Doonesbury

Doonesbury is a comic strip by Garry Trudeau, popular in the United States and other parts of the world. 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.

History

The comic strip was 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 pretty much anything."

Related Topics:
Yale University - Yale Daily News - September - 1968 - Editor - 1960s - Reed Hundt - Chairman - FCC

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As Doonesbury, the strip debuted as a daily strip in about two dozen newspapers on October 26, 1970, the first strip from the Universal Press Syndicate. A Sunday strip began on March 21, 1971. 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.

Related Topics:
Daily strip - Newspaper - October 26 - 1970 - Universal Press Syndicate - Sunday strip - March 21 - 1971 - Liberal - Ironic - September 12 - 2005 - The Guardian

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Like Little Orphan Annie and Pogo before it, Doonesbury blurred the distinction between editorial cartoon and the funny pages. In 1975, the strip won Trudeau a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning, the first strip cartoon to be so honored. President Gerald Ford acknowledged the stature of the comic strip in the 1970s, saying "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."

Related Topics:
Little Orphan Annie - Pogo - Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning - Gerald Ford - 1970s - Washington - Media

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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 an unnamed university modelled after Trudeau's alma mater. When the strip resumed, the main characters had all graduated, most had moved, and Michael had married his girlfriend JJ. 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.

Related Topics:
1983 - 1984 - Broadway production - Dot-com

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