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.

Milestones

Doonesbury delved into a number of political and social issues, causing controversies, and breaking new ground on the comics pages. Among the milestones:

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• A November 1972 strip depicting Zonker telling a little boy in a sandbox a fairy tale ending in the protagonist being awarded "his weight in fine, uncut Turkish hashish" raises an uproar.
• During the Watergate scandal, one strip showed Mark on the radio with a "Watergate profile" of John Mitchell, declaring him "Guilty! Guilty, guilty, guilty!!"; it caused a number of newspapers, including the Washington Post, to remove the strip.
• In June 1973, the military newspaper Stars and Stripes drops Doonesbury for being too political. The strip is quickly reinstated after hundreds of protests by readers.
• September 1973: the Lincoln Journal becomes the first newspaper to move Doonesbury to its editorial page.
• In February 1976, Andy Lippincott, a classmate of Joanie's who she falls in love with, turns out to be gay. The Miami Herald decides they aren't "ready for homosexuality in a comic strip."
• In November 1976, when the storyline included the blossoming romance of Rick Redfern and Joanie Caucus, four days of strips were devoted to a transition from one apartment to another, ending with a view of the two together in bed. Again, the strip was removed from the comics pages of a number of newspapers.
• In June 1978, one strip included a coupon listing various politicians and dollar amounts allegedly taken from Korean lobbyists, to be clipped and glued to a postcard to be sent to the Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, resulting in an overflow of mail to the Speaker's office.
• From January 1983 through September 1984, the strip was not published so that Trudeau could bring the strip to Broadway.
• In June 1985, a series of strips includes photos of Frank Sinatra associated with a number of people with mafia connections, one alongside text from President Ronald Reagan's speech awarding Sinatra the Medal of Freedom.
• In January 1987, politicians are again declared "Guilty, guilty, guilty". This time it is Donald Regan, John Poindexter and Oliver North, referring to their roles in the Iran-Contra Affair.
• In June 1989, several days comics (which had already been drawn and written) had to be replaced with repeats, due to the humor of the strips being considered in bad taste in light of the mass murder of democracy demonstators in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.
• In May 1990, the storyline included the death due to AIDS of Andy Lippincott.
• In November 1991, a series of strips implies that former Vice-President Dan Quayle has connections with drug-dealers.
• In December 1992, Working Woman magazine names two characters (Joanie Caucus and Lacey Davenport) as role models for women.
• In March 1995, John McCain denounces Trudeau on the floor of the Senate, "hold him in utter contempt" for a strip about Bob Dole's strategy of exploiting his war record in his presidential campaign.
• Later in 1995 Mark, a gay character from the strip, was seen in the final days of Berke Breathed's comic Outland heading off with a main character from that series, the previously-heterosexual Steve Dallas.
• In February 1998, a strip dealing with Bill Clinton's sex scandal was removed from the comics pages of a number of newspapers because it included the phrases "oral sex" and "semen-streaked dress".
• In November 2000, a strip was not run in some newspapers when Presidential candidate Duke says of George W. Bush: "He's got a history of alcohol abuse and cocaine."
• In September 2001, a strip perpetuated the Internet hoax that claimed George W. Bush had the lowest IQ of any president in the last 50 years, half that of Bill Clinton. When caught repeating the hoax, Trudeau apologized for "unsettling anyone who was under the impression that the President is, in fact, quite intelligent."
• In 2003 a cartoon that publicised the recent medical discovery that masturbation reduces the risk of colon cancer, alluding to masturbation as "self-dating", was not run in many papers.
• February 2004: Trudeau used his strip to make the apparently genuine offer of $10,000 for anyone who can personally confirm that George W. Bush was actually present during a part of his service in the National Guard. As of 2005, the offer remains unclaimed.
• April 2004: On April 21, after 36 years, readers finally saw B.D.'s head without some sort of helmet. In the same strip, it was revealed that he had lost a leg in the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. Later that month, after awakening and discovering his new impairment, B.D. exclaims "SON OF A BITCH!!!" The single strip was removed from many papers.
• May 2004: two Sunday strips are published containing only the names of soldiers killed in the War in Iraq.
• 7 March 2005: Begins serial memorializing the death of Hunter S. Thompson.
• July 2005: Several newspapers decline to run two strips in which George W. Bush refers to his adviser Karl Rove as "Turd Blossom," a nickname Bush has been reported to use for Rove.