Doonesbury: Classic or Dud

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Another "classic or classic", I would have thought EXCEPT for the revelation yesterday that neither Tom or Alba miss it's absence from the Guardian. So maybe there's more of you out there.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 09:26 (twenty years ago)

See also: I Love Doonesbury

Has been especially classic in the last few weeks.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 09:29 (twenty years ago)

If you listen very closely in the Guardian bathroom, you can hear the sound of a baby whooshing off down the bath's plughole.

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 11:42 (twenty years ago)

Classic, BTW.

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 11:42 (twenty years ago)

Its back next week. But dud.

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 11:43 (twenty years ago)

I would rather read Luann or even Herb and Jamaal.

― O'so Krispie (Ex Leon), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 11:48 (twenty years ago)

it was classic ten years ago. now it's past its best. it's a comfort-blanket for guardian readers. i just don't care about it at all.

still, it's not as bad as that godawful woman who does the dreadful stuff about middle-class brits ... posy simmonds? does she still inflict her appalling shite on us?

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 11:51 (twenty years ago)

I would rather read Luann or even Herb and Jamaal.

Phew, for a sec I thought you were going to say Cathy and I would assume all sanity was gone.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 12:03 (twenty years ago)

Dud dud dud dud dud.

Is it actually funny if you're American then?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 12:06 (twenty years ago)

Posy Simmons is back in the review section this coming Saturday, I'm happy to say. I like her. But then I'm middle class I guess.

― beanz (beanz), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 12:08 (twenty years ago)

I'm not a Doonesbury fan. It's unsubtle and self-important I think.

― beanz (beanz), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 12:08 (twenty years ago)

Classic. It's only cool to like the old records (errr strips), though.

― willpie (willpie), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 12:15 (twenty years ago)

It's better than Mallard Fillmore, certainly, but still not always impressive.

― Ian Riese-Moraine: Let this bastard out, and you'll get whiplash! (Eastern Mantr, Tuesday, 13 September 2005 12:16 (twenty years ago)

Doonesbury is great (but so is Posy Simmonds).

― andyjack (andyjack), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 12:42 (twenty years ago)

hey, i'm as middle-class as they come! but eew, posy simmonds and her dire comfortable little cartoons about ... hmm, i can't actually remember what they're about. i've obviously blanked them from my mind. either way, they offend me greatly.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 12:52 (twenty years ago)

They're about how self-satisfied the middle classes are, I've always thought. Really good artist too imo.

― beanz (beanz), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 12:55 (twenty years ago)

Garry Trudeau is one of the only left people in comics that really knows how to draw, but the strip itself is a chore to read.

― O'so Krispie (Ex Leon), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 13:03 (twenty years ago)

beanz, i genuinely cannot remember why i hate her so much. but i know i do. however, this sounds silly, i know :o

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 13:20 (twenty years ago)

Posy Simmons is good I think, though "Literary Life" is a bit boring. "Gemma Bovary" was terrific, though.

I used to enjoy Doonesbury but reading it now I get the feeling you have to care about the characters to enjoy the strip, which never seemed to be the point.

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 13:21 (twenty years ago)

I'd disagree, Tom, it seems to me that caring about the characters and the involved world he conjured up was important from the start. However, I would say that there's a distinction between the world before 'the break' -- the eighteen months time off he took back in the early eighties, when breaks for comic artists were unheard of -- and after, where by getting the core group out of Walden and college and into their separate lives he demanded a greater awareness of everything that was going on with them as a result.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 13:25 (twenty years ago)

I agree with Ned; the entire reason I got hooked into Doonesbury in the first place was because I really, really wanted to know what was going to happen to Joanie, Zonker, Mike, Mark, Bernie, Boospie, B.D., Duke and Honey. I didn't even get most of the political humor until many years after the fact (although I did get some of it).

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 13:27 (twenty years ago)

I always feel that I've been left out of some big joke when I (infrequently) read Doonesbury. It's something you have to be in to for a while before you get, no?

― chap who would dare to thwart the revolution (chap), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 13:27 (twenty years ago)

Well OK, for a lot of people it obviously was the point! But the soap aspect never seemed as important as the gags, to me, and the gags now seem quite samey and stale.

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 13:28 (twenty years ago)

x-post with Dan -- Yeah, a lot of the politics went over my head, of course -- but that's what happens when you get into a strip at age eight with that kind of content.

Duke for me was the hook. He was a strange bald character with sunglasses and these amazing facial expressions, who seems so weird and funny and absurd. And of course he was and still is! It might be strange to call him the Snoopy of the strip (when he looks more like Charlie Brown) but he is, the essential flight-of-fantasy figure. (Honey meanwhile is clearly Marcie, surely.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 13:30 (twenty years ago)

The gags certainly rely on a comfort value in many cases now, but since Trudeau's humor also relies on real world events, often it's a matter of how the dry humor plays against what's currently 'going on.' In some cases the jokes now seem strange or even tasteless, but that's what years of context will do.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 13:31 (twenty years ago)

(Obviously it's still better than If...)

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 13:32 (twenty years ago)

(And then there's Roll Up, Roll Up by Dix which I really dislike.)

But Doonesbury hasn't just been making the same jokes year after year, it's making the same points too. And now the point is that the point is the same. Which is why I feel so let down every time I read it.

Also there's the classic US vs UK comedy thing where in the UK the funniness level over the course of a joke increases to a punchline climax then falls off immediately, whereas in the US it's a less steep funnycurve before and after the punchline i.e. a less intense build up and follow-up mini punchlines afterwards. With a comic strip, that means the punchline is usually in the final panel in the UK and the penultimate panel in the US. That doesn't mean one's more funny than the other, of course.

― beanz (beanz), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 13:41 (twenty years ago)

> "Garry Trudeau is one of the only left people in comics that really knows how to draw, but the strip itself is a chore to read."

I could be mistaken, but I think it's been ghosted since the time off he took in the 80s.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 13:42 (twenty years ago)

The series of strips around the time the B.D. lost his leg were killingly funny. (Search around late June/early July 2004.)

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 13:44 (twenty years ago)

And then there's Roll Up, Roll Up by Dix which I really dislike

i love it. and i think i'm the only person in the world who does. it is unfunny, silly and pointless, but i adore it.

when "if ..." is good, it's godlike.

as for doonesbury ... i remember when - was it andy? - died (this is going back some 15 years now), and being enormously moved. IIRC he was listening to "pet sounds"; he lived long enough to see the remaster on CD. why this affected me so much, i can't say, but even recalling it now brings back a frightening rush of emotion. coo ur.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 13:58 (twenty years ago)

I could be mistaken, but I think it's been ghosted since the time off he took in the 80s.

Er? This isn't Garfield we're talking about.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 14:00 (twenty years ago)

Glad to see some more love for If... Sure it's heavy-handed, but it has such a gleefull, inconoclastic insanity to it.

― chap who would dare to thwart the revolution (chap), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 14:00 (twenty years ago)

No Ned, really. If you compare the look of the strip before and after it's obvious that a big change had taken place. Maybe he just got assistants, or different assistants, or something. But there was a week of strips a few years back full of deliberate mistakes and signed "Diego Tutweiler" which I took to be a little swipe at critics of the altered style and acknowledgement of his assistants/ghosts contributions.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 14:08 (twenty years ago)

It's obvious a change had taken place, but in that other comic artists had also clearly developed a different style over time I'm not too caught out by it. Hell, look at Peanuts over its first ten, then fifteen years, for instance. Heck, look at Gus Arriola's Gordo -- a MASSIVE change in style over time, very intentional on the part of its creator.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 14:12 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, but Doonesbury was already 10-15 years old by then, and had settled into a pretty consistent look, with it's own set of gags based on that look (three nearly identical panels and an inexplicable change in the fourth panel.) Peanuts, once Schulz had found his 'look' didn't really change in appearance until Schulz' physical decline affected his line. That's one of the things about a daily strip; it demands a degree of consistency for easy identification of characters and to set it apart from other strips on the page.

Anyway, as I said, I could be wrong about this.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 14:16 (twenty years ago)

First couple of years of Get Your War On >>>>> a lifetime of Doonesbury.

― recovering optimist (Royal Bed Bouncer), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 14:36 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, if you're 15. (I say this as someone who likes "Get Your War On".)

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 14:37 (twenty years ago)

Does that mean Doonesbury was really good 15 years ago?

― recovering optimist (Royal Bed Bouncer), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 14:40 (twenty years ago)

Trudeau has def. had an art assistant since he returned from his break - i think Trudeau now just provides v. basic pencils which are finished by this other chap, tho' details are understandably 'sketchy'. And like Garfield, I think computers are also involved in the process...

Someone like Schulz not using an assistant is def. the exception rather than the rule when it comes to American newspaper strips

― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 14:48 (twenty years ago)

And like Garfield, I think computers are also involved in the process...

COMPUTERS IN INVOLVED IN COMIC ART, SURELY END TIMES ARE NEAR.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 14:49 (twenty years ago)

15 years ago it was... blah.

25 years ago it was incredible.

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 14:50 (twenty years ago)

re: Trudeau's "artwork" I agree its abundantly clear he's been relying increasingly on assistants, ghostwork, computers, etc. since the early 80s (does he even deny this...?) Yes, much like Garfield. I wouldn't single him out as a particularly great cartoonist, its really the writing that set(s) Doonesbury apart. As far as currently working cartoonists, most are talentless hacks as far as their linework, composition, and characterizations go. The only one who consistently slays everyone (but whose writing can be weak and treacly) is "Mutts". That guy is amazing.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:05 (twenty years ago)

I got hooked into Doonesbury in the first place was because I really, really wanted to know what was going to happen to Joanie, Zonker, Mike, Mark, Bernie, Boospie, B.D., Duke and Honey. I didn't even get most of the political humor until many years after the fact (although I did get some of it).

yeah, same with Bloom County. No real idea about the politics when i was 10, but damn were the characters great.

"WHY, IT MUST BE A SANDANISTA HORDE!"
"MARXISTS?! AT OUR SOUTH GATE?!!"

etc

― kingfish superman ice cream (kingfish 2.0), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:13 (twenty years ago)

still, it's not as bad as that godawful woman who does the dreadful stuff about middle-class brits ... posy simmonds? does she still inflict her appalling shite on us?

-- grimly fiendish (simonmail@bti

Grr, fuckin' hater! Posy rulz!!

"Doonesbury", not really fussed abt 1 way or the other

"if..." excellent when it's on form, but has not been on form for several years now that I can remember.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:16 (twenty years ago)

Can we talk about "Nemi" please? Why is it so awful?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:20 (twenty years ago)

That's the goth girl strip that runs in "Metro", right? It's awful because the amount of good scripts that could arise out of that character/situation is probably something like 50, and the strip has been running every day for years.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:22 (twenty years ago)

better in its original language, obv:

http://spray.nettavisen.no/kultur/tegneserie/nemi/nemi_pop.jsp?timedir=pre&lastShown=09.09.05

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:27 (twenty years ago)

It's like an even worse version of that strip that's been running in Kerrang since whenever, but at least Kerrang has the excuse that it's readership actually includes the Goffikx.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:28 (twenty years ago)

The only one who consistently slays everyone (but whose writing can be weak and treacly) is "Mutts". That guy is amazing.

Ah, my most hated new comic of recent years (essentially for the writing reason you describe, but frankly, fuck the twee art).

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:28 (twenty years ago)

I haven't picked up a "Metro" since getting the van, but wasn't there a strip that ran alongside "Nemi" that was so fucking bad and horrible that it made "Nemi" look like fucking genius by comparison?

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:32 (twenty years ago)

Ned you crazy. His Sunday strips are great, easily on a par with Watterson's as far as the artwork goes.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:34 (twenty years ago)

ned, you strike me as quite twee

― RJG (RJG), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:36 (twenty years ago)

You always hurt the things you love.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:37 (twenty years ago)

Obviously classic, and better in the last few years than it was in the early 90s, which was its low point.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:38 (twenty years ago)

Ned, you are crazy if all you see when you look at the Mutts artwork is "twee".

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:39 (twenty years ago)

I would say more right now but I am on the verge of ripping out half the equipment in my office in a fit of work-related anger so let's let it lie for now.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:49 (twenty years ago)

Whoah, I had no idea Mutts could inspire hulk rage!

― O'so Krispie (Ex Leon), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 17:16 (twenty years ago)

(No, seriously, it's work-related, involves coworkers in shit situations, important equipment collapsing and more besides I will not go into here. It has nothing to fucking do with Mutts. It has not been a good week.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 17:27 (twenty years ago)

i'm fondest of very VERY early doonesbury, when the politics hadn't taken over yet and it was basically just a strip about college life. "first of all, you've GOT to stop talking to your mirror."

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 18:32 (twenty years ago)

J.D. otm, the strips where Mike tries to get into the fraternity + various B.D. + Zonker football strips remain my favorites.

― Guayaquil (eephus), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 18:39 (twenty years ago)

zonker's dad crashes at walden and gets high with mark = 8)

and yeah, the huddle strips couldbe be hilarious.

― W i l l (common_person), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 20:22 (twenty years ago)

The last time I read Kerrang! it had PANDORA PEAKS! Surely this cannot still be the case (with a Goth makeover?)

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 07:51 (twenty years ago)

I saw an issue of Kerrang! about four years ago in which the prepubescent readers had voted the goth girl from its cartoon strip something like the fourth sexiest woman in RAWK.

I think Hilary from JJ72 was in the top five, too, thus giving some idea of the timescale we're talking about.

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 07:55 (twenty years ago)

If... is classic. I do like this week's strips, about the penguins trying to cope with suddenly having bits in colour.

Roll Up, Roll Up is horrible. I just can't read it.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 07:59 (twenty years ago)

Nemi is translated from Norwegian or something, which rarely adds to anything's comedic value.

Posy Simmonds' Silent Three strips from the 70s/80s were fantastic satire against London middleclass smugness & complacency

― bham, Wednesday, 14 September 2005 08:32 (twenty years ago)

does anyone like "roll up", other than me? i've never met anyone IRL who likes it either, but ... there must be someone. the guy who writes it, maybe. or commissions it.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 09:14 (twenty years ago)

as for nemi: i didn't realise she was norwegian. has she ever eaten anyone's brain? or burned down a church? or maybe just worn a ridiculous troll-like nose?

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 09:15 (twenty years ago)

Dix (the roll-up guy) has a single frame thing on the inside back of G2 today.

I don't mind Roll up, it has its moments.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 09:15 (twenty years ago)

It's enjoyably grim, from time to time. Sometimes it tries to hard, maybe.

― Matt (Matt), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 09:16 (twenty years ago)

eight years pass...

Hiatus -- "a year or two" -- from the daily strip while he works on Alpha House. Keeping on with the Sundays. Last new daily before the break is Feb. 22.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/this-just-in--trudeau-puts-daily-doonesbury-on-long-term-hiatus-to-work-on-renewed-alpha-house-im-ready-for-an-extended-break/2014/02/11/e22bebbe-92d4-11e3-b46a-5a3d0d2130da_blog.html

― Dr. Strongo's Peppermint Paté (WilliamC), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 21:17 (eleven years ago)

Didn't realize he was behind Alpha House! I saw the commercials back when They were airing before every youtube, but figured it was some network or cable show that I would miss.

― how's life, Wednesday, 12 February 2014 12:00 (eleven years ago)

two weeks pass...

Well I'll be damned...

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/who_are_you_did_keith_moon_play_drums_on_a_1976_doonesbury_novelty_record

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, 28 February 2014 23:13 (eleven years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.