Doonesbury

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Doonesbury is the title of a daily US comic strip that has appeared in hundreds of English - language mostly liberal daily newspapers such as the Washington Post (USA) or The Guardian (UK) since 1970 . The author and draftsman is Garretson Beekman Trudeau , or Garry or GB Trudeau for short. For decades, the comic strips ironically and critically reflect the cultural and political development of the USA since the Vietnam War . The individual panels usually only consist of four images that change only slightly. Only the younger strips appear in color.

History of origin

Born in New York in 1948, Garry Trudeau published the strip as a forerunner in 1968 under the title Bull Tales in Yale University's student newspaper . 1970 brought the press service Universal Press Syndicate the series in 30 daily newspapers under the new title Doonesbury , including in the Washington Post. Occasionally, newspapers withdrew the publication of individual episodes because of their explosiveness (e.g. Watergate affair , Clinton's Lewinsky affair ), but in the end reader protests forced the censorship to be abandoned.

Plot and characters

The main characters had the image of the eternal students until the eighties. They lived in a commune near fictional Walden College . The main character is the eponymous community founder Michael Doonesbury , who is said to have won African-American voters for Ronald Reagan at the low point of his career in the advertising industry . Another main character and community co- founder is the hippie freak Zonker Harris , who is particularly concerned about his tan. His uncle Duke , for whom the founder of gonzo journalism , Hunter S. Thompson , was the role model, former editor of Rolling Stone magazine , cynic and drug user, offers opportunities as US ambassador to comment on American foreign policy. Before Joanie Caucus becomes a lawyer, she has to laboriously emancipate herself from her housewife role. Michael's college friend and football star BD has to deal with the war trauma as a Vietnam veteran and is reactivated for the second Gulf War . The Strips' recurring inventory of characters also includes the Chinese interpreter Honey Huan , student pastor Reverend Sloan , the African-American congress candidate Ginny and her macho friend Clyde , the singer / songwriter Thudpucker , the talking plants by Zonker Harris and others. a. In addition to the fictional Walden, the episodes refer to real places, people or events ( White House , US President, Mao Zedong , Tian'anmen massacre , Gulf War, etc.).

Awards

bibliography

German publications:

  • GB Trudeau: Doonesbury. Mr. Harris also believes in the Easter Bunny! Strips from 1973 to 1976. Carlsen Verlag Hamburg 1983, ISBN 3-551-02361-1 .
  • GB Trudeau: Doonesbury. Pretty clever, the Chinese. Strips from 1976 to 1979. Carlsen Verlag Hamburg 1984, ISBN 3-551-02362-X .
  • GB Trudeau: Trump! An American drama. Translated from American English by Gerlinde Althoff. Splitter Verlag, Bielefeld 2017, ISBN 978-3-96219-000-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang J. Fuchs: Batman Beatles Barbarella - The cosmos in the speech bubble. ISBN 3-923979-09-6 . P. 90

Web links