I’m not going to write about myself very much in these pages, but I will note here that I read this week’s Doonesbury strip through the lens of my own mental health issues, namely a case of generalized anxiety disorder that I’ve been carrying around for quite a while. Things got really bad earlier this … Continue reading This Week in Doonesbury: Mental Health in the Age of Trump
“Even Revolutionaries Love Chocolate Chip Cookies”: Mark Slackmeyer and Radical Campus Politics.
When Garry Trudeau introduced readers to Nichole in September 1971, he seems to have largely shed the frat-boy misogyny that had dominated his writing about women and relationships between women and men in his early strips. [1] The introduction of a character who actively criticized and protested sexism and patriarchy not only marked a key … Continue reading “Even Revolutionaries Love Chocolate Chip Cookies”: Mark Slackmeyer and Radical Campus Politics.
This Week in Doonesbury: “The Safest Space on the Comics Page”
July 2nd’s Doonesbury strip ran as Image Comics pulled a cover image drawn by Howard Chaykin that was widely perceived as being violent and racist (a perception I share). The image and the ultimate call to pull it fuelled debate about hate speech, the limits of free speech, and the responsibility of artists to consider … Continue reading This Week in Doonesbury: “The Safest Space on the Comics Page”
A Screaming Herd of Females: Women and Misogyny in the Early Doonesbury Strips.
Until I got to graduate school, I had learned more about modern feminism from reading Doonesbury than from anywhere else. This may be an exaggeration, but there’s a truth behind it: the social and political dimensions of post-World War Two feminism are a central thematic element in GBT’s work, and he has long made it … Continue reading A Screaming Herd of Females: Women and Misogyny in the Early Doonesbury Strips.
October-December 1970: “Dispatches from the Front”
I’ve been a huge Doonesbury fan since sometime in the early 1980s. A few weeks ago I had the idea to re-read the entirety of the strip’s run 47 year run and to use the exercise as a way to learn more about comics. The plan is to read Doonesbury alongside comics scholarship and criticism … Continue reading October-December 1970: “Dispatches from the Front”
Reading Doonesbury
I've been reading G.B. Trudeau's Doonesbury since I was in eighth grade; I'm turning fifty this year. Doonesbury is, aside from my family, the thing that has been a consistent part of my life longer than anything else. I've grown up, and grown older, learning about American politics, society and culture through the eyes of … Continue reading Reading Doonesbury
Reading Doonesbury 