Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau (No. 37)

Doonesbury (1970-1983, 1984 to present)

by Garry Trudeau

REVIEW BY BART BEATY:

(from The 100 Best Comics of the Century!, in The Comics Journal #210, 1999)

Not because it's been famously dropped by the papers that carry it time and time agin. Not because it's pushed more hot button issues than any daily strip before or since. Not because it's drawn the ire of so many of its targets, from presidents to captains of industry to entertainment figures and the news media. Not because it was the most topical comic strip of its day in the 1970s and remains so in the 1990s. But because it is still the most fully actualised collection of characters to hit the comics page in half a century, at least.

And still it manages to scandalous and subversive, agenda-setting and rhetoric-destroying, and above all else, laugh-out-load funny. 

It's a testimony to Garry Trudeau's vision that no matter what happens he seems to have a character ready to step into the situation. Want to take on Microsoft and the '90s go-go software culture? Not a problem: Trudeau already has an ad man and a science nerd in the cast. Want to talk about Nike abusing its overseas labourers? No problem: Trudeau already has not one but two recurring Vietnamese characters.

It's flexibility like that which has given Doonesbury the ability to remain constantly on the cutting edge of social change. Sure, sometimes hindsight shows us that he was a little too close for parodic comfort (a Reagan meets Max Headroom shtick? The '80s really were an inexplicable time), but for the most part the strip succeeds in finding the right mix of character driven comedy and sharp-witted mockery of the rich, powerful and out of control.

This past holiday season saw the release of the most essential Doonesbury collection yet: Bundled Doonesbury came complete with a CD-ROM collection of more than 9,000 of the daily strips, excerpts from the animated television special and other assorted new-gaws for the technologically inclined. If only it had included the Duke action figure we could have counted it the best strip collection of all time. Instead, we may have to settle with calling Doonesbury the best daily strip of the past quarter century.

FURTHER READING:

G.B. Trudeau's Doonesbury

Doonesbury at GoComics

NPR Interview: Garry Trudeau on 50 Years of Doonesbury (2021)