The President is a Lot Smarter Than You Think

Doonesbury Annuals #2

by G.B. Trudeau

Reprint of early DOONESBURY daily strips

Genres: Comics, Humor, Cartoon, Politics, Fiction, Comic Strips, Graphic Novels

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Garretson Beekman "Garry" Trudeau is an American cartoonist, best known for the Doonesbury comic strip. In 1970, Trudeau's creation of Doonesbury was syndicated by the newly formed Universal Press Syndicate. Today Doonesbury is syndicated to almost 1,400 newspapers worldwide and is accessible online in association with Slate Magazine at doonesbury.com. In 1975, he became the first comic strip artist to win a Pulitzer, traditionally awarded to editorial-page cartoonists. He was also a Pulitzer finalist in 1990. He was nominated for an Oscar in 1977 in the category of Animated Short Film, for A Doonesbury Special, in collaboration with John Hubley and Faith Hubley. A Doonesbury Special eventually won the Cannes Film Festival Jury Special Prize in 1978. Other awards include the National Cartoonists Society (NCS) Newspaper Comic Strip Award in 1994, and the Reuben Award in 1995. He was made a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1993. Wiley Miller, fellow comic-strip artist responsible for Non Sequitur, called Trudeau "far and away the most influential editorial cartoonist in the last 25 years." In addition to his work on Doonesbury, Trudeau has teamed with Elizabeth Swados and written plays, such as Rap Master Ronnie and Doonesbury: A Musical Comedy. In 1988, Trudeau joined forces with director Robert Altman for the HBO miniseries Tanner '88 and the Sundance Channel miniseries sequel Tanner on Tanner in 2004. In 1996, Newsweek and The Washington Post speculated that Trudeau wrote the novel Primary Colors, which was later revealed to have been written by Joe Klein. Trudeau wrote the political sitcom Alpha House, starring John Goodman and Bill Murray. The pilot was produced by Amazon Studios and aired in early 2013. Due to positive response Amazon has picked up Alpha House to develop into a full series.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau]

A time capsule from a different time and place...I love books like this - struck in the heat of political dissent; topics that were once the conversation our parents had next to the water cooler - telling us where we have been (and where we may be going).

[Rex Hurst]

Early Doonesbury strips dealing with when the group is in college. The art is a lot rougher here, the characters a bit more annoying, as the author himself seemed to be in a "tee hee hee" lets make fun at the establishment stupid just-out-of-college mentality. A lot of it is very dated, almost cliched material. But it does have the introduction of Zonker and I'm sure it was groundbreaking at the time.

[Canavan]

✭✭✭

[Valerie]

'The president' in this case was Nixon, and these strips are from the era of Watergate.

I can't speak to his intelligence--or his sanity. But the strips involve people of various political positions, examining the situation (necessarily) from the outside. Although Trudeau made an effort to project the inner view from the White House, it was very difficult, especially at the time.

[Matt]

Man, I remember when I read this stuff as a kid. All I got were the ones about football. Took me years before I figured out what the hell they were talking about...Nixon and the Vietnam War and race relations and sex and Yippies and football...

[Austen to Zafón]

Okay, I'm a huge G. B. Trudeau fan, so probably all of my ratings of his books are going to be 5 star. Over many years, I have collected most of the books, but what I love about this one is that Trudeau's style was just forming; still a bit rough. And that it's a piece of history, a young guy's experience of the Nixon years. I know it's dated, but that's what I like about it.

[Kenneth]

Strips published in newspapers between 1971 & 1973, wherein are lampooned the events of that era. The anti-Vietnam War, smoking marijuana, race relations, college football, all revolving around the students of the local college living together off campus at the Walden Commune.

[Scott]

Coming out in 1973 with strips from 71 – Trudeau continues to improve both as an artist and as a comic writer. I’ll go four stars here, though that might just convince people that I really am easily entertained.

[Karen]

An entertaining read, and interesting to see Zonker's parents.

[David]

5th read ... never gets old

[Shoshanna]

I had never heard of the 90 day freeze before!

[Ryan]

Very Good.

[Lincoln Wert]

Zonker hath arrived!

[Gregory Knapp]

Peerless Pandemic Distraction Reading.