Welcome to the final instalment of my look into how Garry Trudeau has covered Donald Trump since first introducing him to Doonesbury in 1987. In this concluding post, I want to look at how Trump’s dominance of the political moment presents new challenges to satirists, and how those challenges have shaped Trudeau’s work in the … Continue reading “Doesn’t Satire Have to Be Funny?”: Concluding Notes on Doonesbury in the Time of Monsters.
Tag: Zonker
“A Cautionary Recap of the Life of a Genuinely Awful Human Being”: Donald Trump in Doonesbury.
In his introduction to a 1968 compilation of cartoons about Lyndon Johnson, Jules Feiffer quoted an 1831 essay describing political cartoonists as those who “insult inferiority of mind and expose defects of body … [and] aggravate what is already hideous,” about their targets. Good political cartoonists, Feiffer continued, had “a blackmailer’s savvy,” allowing them to … Continue reading “A Cautionary Recap of the Life of a Genuinely Awful Human Being”: Donald Trump in Doonesbury.
“Catchy Lyrics about Busing and Abortion”: Doonesbury, Rock’n’Roll, and Politics.
Last time out looking at Doonesbury in the Carter years, we focused on how Jimmy Carter’s early presidency was defined by symbolic gestures like cutbacks to limos for government officials, a live presidential phone-in, and wardrobe choices calculated to reinforce his “down home” vibes. This time, a look at how Garry Trudeau wrote about one … Continue reading “Catchy Lyrics about Busing and Abortion”: Doonesbury, Rock’n’Roll, and Politics.
“Cronies, Retreads, and Tokens”: Jimmy Carter Goes to Washington
Something I’ve returned to as I’ve examined Doonesbury during the Carter years is Jimmy Carter’s self-presentation as an “outsider,” an alternative to the lies and corruption that had soured many Americans’ faith in government after the twin crises of Vietnam and Watergate. The story of B.J. Eddy – the Head Tulip from the White House … Continue reading “Cronies, Retreads, and Tokens”: Jimmy Carter Goes to Washington
BJ Eddy Gets the Ax: Doonesbury in the Carter Years, Part VI
Recently, I wrote about how Garry Trudeau felt frustrated with his writing about the 1976 elections, much of which focused not on the presidential race, but on Ginny Slade’s Congressional campaign. That story had a lot of moving parts, some new, many of which became permanent fixtures of the strip: the introduction of Lacey and … Continue reading BJ Eddy Gets the Ax: Doonesbury in the Carter Years, Part VI
“Out Back, Catchin’ Frogs”: Jimmy Carter Meets the Policy Establishment.
When Democratic domestic policy advisor Arthur Rumsey and his foreign-affairs counterpart, Sutton, came to brief candidate Jimmy Carter before the 1976 debates, Miss Lillian Carter, the family matriarch, made it clear that she – and as an extension the campaign – was leery of their Establishment credentials: decent folks didn’t need experts to tell them … Continue reading “Out Back, Catchin’ Frogs”: Jimmy Carter Meets the Policy Establishment.
“Then You Admit He’s Shrewd”: Miss Lillian, Amy’s Lemonade Stand, and Jimmy Carter’s Southern Populism. (Doonesbury and the Carter Years, Part IV)
During the 1970s, the Walden College football team’s huddle was a frequent site of political debate and a forum for one of Doonesbury’s central characters to express his personal brand of Republican politics. On 10 October 1976, Walden’s star quarterback B.D. used the huddle to solicit donations for his favorite charity, the Young Republican Club. … Continue reading “Then You Admit He’s Shrewd”: Miss Lillian, Amy’s Lemonade Stand, and Jimmy Carter’s Southern Populism. (Doonesbury and the Carter Years, Part IV)
“Have a Nice Day, John Mitchell”: Kent State and the Cartoon Activism of Garry Trudeau
Last week marked the 52nd anniversary of the Kent State massacre. Garry Trudeau’s strips about the tragedy (which happened about six months before Doonesbury debuted) marked an important step in his early development as a cartoonist. For the first time, Trudeau engaged in a style of activist cartooning that was explicitly political, intentionally devoid of … Continue reading “Have a Nice Day, John Mitchell”: Kent State and the Cartoon Activism of Garry Trudeau
“I Bring You Greetings from President McKinley”: Duke in American Samoa. (The Gonzo Chronicles, Part Two)
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. (The Gonzo Chronicles, Part Two)
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.
Reading Doonesbury 