip was removed from the comics pages of a number of newspapers, although some newspapers opted to simply repeat the opening frame of that day's strip.
- In June 1978, a strip included a coupon listing various politicians and dollar amounts allegedly taken from Korean lobbyists, to be clipped and glued to a postcard to be sent to the Speaker of the HouseSpeaker of the United States House of RepresentativesThe Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, or Speaker of the House, is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives...
Tip O'NeillTip O'NeillThomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill, Jr. was an American politician. O'Neill was an outspoken liberal Democrat and influential member of the U.S. Congress, serving in the House of Representatives for 34 years and representing two congressional districts in Massachusetts...
, resulting in an overflow of mail to the Speaker's office.
- In August 1979, Trudeau took a three-week vacation from the strip, uncommon among comic strip writers and artists.
- From January 1983 through September 1984, the strip was not published so that Trudeau could bring it to BroadwayBroadway theatreBroadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
.
- In June 1985, a series of strips included photos of Frank SinatraFrank SinatraFrancis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
associating with a number of people with mafiaMafiaThe Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
connections, one alongside text from President Ronald ReaganRonald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
’s speech awarding Sinatra the Medal of FreedomPresidential Medal of FreedomThe Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with thecomparable Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award in the United States...
.
- In January 1987, politicians were again declared “Guilty, guilty, guilty.” This time it was Donald ReganDonald ReganDonald Thomas Regan ,was the 66th United States Secretary of the Treasury, from 1981 to 1985, and Chief of Staff from 1985 to 1987 in the Ronald Reagan Administration, where he advocated "Reaganomics" and tax cuts to create jobs and stimulate production.-Early life:Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts,...
, John PoindexterJohn PoindexterJohn Marlan Poindexter is a retired United States naval officer and Department of Defense official. He was Deputy National Security Advisor and National Security Advisor for the Reagan administration. He was convicted in April 1990 of multiple felonies as a result of his actions in the Iran-Contra...
, and Oliver NorthOliver NorthOliver Laurence North is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer, political commentator, host of War Stories with Oliver North on Fox News Channel, a military historian, and a New York Times best-selling author....
, referring to their roles in the Iran-Contra AffairIran-Contra AffairThe Iran–Contra affair , also referred to as Irangate, Contragate or Iran-Contra-Gate, was a political scandal in the United States that came to light in November 1986. During the Reagan administration, senior Reagan administration officials and President Reagan secretly facilitated the sale of...
.
- In June 1989, several days’ comics (which had already been drawn and written) had to be replaced with repeats, due to the humor of the strips being considered in bad taste in light of the violent crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen SquareTiananmen Square protests of 1989The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China beginning on 15 April 1989...
in BeijingBeijingBeijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
. Trudeau himself asked for the recall. despite an interview published with Universal Press Syndicate Editorial Director Lee Salem in the May 28, 1989 San Jose Mercury NewsSan Jose Mercury NewsThe San Jose Mercury News is a daily newspaper in San Jose, California. On its web site, however, it calls itself Silicon Valley Mercury News. The paper is owned by MediaNews Group...
, in which Salem stated his hopes the strips could still be used.
- In May 1990, the storyline included the death of Andy LippincottAndy Lippincott-Publication history:The character first appears in January 1976, in a law library. Joanie Caucus becomes attracted to him while working before Lippincott confesses he is gay. Joanie is heartbroken, and takes some time to recover. Lippincott contributes position papers to Virginia Slade's failed...
, who succumbed to AIDSAIDSAcquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
.
- In November 1991, a series of strips appeared to give credibility to a real-life prison inmate who stated that former Vice-President Dan QuayleDan QuayleJames Danforth "Dan" Quayle served as the 44th Vice President of the United States, serving with President George H. W. Bush . He served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from the state of Indiana....
had connections with drug dealers; the strip sequence was dropped by some two dozen newspapers, in part because the allegations had been investigated and dispelled previously. (Six years later, the reporter who broke the Quayle story some weeks after the Doonesbury cartoons later published a book saying he no longer believed the story had been true.)
- In December 1992, Working Woman magazine named two characters (Joanie Caucus and Lacey Davenport) as role models for women.
- In November 1993, a storyline dealing with California wildfires was dropped from several California newspapers, including the Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, The Orange County RegisterThe Orange County RegisterThe Orange County Register is a daily newspaper published in Santa Ana, California. The Register is the flagship publication of Freedom Communications, Inc., which publishes 28 daily newspapers, 23 weekly newspapers, Coast magazine, and several related Internet sites.The Register is notable for its...
, and The San Diego Union-TribuneThe San Diego Union-Tribune-Predecessors:The predecessor newspapers of the Union-Tribune were:* San Diego Sun, founded 1861 and merged with the Evening Tribune in 1939.* San Diego Union, founded October 10, 1868.* Evening Tribune, founded December 2, 1895.-Ownership:...
.
- In June 1994, the Roman Catholic Church took issue with a series of strips dealing with the book Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe by John BoswellJohn Boswell (historian)John Eastburn Boswell was a prominent historian and a professor at Yale University. Many of Boswell's studies focused on the issue of homosexuality and religion, specifically homosexuality and Christianity....
. A few newspapers dropped single strips from the series, and the Bloomington, Illinois Pantagraph refused to run the entire series.
- In March 1995, John McCainJohn McCainJohn Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
denounced Trudeau on the floor of the Senate: “Suffice it to say that I hold Trudeau in utter contempt.” This was in response to a strip about Bob DoleBob DoleRobert Joseph "Bob" Dole is an American attorney and politician. Dole represented Kansas in the United States Senate from 1969 to 1996, was Gerald Ford's Vice Presidential running mate in the 1976 presidential election, and was Senate Majority Leader from 1985 to 1987 and in 1995 and 1996...
’s strategy of exploiting his war record in his presidential campaign. The quotation was used on the cover of Trudeau’s book Doonesbury Nation. (McCain and Trudeau later made peace: McCain wrote the foreword to The Long Road Home, Trudeau’s collection of comic strips dealing with BD’s leg amputation during the second Iraq war.)
- Later in 1995 Mark SlackmeyerMark SlackmeyerMark Sheldon Slackmeyer is a character in the comic strip Doonesbury. Mark starts out as a radical at Walden College, and leads several peace rallies . The character was initially modeled after Mark Rudd, then in the news as a leader of Columbia University's student protests of 1968...
, a gay character from the strip, was seen in the final days of Berkeley BreathedBerkeley BreathedGuy Berkeley "Berke" Breathed is an American cartoonist, children's book author/illustrator, director and screenwriter, best known for Bloom County, a 1980s cartoon-comic strip that dealt with sociopolitical issues as understood by fanciful characters and through humorous analogies...
’s comic Outland heading off with a main character from that series, Steve DallasSteve DallasSteve Dallas is a fictional character in the American comic strips of Berke Breathed, most famously Bloom County in the 1980s.He was first introduced as an obnoxious frat boy in the college strip The Academia Waltz, which ran in the University of Texas's Daily Texan during 1978 and 1979...
, to the great amusement of many readers of both strips given the one-time "tensions" between their respective authors.
- In February 1998, a strip dealing with Bill ClintonBill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
’s sex scandalLewinsky scandalThe Lewinsky scandal was a political sex scandal emerging in 1998 from a sexual relationship between United States President Bill Clinton and a 25-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. The news of this extra-marital affair and the resulting investigation eventually led to the impeachment of...
was removed from the comics pages of a number of newspapers because it included the phrases “oral sex” and “semen-streaked dress.”
- In November 2000, a strip was not run in some newspapers when Duke says of then-presidential candidate George W. BushGeorge W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
: “He’s got a history of alcohol abuse and cocaineCocaineCocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
”.
- In September 2001, a strip perpetuated the Internet hoax that claimed George W. BushGeorge W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
had the lowest IQ of any president in the last 50 years, half that of Bill ClintonBill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
. When caught repeating the hoax, Trudeau apologized "with a trademark barb - he said he deeply apologized for unsettling anyone who thought the president quite intelligent."
- In 2003 a cartoon that publicized the recent medical research suggesting a connection between masturbation and a reduced risk of prostate cancer, with one character alluding to the practice as “self-dating”, was not run in many papers; pre-publication sources indicated that as many as half of the 700 papers to which it was syndicated were planning not to run the strip.
- February 2004: Trudeau used his strip to make the apparently genuine offer of USD$10,000 (to the USO in the winner’s name) for anyone who can personally confirm that George W. BushGeorge W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
was actually present during a part of his service in the National GuardUnited States National GuardThe National Guard of the United States is a reserve military force composed of state National Guard militia members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force service for the United States. Militia members are citizen soldiers, meaning they work part time for the National...
. Reuters and CNN reported by the end of that week that despite 1,300 responses, no credible evidence had been offered; as of 2006, the offer remains unclaimed.
- April 2004: On April 21, after nearly 34 years, readers finally saw BD’s head without some sort of helmet. In the same strip, it was revealed that he had lost a leg in the Iraq War. Later that month, after awakening and discovering his situation, BD exclaims “SON OF A BITCH!!!” The single strip was removed from many papers—including the Boston Globe—although in others, such as NewsdayNewsdayNewsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
, the offending word was replaced by a line. The Dallas Morning NewsThe Dallas Morning NewsThe Dallas Morning News is the major daily newspaper serving the Dallas, Texas area, with a circulation of 264,459 subscribers, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported in September 2010...
ran the cartoon uncensored, with a footnote that the editor believed profanity was appropriate, given the subject matter. An image of BD with amputated leg also appeared on the cover of Rolling StoneRolling StoneRolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
that summer (issue 954).
- May 2004: two Sunday strips were published containing only the names of soldiers killed in the War in Iraq. Further such lists were printed in May 2005, May/June 2006 and 2007.
- On March 7, 2005, the series began a sequence memorializing the death by suicide of Hunter S. ThompsonHunter S. ThompsonHunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author who wrote The Rum Diary , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 .He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to...
, the inspiration for the character of Duke. In the sequence, Duke’s head explodes upon reading the news; no newspapers are known to have refused to print that day’s strip. Trudeau indicated in a news story that one reason for this willingness may have been that the character had a history of similar events: “I’ve been exploding Duke’s head as far back as 1985,” he said.
- In June 2005, Trudeau came out with The Long Road Home, a book devoted to BD’s recovery from his loss of a leg in Iraq. Although Trudeau opposed the Iraq War, the foreword was written by Sen. John McCainJohn McCainJohn Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
, a supporter of the war. McCain was impressed by Trudeau's desire to highlight the struggle of seriously wounded veterans, and his desire to assist them. Proceeds from the book, and its sequel The War Within benefit Fisher HouseFisher House FoundationFisher House Foundation is best known for the network of comfort homes built on the grounds of major military and VA medical centers. The Fisher Houses are 5,000 to homes, donated to the military and Department of Veterans Affairs, where families can stay while a loved one is receiving treatment...
, the generic name for homes where families of injured soldiers may stay near where their loved ones are recovering, also known as “the military equivalent of Ronald McDonald House.”
- July 2005: Several newspapers declined to run two strips in which George W. Bush refers to his adviser Karl RoveKarl RoveKarl Christian Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives...
as “Turd BlossomTurd BlossomTurd Blossom is a Texan term for a flower which grows from a pile of cow dung. The term has gained notoriety in the United States as a sobriquet that was reportedly assigned by former U.S. President George W. Bush as a term of endearment for his former chief political advisor, Karl Rove...
,” a nickname Bush has been reported to use for Rove.
- In September 2005 when The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
relaunched in a smaller format, Doonesbury was dropped due to space considerations. After a flood of protests, the strip was reinstated with an omnibus covering the issues missed and a full apology.
- The strips scheduled to run from October 31 to November 5, 2005 and a Sunday strip scheduled for November 13 about the nomination of Harriet MiersHarriet MiersHarriet Ellan Miers is an American lawyer and former White House Counsel. In 2005, she was nominated by President George W. Bush to be an Associate Justice of the U.S...
to the Supreme Court were withdrawn suddenly after her nomination was withdrawn. The strips have been posted on the official website, and were replaced by re-runs by the syndicate.
- Trudeau sought input from readers as to where Alex Doonesbury should attend college in a May 15, 2006 straw poll at Doonesbury.com. Voters chose among MIT, RensselaerRensselaer Polytechnic InstituteStephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School on November 5, 1824 with a letter to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which van Rensselaer asked Blatchford to serve as the first president. Within the letter he set down several orders of business. He appointed Amos Eaton as the school's...
, and CornellCornell UniversityCornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
. Students from Rensselaer and then MIT hacked the system, which was designed to limit each computer to one vote. In the end, voters logged 175,000 votes, with MIT grabbing 48% of the total. The Doonesbury Town Hall FAQ stated that given that the rules of the poll had not ruled out such methods, “the will, chutzpah, and bodacious craft of the voting public will be respected,” declaring that Alex will be attending MIT.
- Before the 2008 presidential election, Trudeau sent out strips to run in the days after the election in which Barack Obama was portrayed as the winner. Trudeau explained that poll analysts saw an Obama victory as a near-certainty and "If he loses, there'll be such a national uproar that a blown call in a comic strip won't be much noticed." Newspapers were also provided with old strips as an alternative. In response, McCain spokesman Tucker BoundsTucker BoundsTucker Bounds is a public relations professional, who has been active in Republican politics. He served as a spokesperson for the McCain-Palin 2008 presidential campaign...
said, "We hope the strip proves to be as predictive as it is consistently lame."
Criticism
Charles M. SchulzCharles M. Schulz
Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz was an American cartoonist, whose comic strip Peanuts proved one of the most popular and influential in the history of the medium, and is still widely reprinted on a daily basis.-Early life and education:Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Schulz grew up in Saint Paul...
of Peanuts called Trudeau "unprofessional" for taking a long sabbatical.
In 1975, the Editorial Cartoonists' Society passed a resolution condemning the Pulitzer Prize committee's decision to award Trudeau the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for Doonesbury. After confirming that the award could not be revoked, Trudeau supported the resolution.
Some conservatives
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
have intensely criticized Doonesbury. Several examples are cited in the Milestones section. The strip has also met criticism from its readers almost since it began syndicated publication. For example, when Lacey Davenport’s husband Dick, in the last moments before his death, calls on God, several conservative pundits called the strip blasphemous. The sequence of Dick Davenport’s final bird-watching and fatal heart attack was run in November 1986.
Doonesbury has angered, irritated, or been rebuked by many of the political figures that have appeared or been referred to in the strip over the years. Outspoken critics have included members of every US Presidential administration since Richard Nixon’s. A 1984 series of strips showing then Vice President George H.W. Bush placing his manhood in a blind trust
Blind trust
A blind trust is a trust in which the fiduciaries, namely the trustees or those who have been given power of attorney, have full discretion over the assets, and the trust beneficiaries have no knowledge of the holdings of the trust and no right to intervene in their handling...
—in parody of Bush’s using that financial instrument to fend off concerns that his governmental decisions would be influenced by his investment holdings—brought the politician to complain, “Doonesbury’s carrying water for the opposition. Trudeau is coming out of deep left field.” There have also been other politicians who did not view the way that Doonesbury portrayed them very favorably, including former U.S. House Speaker Tip O'Neill
Tip O'Neill
Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill, Jr. was an American politician. O'Neill was an outspoken liberal Democrat and influential member of the U.S. Congress, serving in the House of Representatives for 34 years and representing two congressional districts in Massachusetts...
and former/current California Governor Jerry Brown
Jerry Brown
Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown, Jr. is an American politician. Brown served as the 34th Governor of California , and is currently serving as the 39th California Governor...
.
The strip has also met controversy over every military conflict it has dealt with, including Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, Grenada
Invasion of Grenada
The Invasion of Grenada, codenamed Operation Urgent Fury, was a 1983 United States-led invasion of Grenada, a Caribbean island nation with a population of about 100,000 located north of Venezuela. Triggered by a military coup which had ousted a four-year revolutionary government, the invasion...
, Panama and both Gulf Wars
Iraq war (disambiguation)
The Iraq War is a military campaign by a multinational force led by troops from the United States and the United Kingdom.Iraq War may also refer to:*Mesopotamian campaign *Anglo-Iraqi War *Iran–Iraq War *Gulf War...
. When Doonesbury ran the names of soldiers who had died in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, conservative commentators accused Trudeau of using the American dead to make a profit for himself, and again demanded that the strip be removed from newspapers.
After many letter writing campaigns demanding the removal of the strip were unsuccessful, conservatives changed their tactics, and instead of writing to newspaper editors, they began writing to one of the printers who prints the color Sunday comics. In 2005, Continental Features gave in to their demands, and refused to continue printing the Sunday Doonesbury, causing it to disappear from the 38 Sunday papers that Continental Features printed. Of the 38, only one newspaper The Anniston Star
The Anniston Star
The Anniston Star is the daily newspaper serving Anniston, Alabama, and the surrounding six-county region. Average Sunday circulation in September 2004 was 26,747. The newspaper is locally-owned by Consolidated Publishing Company, which is controlled by the descendants of Col. Harry M. Ayers, one...
in Anniston
Anniston, Alabama
Anniston is a city in Calhoun County in the state of Alabama, United States.As of the 2000 census, the population of the city is 24,276. According to the 2005 U.S. Census estimates, the city had a population of 23,741...
, Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
, continued to carry the Sunday Doonesbury, though of necessity in black and white.
Some newspapers have dealt with the criticism by moving the strip from the comics page to the editorial page, because many people believe that a politically based comic strip like Doonesbury does not belong in a traditionally child-friendly comics section. The Lincoln Journal started the trend in 1973. In some papers (such as the Tulsa World
Tulsa World
Tulsa World is the daily newspaper for the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, is the primary newspaper for the northeastern and eastern portions of Oklahoma, and is the second-most widely circulated newspaper in the state, after The Oklahoman. It was founded in 1905 and remains an independent newspaper,...
) Doonesbury appears on the opinions page alongside Mallard Fillmore
Mallard Fillmore
Mallard Fillmore is a comic strip written and illustrated by Bruce Tinsley that has been syndicated by King Features Syndicate since May 30, 1994. The strip follows the exploits of its title character, an anthropomorphic green-plumaged duck who works as a politically conservative reporter at...
, a politically conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
comic strip.
On the weekend before the November 4, 2008 presidential election, Trudeau submitted a strip that was scheduled to be published on November 5. That the strip depicted soldiers celebrating a win by Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
brought some criticism that led to Trudeau making a replacement strip available to subscribers who requested one. When asked whether he created the original strip with complete confidence in an Obama victory, Trudeau replied: "'Nope, more like rational risk assessment. Nate Silver
Nate Silver
Nathaniel Read "Nate" Silver is an American statistician, psephologist, and writer. Silver first gained public recognition for developing PECOTA, a system for forecasting the performance and career development of Major League Baseball players, which he sold to and then managed for Baseball...
at Fivethirtyeight.com
FiveThirtyEight.com
FiveThirtyEight is a polling aggregation website with a blog created by Nate Silver. Sometimes colloquially referred to as 538 dot com or just 538, the website takes its name from the number of electors in the United States electoral college...
is now giving McCain a 3.7% chance of winning – pretty comfortable odds. . . . Here's the way I look at it: If Obama wins, I'm in the flow and commenting on a phenomenon. If he loses, it'll be a massive upset, and the goofy misprediction of a comic strip will be pretty much lost in the uproar. I figure I can survive a little egg on my face'."
Awards and honors
- In 1975, the strip won Trudeau a Pulitzer PrizePulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for Editorial CartooningPulitzer Prize for Editorial CartooningThe Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning has been awarded since 1922 for a distinguished cartoon or portfolio of cartoons published during the year, characterized by originality, editorial effectiveness, quality of drawing, and pictorial effect...
, the first strip cartoon to be so honored. It was also a Nominated Finalist in 1990, 2004, and 2005. - Trudeau received “Certificates of Achievement” from the US Army 4th Battalion 67th Armor Regiment and the Ready First Brigade in 1991 for his comic strips dealing with the first Gulf War. The texts of these citations are quoted on the back of the comic strip collection Welcome to Club Scud!
- Trudeau won the Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society in 1995.
- Trudeau was awarded the US Army’s Commander’s Award for Public ServiceCommander's Award for Public ServiceThe Commander's Award for Public Service is the fourth highest honor the United States Department of the Army can bestow upon a civilian, ranking directly below the Outstanding Civilian Service Award.-Eligibility:...
in 2006 for his series of strips about BD’s recovery following the loss of his leg in Iraq. - In 2008, Trudeau received the Mental Health Research Advocacy Award from the Yale School of MedicineYale School of MedicineThe Yale School of Medicine at Yale University is a private medical school located in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. It was founded in 1810 as The Medical Institution of Yale College, and formally opened its doors in 1813....
for his depiction of the mental-health issues facing soldiers upon returning home from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
External links
- Doonesbury home page
- Doonesbury—The Sandbox-Military Blog
- DOONESBURY: Drawing and Quartering for Fun and Profit—TIME Magazine article from February 9, 1976