Flashbacks: Twenty-Five Years of Doonesbury

by G.B. Trudeau

The creator of Doonesbury offers reflections on his sometimes controversial cartoon creations, along with his favorite and most-talked-about strips from the past two and half decades, presented in color and with annotations. Simultaneous. 100,000 first printing.

Genres: Comics, Humor, Politics, Cartoon, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Nonfiction

331 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

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

[Victoria & David Williams]

Published in 1995, this overview of the first 25 years of Doonesbury is a reminder of how essential a mere comic strip has become in reflecting the political and cultural history of these United States (and indeed most of my adult life). Scandals, crises, basic foolishness: all seemingly so important at the time, all merely so much noise as they recede in memory.
And still, thank god, in the age of the Orange Julius, Trudeau is still at it.

[Vanni Santoni]

(Il voto è da considerarsi assegnato all'intera serie)

Doonesbuty è la mia striscia preferita (anche se ultimamente è un poco calata in qualità) e credo la migliore striscia moderna insieme a Calvin&Hobbes. Ottimo fumetto, ottimo giornalismo e una meravigliosa capacità di far ridere in centinaia di modi diversi.
Questo volume costituisce la raccolta ideale per chi non conosce l'opera di Trudeau in quanto ne ripercorre venticinque anni (correndo parallelamente alla storia recente degli USA) tramite una selezione piuttosto ben ponderata.

[Benjamin]

In general, I find that the retrospective Author's Edition collections of comic strips tend to be my favorite, as I enjoy the anecdotes, annotations, and extra perspective that comes with them. The Pre-History of The Far Side and The Calvin & Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book have long stood out for me in this way. Despite an elegant layout that allows for ample margin space for annotations, most of the notes in this collection are quotes of people being irritation at being singled out by the strip, or expressing slightly defensive befuddlement as to what's going on with the comic anyway. The other throughline is various publications yanking the strip and then there being uproar about it. This comes across as slightly self-aggrandizing on the part of Trudeau, which I'm not sure is his intention. It is interesting to read strips that caused editors to blanch and the public to write in while clutching their smelling salts. The audacious, silent week of Trudeau panning across town to Rick's bedroom window stands out both because of the silly outrage and the bravura decision to do so little for a whole week of strips. This only underscores the final reveal, highlighting that the author knew and intended for this to be An Event that would surely draw fire. But having re-read massive Doonesbury omnibuses so many times, I mostly felt the absence of strips in this collection, or stumbled over jarring moments when narrative cuts or elisions didn't quite fit in the page layout. A useful, entertaining record of the strip's cultural impact on real life, but slight and sadly incomplete.

[Mti Librarian]

I'm a really big Doonesbury fan. There's just something facinating about that blend of humor, politics, history, sarcasm, and disfunctional people that I never get tired of. This volume covers the first 25 years of Doonesbury. It skips around and over some of my favorite story arcs, and if you've read any of the other large size Doonesbury collections you've already seen most of these cartoons. My favorite thing about this book is the triva and quotes included in the sidelines. George Bush and like Donald Trump's response to certain cartoons are hilarious

[David]

The man marks year 25. It is surpassed only by his marking year 40. The cover says it all. Now Doonesbury @50 doubles the fun.

[Katie]

1 - p. 254 (1990) - color
2 - pp. 255-6 (1990) - B&W
3 - p. 281 (1992) - color
4 - p. 305 (1994) - B&W
5 - p. 311 (1994) - color

Summary:
This political satire strip is described as one that continues "...to surprise, to entertain, to offend, and to inspire." In this reader's case, it also served to confuse and degrade my intelligence. It is clear that knowledge of the historical context is important to understanding this comic.

Visual Keywords:
- multi-panel
- sequential

Text Style:

Potential Readers:
- adults
- interested in politics

Awards:
- Pulitzer Prize

Other:
- Margins include a bit of historical context and primary source images.

[Roger Burk]

This is a 25-year retrospective, now almost 30 years old. And Doonesbury is still going strong in today's papers, with his own inimitable combination of gently leftist political satire, ordinary humor, and character development. Some of the political issues her are almost forgotten, others are still with us--like Trump's egotism and vulgarity.

[Sam]

Text book for my US History through Comics class in college.

[Myron M]

Everything I want a comic strip retrospective to be. Plenty of footnotes and anotations. Remarkable how relevant much of it still is. Would have liked dates on the strips, but that's okay.

[Karen-Leigh]

My last Doonesbury book finished one day after Clinton/Trump debate #1. I confess politics by Doonesbury is eye opening but not as frightening as the reality of how close Trump is to ....
The last bit of blurb on back of book is: Trudeau's fundamental message - we can do better - remains unchanged. Obama's election confirms his message but if Trump gets in it begs the question.

[Jessica J]

This had exerpts from Trudeau's Doonesbury cartoon. I think that I would have more fully appreciated it if I had followed the cartoon growing up. I appreciated the political ideas in the cartoons but was confused by my lack of knowledge of political issues of the 1980's.

[Oriana]

It's really cool reading his old stuff piecemeal, in those little tiny four-panel-per-page disintegrating books from the late seventies, but I'm starting to feel the need for serious complete-ism, so maybe I will get this one (among, obvs, a bunch of others) to fill in all the gaps.

[Melissa]

How can you not like Doonesbury? I started reading it when in college and I remember going to the library just to read the latest strip. Zonker was talking to his plants then and I had just had a course in botany. Not sure it helped my plants any though.

[David Ward]

Flashbacks: Twenty-Five Years of Doonesbury by G.B. Trudeau (Andrews and McMeel Publishers 1995)(741.5973). Hilarity continues to ensue with this retrospective on the history of the comic strip from its inception to the publication date. My rating: 7/10, finished 7/14/14.

[Kris]

great look at Doonesbury's beginnings, but it should be more complete!

[angrykitty]

i used to think that this was a good comic, but now i realize that it's really kinda just for people that want to seem smart while reading a comic.

[Mike Horne]

Though a conservative, I have a special place in my heart for Doonesbury. Someone lent me seven books. I don't think I have followed it in the last 15 years. This brought me up to 1995.

[Rebecca]

I like Doonesbury. But this anthology was badly done... hard to follow if you don't already know the characters.