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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. The strip marked its official thirty-fifth anniversary on October 26, 2005.
The comic strip was a continuation of Bull Tales, which appeared in the Yale University student newspaper the Yale Daily News beginning September 1968. It focused on local campus events at Yale. The executive editor of the paper in the late 1960s, Reed Hundt, who later served as the chairman of the FCC, noted that the Daily News had a flexible policy about publishing cartoons: "We publish[ed] pretty much anything."
As Doonesbury, the strip debuted as a daily strip in about two dozen newspapers on October 26, 1970, the first strip from the Universal Press Syndicate. A Sunday strip began on March 21, 1971. Many of the early strips were reprintings of the Bull Tales cartoons, with some changes to the drawings and plots. B.D.'s helmet changed from having a "Y" (for Yale) to a star (for the fictional Walden College). Mike and B.D. started Doonesbury as roommates; they were not roommates in the original.
It became well known for its social and political (usually liberal) commentary, always timely, and peppered with wry and ironic humor. It is presently syndicated in approximately 1,400 newspapers worldwide. The decision, on September 12, 2005 to drop Doonesbury from The Guardian (UK) was reversed less than 24 hours later, after the strip's followers voiced strong discontent.
Doonesbury Merchandise
All images and characters depicted on this site are copyright their respective holders, and are used for informational purposes only. No infringement is intended and copyrights remain at source.
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