Doonesbury

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Doonesbury
Author(s)Garry Trudeau
Websitedoonesbury.com
Current status/scheduleSunday only
(repeat strips through the week)
Launch dateOctober 26, 1970; 53 years ago (October 26, 1970)
Syndicate(s)Universal Press Syndicate/Andrews McMeel Syndication
Genre(s)Humor, politics, satire
Preceded byBull Tales

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 over the decades.

Created in "the throes of '60s and '70s

prep school slang for someone who is clueless, inattentive, or careless) and the surname of Charles Pillsbury, Trudeau's roommate at Yale University.[2]

Doonesbury is written and penciled by Garry Trudeau, then inked and lettered by an assistant, Don Carlton,[3] then Todd Pound. Sunday strips are colored by George Corsillo.[4] Doonesbury was a daily strip through most of its existence, but since February 2014 it has run repeat strips Monday through Saturday, and new strips on Sunday.

History

The first Doonesbury cartoon, from October 26, 1970

Doonesbury began as a continuation of Bull Tales, which appeared in the Yale University student newspaper, the Yale Daily News, from 1968 to 1970. It focused on local campus events at Yale.[5]

Doonesbury proper debuted as a

B. D.
's helmet changed from having a "Y" (for Yale) to a star (for the fictional Walden College). Mike and B. D. started Doonesbury as roommates; they were not roommates in Bull Tales.

Doonesbury became known for its social and political commentary. By the 2010s, it was syndicated in approximately 1,400 newspapers worldwide.[9]

In May 1975, Doonesbury became the first daily comic strip to win a

Editorial Cartooning.[5] That year, U.S. President Gerald Ford told 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."[10]

A panel from the a Doonesbury "Stonewall" strip, referring to the Watergate scandal, from August 12, 1974; awarded the Pulitzer Prize

1983–1984 hiatus

Trudeau took a 22-month hiatus, from January 2, 1983, to September 30, 1984. Before the break in the strip, the characters were eternal college students, living in a

commune together near Walden College, which was modeled after Trudeau's alma mater, Yale. 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.

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. Mike, Mark, Zonker, B.D., and Boopsie were all now graduates; B.D. and Boopsie were living in

National Public Radio. Michael and J.J. 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 J.J. until he was accepted as a medical student at his Uncle Duke's "Baby Doc College" in Haiti
.

Prior to the hiatus, the strip's characters had aged only slightly. But when Trudeau returned to Doonesbury, the characters began to age in something close to real time, as in

dot-com boom
. Current events are mirrored through the original characters, their offspring (the "second generation"), and occasional new characters.

Garry Trudeau received the

Reuben Award
for 1995 for his work on the strip.

Alpha House and hiatuses: 2013

Doonesbury's syndicate,

Universal Uclick, announced on May 29, 2013, that the comic strip would go on hiatus from June 10 to Labor Day of that year while Garry Trudeau worked on his streaming video comedy Alpha House, which was picked up by Amazon Studios.[11] "Doonesbury Flashbacks" were offered during those weeks, but due to the unusually long hiatus, some newspapers opted to run different comic strips instead.[12] Sunday strips returned as scheduled, but the daily strip's hiatus was extended until November 2013.[13]

After Alpha House was renewed for a second season in February 2014, Trudeau announced that he would now produce only Sunday strips for the foreseeable future.[14] Since March 3, 2014, the strip has offered reruns starting from the very beginning of its history as opposed to the recent ones that re-run when Trudeau is on vacation. Alpha House was cancelled in 2016,[15] but Trudeau did not return to drawing Monday-to-Saturday strips, and continued his Sunday-only schedule.

In a 2018 interview with Rolling Stone, Trudeau said that while Donald Trump appears in only a limited number of strips, "for the last two years, he's been subtext in almost all of them."[16]

TV special

In 1977, Trudeau wrote a script for a 26-minute animated special, A Doonesbury Special, which was produced and directed by Trudeau along with

Cannes International Film Festival for best short film, and received an Oscar nomination (for best animated short film), both in 1978.[17] Voice actors for the special included Barbara Harris, William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Jack Gilford and Will Jordan. Also included were "Stop in the Middle" and "I Do Believe", two songs "sung" by the character Jimmy Thudpucker (actually actor/singer/songwriter/producer James Allen "Jimmy" Brewer), 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.

Style

With the exception of Walden College, Trudeau has frequently used real-life settings, based on real scenarios, but with fictional results. Because of lead times, real-world events have rendered some of Trudeau's comics unusable, such as a 1973 series featuring John Ehrlichman, 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 attendants, computer scientists, journalists, 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

tenure
, issues that Trudeau has consistently revisited since the original characters graduated. Some of the second generation of Doonesbury characters have attended Walden, a venue Trudeau uses to advance his concerns about academic standards in the United States.

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.[clarification needed
]

Use of real-life politicians as characters

Even though Doonesbury frequently features real-life U.S. politicians, 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 Slackmeyer while the latter was on a trip to Washington). Sometimes hands, or in rare cases, the back of heads would also be seen.

Later, personal symbols reflecting some aspect of their character came into use. These included:

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

conservative Reagan years, a forward-looking B.D. 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.'"[19] 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.[20]

Characters

Main article: List of Doonesbury characters

Doonesbury has a large group of recurring characters, with 24 currently listed at the strip's website.[21] 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

Boopsie, upon B.D.'s return from Vietnam. Nichole, 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

Zipper Harris
, and Uncle Duke's son Earl.

Controversial strips and groundbreaking moments

Doonesbury has covered numerous political and social issues, some of which were pioneering and others that drew criticism:

1970s

1980s

1990s

  • In November 1991, a series of strips appeared to give credibility to a real-life prison inmate who falsely stated that former Vice President Dan Quayle 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.[33] 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.[34]
  • In November 1993, a storyline dealing with California wildfires was dropped from several California newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, The Orange County Register, and The San Diego Union-Tribune.[35]
  • In June 1994, the Roman Catholic Church took issue with a series of strips dealing with the book
    John Boswell. A few newspapers dropped single strips from the series, and the Bloomington, Illinois, Pantagraph
    refused to run the entire series.
  • In March 1995, John McCain 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 Dole's strategy of exploiting his war record during 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 character B.D.'s leg amputation during the second Iraq war.
  • In February 1998, a strip dealing with
    sex scandal
    was removed from the comics pages of a number of newspapers because it included the phrases "oral sex" and "semen-streaked dress".

2000s

2010s

Criticism

Peanuts called Trudeau "unprofessional" for taking a long sabbatical.[52] (See also, similar comments by Schulz about sabbaticals taken by Bill Watterson.[53]) Nor was the return of the strip itself greeted with universal acclaim; in 1985, Saturday Review listed Trudeau as one of the country's "Most Overrated People in American Arts and Letters", commenting that the "most publicized return since MacArthur's has produced a strip that is predictable, mean-spirited, and not as funny as before."[54]

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. A 1984 series of strips showing Vice President George H. W. Bush placing his manhood in a blind trust—in parody of Bush's use of 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."[55]

Some conservatives have intensely criticized Doonesbury. Several examples are cited in the Milestones section of the strip's website. 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.[56]

Liberal politicians skewered by Trudeau in the strip have also complained, including Democrats such as former U.S. House Speaker Tip O'Neill and California Governor Jerry Brown.[57]

Strips about post-World War II American wars have also generated controversy, including

Panama and both Gulf Wars.[58]

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 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.[59]

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 and Orlando Sentinel) Doonesbury appears on the opinions page alongside Mallard Fillmore, a politically conservative comic strip.[60]

Awards and honors

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Trudeau Reflects On Four Decades Of 'Doonesbury'". npr.org. NPR Morning Edition. October 26, 2010. Archived from the original on November 19, 2018. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  2. ^ "Doonesbury: Drawing and Quartering for Fun and Profit". Time. February 9, 1976. Archived from the original on May 22, 2022. Retrieved May 1, 2010.
  3. ^ Tomorrow, Tom (November–December 2010). "Garry Trudeau, Artist". Yale Alumni Magazine. Archived from the original on February 1, 2014. Retrieved January 19, 2014.
  4. ^ Trudeau, Garry. "45 Years of Doonesbury: A Letter from Garry Trudeau". GoComics. Archived from the original on October 28, 2015. Retrieved November 3, 2015.
  5. ^ a b Doonesbury at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on April 22, 2016.
  6. ISBN 0878056742
    .
  7. ^ "Doonesbury Comic Strips by Garry Trudeau". doonesbury.washingtonpost.com. Archived from the original on August 4, 2015. Retrieved February 7, 2018.
  8. ISBN 9780313397516. Archived
    from the original on March 11, 2021. Retrieved October 17, 2020.
  9. ^ a b c Villareal, Yvonne (November 1, 2008). "Comic strip 'Doonesbury' predicts Obama win". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on November 6, 2008.
  10. ISBN 978-0-19-502756-3
    .
  11. ^ Cavna, Michael (May 29, 2013). "This Just in: 'Doonesbury' to go on sabbatical as Amazon Studios officially picks up Trudeau's Capitol Hill comedy, 'Alpha House'". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on March 11, 2021. Retrieved June 16, 2013.
  12. ^ Cavna, Michael (June 9, 2013). "POST PICKS UP 'FORT KNOX': Military strip will replace 'Doonesbury Flashbacks' for the summer". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on June 14, 2013. Retrieved June 16, 2013.
  13. ^ Canva, Michael (September 10, 2013). "Trudeau extends 'Doonesbury' hiatus to finish TV series". The Washington Post. The Buffalo News. Archived from the original on September 27, 2013.
  14. ^ "Trudeau puts daily 'Doonesbury' on long-term hiatus". The Washington Post. February 11, 2014. Archived from the original on March 20, 2018.
  15. ^ Heil, Emily (August 8, 2016). "Amazon's 'Alpha House' gets the ax". Washington Post. Retrieved March 12, 2020.
  16. ^ Woods, Sean (September 25, 2018). "Garry Trudeau on Trump, Satire and 'Doonesbury' at 50". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on April 4, 2019. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
  17. ^
    ISBN 978-0-394-54684-1
    .
  18. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7
    . Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  19. ^ Tina Gianoulis, "Doonesbury", St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, 2002
  20. ^ Michael Kranish, "Part 3: With Antiwar Role, High Visibility" Archived December 5, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, The Boston Globe, June 17, 2003
  21. ^ The Cast Archived September 2, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, official list at Doonesbury.com
  22. ^ Jesse Walker, Doonesburied: The Decline of Garry Trudeau—and of Baby Boom Liberalism Archived December 27, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, Reason Online, July 2002
  23. ^ ""Big Deals: Comics' Highest-Profile Moments," Hogan's Alley #7, 1999". Archived from the original on June 30, 2013. Retrieved January 16, 2013.
  24. ^ "Doonesbury's Timeline – June 4, 1973". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 24, 2010.
  25. ^ Bode, Ken (August 19, 2005). "'Doonesbury' Belongs on the Editorial Page, Declares Prof. Ken Bode". Indianapolis Star. Archived from the original on March 18, 2012. Retrieved September 3, 2011.
  26. ^ Glazer, Aaron (March 16, 2000). "Doonesbury Delivers Satirical Satisfaction". The Johns Hopkins News-Letter. Archived from the original on July 20, 2003. Retrieved September 3, 2011.
  27. ^ Glazer 2006
  28. ^ Trudeau, Garry. "Doonesbury Comic Strips by Garry Trudeau". doonesbury.washingtonpost.com. Archived from the original on December 31, 2013. Retrieved December 30, 2013.
  29. ^ https://www.cbr.com/doonesbury-trivia-facts-comic-strip/#the-doonesbury-comic-strip-played-a-role-in-forcing-palm-springs-officials-to-change-a-discriminatory-law
  30. ^ "Newspaper cancels 'Doonesbury' comic strip". UPI. June 11, 1985. Archived from the original on March 11, 2021. Retrieved March 11, 2021.
  31. ^ "Doonesbury's Timeline". Archived from the original on December 31, 2013. Retrieved July 30, 2013.
  32. ^ "Trudeau Recalls Doonesbury China Strips". The Comics Journal (130): 22. July 1989.
  33. ^ "Two Dozen Newspapers Omit 'Doonesbury' Quayle Series". The New York Times. November 12, 1991. Archived from the original on December 5, 2008.
  34. ^ Marro, Anthony (March–April 1997). "The Art of the Con". Columbia Journalism Review. Archived from the original on October 2, 2006.
  35. ^ Astor, David (November 13, 1993). "Major Southern California Dailies Drop 'Doonesbury'"". Editor & Publisher.
  36. ^ "President Bush Has Lowest IQ of all Presidents of past 50 Years". Snopes.com. July 15, 2004. Retrieved September 11, 2006.
  37. ^ Doonesbury Daily Dose as retrieved via web.archive.org
  38. ^ "Doonesbury Creator Falls for Hoax". BBC News. September 7, 2001. Archived from the original on May 26, 2006.
  39. ^ Avni, Sheerly (September 5, 2003). "'Doonesbury': Jerked Off the Funny Pages". Salon. Archived from the original on June 6, 2011.
  40. ^ "Bush National Guard Offer". Doonesbury.com. Archived from the original on February 27, 2004.
  41. ^ "No Winner Yet in 'Doonesbury' Bush Search". CNN. February 27, 2004. Archived from the original on January 21, 2008.
  42. ^ "GBT's FAQs - Story Lines". October 13, 2004. Archived from the original on October 13, 2004. Retrieved October 1, 2020.
  43. ^ Joseph P. Kahn, "'Doonesbury' Language Gets Some Edits" Archived July 12, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, The Boston Globe, November 2, 2004
  44. ^ "Fisher House -- Helping Military Families". September 26, 2006. Archived from the original on September 26, 2006. Retrieved November 18, 2017.
  45. ^ Papers Pull 'Doonesbury' Over Potty Put-Down, CBC, July 26, 2005
  46. ^ Katz, Ian (October 14, 2005). "My Doonesbury hell". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  47. ^ "Doonesbury@Slate Miers' Strips". Archived from the original on November 5, 2005. Retrieved November 19, 2005.
  48. ^ "'Doonesbury' strip assumes Obama will win". Houston Chronicle. November 6, 2008. Archived from the original on November 6, 2008. Retrieved November 18, 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  49. ^ Cavna, Michael (October 31, 2008). "Obama Wins? Yes, 'Doonesbury' Calls the Election". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 1, 2010.
  50. ^ "Doonesbury strip on Texas abortion law dropped by some US newspapers". The Guardian. March 11, 2012. Archived from the original on May 9, 2016.
  51. ^ "Doonesbury website moves to The Washington Post". Andrews McMeel Syndication. April 28, 2014. Retrieved June 18, 2023.
  52. ^ Soper, Kerry (October 1, 2008). Garry Trudeau: Doonesbury and the Aesthetics of Satire. University Press of Mississippi.
  53. ^ "Selling Out the Newspaper Comic Strip". Los Angeles Review of Books. August 15, 2015. Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved November 18, 2017.
  54. ^ "The 42 Most Underrated/Overrated People in American Arts and Letters". Saturday Review. April 1985. pp. 31–35.
  55. ^ "Doonesbury still feisty after 35 years". Today.com. Associated Press. November 17, 2005. Archived from the original on November 4, 2020.
  56. ^ "Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for Nov 6, 1986". GoComics. November 6, 1986. Archived from the original on September 16, 2017. Retrieved November 18, 2017.
  57. ^ "Doonesbury At 20: Postcards From The Edge Of The Envelope". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on November 27, 2022. Retrieved November 18, 2017.
  58. ^ Glaister, Dan (May 27, 2004). "Doonesbury at war". The Guardian. Archived from the original on September 16, 2017. Retrieved November 18, 2017.
  59. ^ "Continental: Complaints Led to Drop-'Doonesbury' Poll – Editor & Publisher". Editor and Publisher. Archived from the original on September 16, 2017. Retrieved November 18, 2017.
  60. ^ "No ducking out". Knox Blogs. November 16, 2006. Archived from the original on September 16, 2017. Retrieved November 18, 2017.
  61. ^ "Doonesbury Comic Strips by Garry Trudeau". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on December 3, 2018. Retrieved December 2, 2018.
  62. ^ "The Reuben". National Cartoonists Society. Archived from the original on December 20, 2008.
  63. ^ "U.S. Army Honors 'Doonesbury' Cartoonist". Editor & Publisher. January 27, 2006. Archived from the original on February 15, 2006. Retrieved September 3, 2011.
  64. ^ "Doonesbury" Cartoonist Garry Trudeau to Receive Yale Award for Raising Awareness about War-Related Mental Health". March 20, 2008. Archived from the original on July 30, 2020. Retrieved December 2, 2018.
  65. ^ "NYS Writers Hall Of Fame 2020 Inductees". NYSCA Literary Tree. Archived from the original on September 20, 2020.

References

External links

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