....and we’re back. This blog was on hiatus because I was busy having cancer. Things are looking much better now, and I will be updating the site on a regular basis with my regular mix of Doonesbury history and essays about other comics that grab my attention. Moving forward, I’ll be looking at Duke’s tenure … Continue reading “Launch Operation Frequent Manhood!”: Duke and the Vietnam Syndrome.
“Well, Great. A Massive Coronary”: Death and Dying in Doonesbury
There have been, by my reckoning, five significant Doonesbury characters who have died (not counting Duke, who has “died” twice, once when he was mistakenly declared dead after being taken hostage in Iran in 1979, and once when he spent some time as a zombie in the employ of Haitian strongman Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier). … Continue reading “Well, Great. A Massive Coronary”: Death and Dying in Doonesbury
“Even Richard Nixon Has Got Soul”: Comparing Watergate and the Trump Impeachment in Doonesbury
The most popular post I have written for this project – by far – addresses how Garry Trudeau updated his famous Watergate-era “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!” strip to comment on the parallels between Richard Nixon’s corruption and that of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Every revelation of Donald Trump’s wrongdoing, from Robert Mueller’s inability … Continue reading “Even Richard Nixon Has Got Soul”: Comparing Watergate and the Trump Impeachment in Doonesbury
“I Bring You Greetings from President McKinley”: Duke in American Samoa
In my introduction to this series of posts about Uncle Duke, I argued that Garry Trudeau’s caricature of Hunter S. Thompson revealed the “excess, racism, greed, self-interest, and ground ethos of amorality” that defined much of American culture as the nation emerged from the failed revolutions of the 1960s.In these next two posts, I’m going … Continue reading “I Bring You Greetings from President McKinley”: Duke in American Samoa
How Do You Smoke A Weed?: A Review of a Comics Guide to a Responsible High.
My last three Doonesbury-related posts examined Garry Trudeau’s chronicle of the legal, economic and social changes surrounding marijuana in the United States over the last fifty years, mostly told through the experiences of veteran stoner Zonker Harris. In the 1970s, Zonker faced the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence over a trumped-up possession charge; in … Continue reading How Do You Smoke A Weed?: A Review of a Comics Guide to a Responsible High.
The American Dream in Action: Zonker and the Business of Legal Weed
(This is the third of a three-part series on marijuana in Doonesbury. Part One, which includes a review of Box Brown’s Cannabis: The Illegalization of Weed in America focuses mostly on marijuana prohibition; Part Two looks at medical marijuana in the era of the AIDS epidemic.) Zonker Harris pointed out a huge irony on the … Continue reading The American Dream in Action: Zonker and the Business of Legal Weed
Marijuana in Doonesbury, Part II: Medical Cannabis, AIDS and the Law
In my last post, I looked at how Garry Trudeau wrote about marijuana in the 1970s and reviewed Box Brown’s comics history of marijuana prohibition, ending with Brown’s chronicle of the gradual legalization of cannabis in some American states as activists promoting the medical benefits of cannabis used the courts to undermine the state’s attempts … Continue reading Marijuana in Doonesbury, Part II: Medical Cannabis, AIDS and the Law
“It Sure Is Against the Law.” Marijuana, Part One: Zonker’s Bust and Box Brown’s Cannabis.
On 23 June 2019, Garry Trudeau returned to a topic that has woven its way through Doonesbury since the earliest days of the strip: marijuana. Zonker asks Zipper to sweep out the drying shed at their (now quasi-legal) marijuana grow-op, Z&Z Bud. Zipper resents having to do menial work when he could be focusing on … Continue reading “It Sure Is Against the Law.” Marijuana, Part One: Zonker’s Bust and Box Brown’s Cannabis.
Comics Review: Clément Baloup’s Mémoires de Viet Kieu
Over the last year or so, I wrote about Garry Trudeau’s coverage of the Vietnam war in Doonesbury. Trudeau broke new ground in mainstream comic strips by using satire to draw attention to the atrocities committed by the United States in pursuit of its war aims and by introducing a sympathetic enemy character in Phred … Continue reading Comics Review: Clément Baloup’s Mémoires de Viet Kieu
The Duke Chronicles, Part I. “That Place Where the Wave Finally Broke and Rolled Back”: Reconciling Duke and Hunter S. Thompson.
In 1984, I was a first-year student at John Abbott College in suburban Montreal. In my last year of high school, I had heard about a John Abbott English teacher named Rod Smith, who taught a course titled “The Vision and the Apocalypse," which focused on books and films that came out of, or dealt … Continue reading The Duke Chronicles, Part I. “That Place Where the Wave Finally Broke and Rolled Back”: Reconciling Duke and Hunter S. Thompson.
Reading Doonesbury 