Doonesbury
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Doonesbury is a comic strip by Garry Trudeau, popular in the United States and other parts of the world. Frequently political in nature, Doonesbury's characters profess a range of affiliations, but the cartoon's editorial slant is primarily noted for a liberal outlook. The title comes from the name of one of the main characters, Michael Doonesbury, a character Trudeau originally modeled after himself. The character's name is a combination of the word doone — 1960s prep school slang for "someone unafraid to appear foolish" — with the surname of the roommate who was given that nickname, Charles Pillsbury. The strip marked its official thirty-fifth anniversary on October 26, 2005.
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[edit] History
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 the chairman 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 newspapers 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 reprintings of the Bull Tales cartoons, with some changes to the drawings and plots. 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 the original.
It became well known for its social and political (usually liberal) commentary, always timely, and peppered with wry and ironic humor. It is presently syndicated in approximately 1,400 newspapers worldwide. The decision, on September 12, 2005 to drop Doonesbury from The Guardian (UK) was reversed less than 24 hours later, after the strip's followers voiced strong discontent.
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." [1]
In 1977, Trudeau wrote a script for a twenty-six minute long animated "special." A Doonesbury Special was produced and directed by Trudeau, along with John Hubley and Faith Hubley. The Special was first broadcast by NBC in 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. Two songs "sung" by the character of Jimmy Thudpucker (titled "Stop in the Middle" and "I Do Believe", the performances were credited to "Jimmy Thudpucker") were also made part of the Special.
The strip underwent a significant change after Trudeau returned to it from a 22 month hiatus (from January 1983 to October 1984), during which he helped create a Doonesbury Broadway production. 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.
The Broadway show, entitled Doonesbury: A Musical Comedy, opened at the Biltmore Theater in New York City on November 21, 1983, and played 104 performances. Elizabeth Swados composed the music for Trudeau's book and lyrics.
[edit] 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, B.D. and Boopsie were all now graduates, B.D. and Boopsie were living in Malibu, where B.D. 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 D.C., working for 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. Since then, the main characters' age and career development has 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.
[edit] Characteristic style
The unnamed college attended by the main characters was later given the name "Walden College," revealed to be in Connecticut (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 early 90s. Many of the second generation of Doonesbury characters are attending Walden, a venue Trudeau uses to advance his concerns about academic standards in America.
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 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 delighted and intrigued readers by displaying fluency in various forms of jargon, including that of real estate agents, flight attendants, computer nerds, journalists, presidential aides, and soldiers in Iraq.
[edit] Use of real-life politicians as characters
Even though Doonesbury frequently features major real-life US politicians, they are rarely depicted with their real face. Originally, strips featuring the President of the US would show an external view of the White House, with dialogue emerging from inside. During the 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." More recently, personal symbols reflecting some aspect of their character are used. For example, since the Vice Presidency of George H. W. Bush, members of the Bush family have been depicted as invisible. George H. W. Bush is depicted as completely invisible. This was originally a reference to the then Vice President's perceived low profile and his denials of knowledge of the Iran-Contra Affair. (In one strip, published 20 March 1988, the vice president almost materialized, but only made it to an outline before reverting to invisibility.) President George W. Bush was later symbolized by a Stetson hat atop a giant asterisk (a la Roger Maris), because he was Governor of Texas prior to his presidency (Trudeau accused him of being "all hat and no cattle.") and also due to the controversy surrounding the 2000 presidential elections. Later, President Bush's symbol 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 giltwork starting to come off and with clumps of bristles missing from the top, but on September 2, 2006, he fantasized about himself wearing a crown. Other notable symbols include a waffle for Bill Clinton (chosen by popular vote – the other possibility had been a "flipping coin"), an unexploded (but sometimes lit) bomb for Newt Gingrich, a feather for Dan Quayle and a giant hand for Arnold Schwarzenegger (who is addressed by other characters as "Herr Gropenführer", a reference to accusations of sexual assault against Schwarzenegger). Most recently, a chocolate bar has been used for Ray Nagin as a reference to his 'Chocolate City speech'. Sometimes the chocolate bar would melt in the duration of the strip.
[edit] Characters
Doonesbury has a large group of recurring characters, with 24 of them currently listed on the cast list at the strip's website [1]. 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 of the strip are a group who attended the fictional Walden College during the strip's first twelve years. In April 1972, a sub-group of these characters started their own commune, and moved in together. The original "Walden Commune" residents were: Mike Doonesbury, Zonker Harris, Mark Slackmeyer, Nicole, Bernie and DiDi. Zonker was soon given "Walden Puddle" to reflect in, and the residents of Walden Commune changed over time. In September 1972, Joanie Caucus joined the comic, meeting Mike and Mark in Colorado, and eventually moved into the commune. They were later joined by B.D. and his girlfriend (later wife) Boopsie. Nicole, DiDi and Bernie were phased out both as characters, and as residents of the commune. The spouses of this group became important following this group's graduation; they are J.J. Caucus (Mike's now-ex-wife) and Rick Redfern (Joanie's husband). Uncle Duke and Roland Hedley have also appeared often, frequently in unconnected, more topical settings. In more recent years, a second generation of characters has taken prominence as it has grown up to college-age; this group consists of Jeff Redfern (Joanie's son), Zipper Harris (Zonker's nephew), and Alex Doonesbury (Mike and J.J.'s daughter).
[edit] 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 hashish" raised an uproar.
- During the Watergate scandal, one strip showed Mark on the radio with a "Watergate profile" of John Mitchell, declaring him "Guilty! Guilty, guilty, guilty!!"; it caused a number of newspapers, including The Washington Post, to remove the strip.
- In June 1973, the military newspaper Stars and Stripes dropped Doonesbury for being too political. The strip was quickly reinstated after hundreds of protests by readers, who were soldiers 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 Lippincott, a classmate of Joanie's, told her that he was gay. The Miami Herald decided it wasn'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. Again, the strip was removed from the comics pages of a number of newspapers.
- In June 1978, one 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 House Tip O'Neill, resulting in an overflow of mail to the Speaker's office.
- In August 1979, Trudeau took a three-week vacation from the strip, which was uncommon among comic strip writers and artists.
- From January 1983 through September 1984, the strip was not published so that Trudeau could bring the strip to Broadway.
- In June 1985, a series of strips included photos of Frank Sinatra associated with a number of people with mafia connections, one alongside text from President Ronald Reagan's speech awarding Sinatra the Medal of Freedom.
- In January 1987, politicians were again declared "Guilty, guilty, guilty." This time it was Donald Regan, John Poindexter and Oliver North, referring to their roles in the Iran-Contra Affair.
- 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 mass murder of democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, People's Republic of China.
- In May 1990, the storyline included the death of Andy Lippincott, who succumbed to AIDS.
- In November 1991, a series of strips implied that former Vice-President Dan Quayle had connections with drug dealers.
- In December 1992, Working Woman magazine named two characters (Joanie Caucus and Lacey Davenport) as role models for women.
- In November 1993, a story line dealing with California wildfires was dropped from several California newspapers.
- 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 Boswell. A few newspapers dropped single strips from the series, and the Pentagraph from Bloomington, Illinois, 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 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 B.D.'s leg amputation during the second Iraq war.)
- Later in 1995 Mark Slackmeyer, a gay character from the strip, was seen in the final days of Berke Breathed's comic Outland heading off with a main character from that series, the previously-heterosexual Steve Dallas.
- In February 1998, a strip dealing with Bill Clinton's sex scandal 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. Bush: "He's got a history of alcohol abuse and cocaine."
- In September 2001, a strip perpetuated the Internet hoax that claimed George W. Bush had the lowest IQ of any president in the last 50 years, half that of Bill Clinton. [2] When caught repeating the hoax, Trudeau apologized for "unsettling anyone who was under the impression that the President is, in fact, quite intelligent." [3]
- In 2003 a cartoon that publicised the recent medical discovery that masturbation reduces the risk of prostate cancer, alluding to masturbation as "self-dating", was not run in many papers.
- February 2004: Trudeau used his strip to make the apparently genuine offer of $10,000 for anyone who can personally confirm that George W. Bush was actually present during a part of his service in the National Guard. [4] As of 2006, the offer remains unclaimed.
- April 2004: On April 21, after nearly 34 years, readers finally saw B.D.'s head without some sort of helmet. In the same strip, it was revealed that he had lost a leg in the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. Later that month, after awakening and discovering his situation, B.D. exclaims "SON OF A BITCH!!!" The single strip was removed from many papers, although in others, such as Newsday, the offending word was replaced by a line. The Dallas Morning News ran the cartoon uncensored, with a footnote that the editor believed profanity was appropriate, given the subject matter. An image of B.D. with amputated leg also appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone 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 and May/June 2006.
- 7 March 2005: Begins serial memorializing the death of Hunter S. Thompson.
- July 2005: Several newspapers declined to run two strips in which George W. Bush refers to his adviser Karl Rove as "Turd Blossom," a nickname Bush has been reported to use for Rove.
- In September 2005 when the British newspaper The Guardian relaunched in a smaller format, Doonesbury was dropped due to space considerations. After a flood of complaints the strip was reinstated with an omnibus covering the issues missed and a full apology.
- The strips scheduled to run from 31 October to 5 November 2005 and a Sunday strip scheduled for 13 November about the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court were withdrawn suddenly after her nomination was. The strips have been posted on the official website [2], and were replaced by re-runs by the syndicate.
- Trudeau sought input from readers as to where Alex Doonesbury should attend college in a 15 May 2006 straw cyber-poll at Doonesbury.com. Voters chose among MIT, Rensselaer, and Cornell. 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 "the will, chutzpah, and bodacious craft of the voting public will be respected," declaring that Alex will be attending MIT.
[edit] Criticism
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. In another example, when Lacey Davenport's husband Dick, in the last moments before his death, calls on God, several conservative pundits, apparently not understanding the context, 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. There have also been other politicians who did not view the way that Doonesbury portrayed them very favorably, including former U.S. House Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill and former 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 Garry 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 poltically 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.
[edit] Awards and honors
- In 1975 the strip won Trudeau a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning, 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 Division 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. [5]
- Trudeau was awarded the US Army's Commander's Award for Public Service in 2006 for his series of strips about BD's recovery following the loss of his leg in Iraq. [6]
[edit] Trivia
- Long-time minor character Jim Andrews and the company he works for (Universal Petroleum) were named by Trudeau after his first editor at Universal Press Syndicate, Jim Andrews. The book The People's Doonesbury is dedicated in memory of Andrews.
- Enzo Baldoni, the strip's long time Italian translator and a personal friend of G. B. Trudeau, was kidnapped and killed in Iraq where he was an independent reporter at the end of August 2004.
[edit] Published collections
[edit] Notes
- ^ Blair, Walter and Hamlin Hill (1980). America's Humor: From Poor Richard to Doonesbury, First paperback edition, Oxford University Press, Page 511. ISBN 0-19-502756-6.
- ^ Doonesbury@Slate - Miers' Strips. Retrieved on November 19, 2005.
[edit] References
- Trudeau, Garry (1984). Doonesbury: A Musical Comedy. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. ISBN 0-517-05491-4.
- Trudeau, Garry, Doonesbury Flashbacks CD-ROM for Microsoft Windows. Published by Mindscape, 1995.
- NCS Awards
[edit] External links
- Doonesbury home page
- DOONESBURY: Drawing and Quartering for Fun and Profit — TIME Magazine article from Feb. 9, 1976
- The Doonesbury Special (1977) at the Internet Movie Database
