The greatest novelist of the last forty years is a cartoonist who can barely draw

Today was the 40th anniversary of the first appearance of a cartoon called Bull Tales in the Yale Daily News.

It [began] with a character so sparsely drawn he barely exists, though you are intrigued immediately by the American football helmet he is wearing while sitting in an armchair.

He is joined by a scraggy-haired young man with a pencil for a nose and the letter O to represent his glasses. This is Michael Doonesbury and the helmeted football player is his new college roommate, BD. Little did their creator Garry Trudeau know when he sketched out that first awkward encounter between them, published on 26 October 1970, that he had just made comic history. Nor did he have any idea that he was embarking on a journey that would stretch into the indefinite future and that those scratchy beginnings would turn into a chronicle of modern times.

Read the full story in the Guardian, “Doonesbury quickly became a cause of trouble.”

Forty years. 

Well, not quite forty. Trudeau took some time off there in the 80s.   But still…

I could write a book.

I should write a book.

Maybe I will write a book.

But for now, a post.

Or not.

How about I just link to several past posts?

Garry Trudeau’s dance to the music of time.

Doonesbury disappointment.

Joanie, could you possibly set the bar any lower?

If you want more, and of course you do, Phil Nugent offers an appreciation and a retrospective in The 40 year old stripper. 

And NPR has an extended interview with Trudeau.  Accompanying story includes plenty of vintage strips.

Comments

[J.]

WRITE YOUR BOOK.

Thinking about writing is not writing. Planning to write is not writing. Writing is writing. You've been flirting with fiction writing throughout this blog's history, not to mention the practice of just writing posts about the family Mannion. You're ready, stop stalling already.

[Dave MB]

"Trudeau can barely draw" was more or less true when he started out, but is certainly not true now nor has been true for many years. Take a look at this compendium of Trudeau's art from Slate:

http://www.slate.com/id/2270348/

[k]

I'll ask this here.
I vaguely remember a sunday strip, and I'm pretty sure it was a Doonesbury strip, with the DJ guy and some caricature of Jonathon Livingston Seagull. The DJ guy quotes some bit of formal poetry about the moon, and asks the caricature to rephrase it. The caricature guy says, "Oh, wow, man. Look at the moon."
Does anyone else have this memory, or is it an alternate universe thing?

[Rana]

I have now reached the age when I can have disconcerting thoughts like "I'm older than Doonesbury?!" Not by much, true, but, yeesh.

[Belvoir]

My high school library in the 80's had multiple volumes of Doonesbury from the beginning of the strip. I really enjoyed and treasured them. They were invaluable to me in learning about the political and cultural mores of the previous decade, all of it, a day to day glimpse of the 1970's as they unfolded. Grateful for that, happy birthday to an amazing strip, and yes I agree, a sprawling novel of the times, right up to today.

[Lance Mannion]

k, the DJ guy is Mark Slackmayer. I went through the first collection, The Doonesbury Chronicles, and couldn't find the strip you describe. Mark didn't start out in the syndicated comics as a DJ. He got his radio job just in time for Watergate to start unfolding so for over a year most of the strips that had him at the mic were about Watergate. Maybe the Jonathan Livingston Seagull strip was one of the original Yale Daily News comics. I don't have my book of those here, unfortunately. It's in the attic at my parents' house. I'll have to dig it out next time I'm home.

DaveMB, the artwork certainly has gotten better. I don't remember when it happened exactly, I think it was in the 80s, before newspapers started shrinking their comics pages, Trudeau's syndicate got papers to give Doonesbury a bigger hole so the dialog was easier to read. But that gave Trudeau more room to add details to the drawings and to play around with the angles. The drawing got much better after that. But I think I also read that he stopped inking and coloring his own strips around that time too. At any rate, I used to draw and sketch a lot and my drawing is heavily influenced by Trudeau. The old Trudeau.

Belvoir,

My sons discovered my Doonesbury collections a few years ago and like you they've learned most of what they know about the 70s from them. Also most of what they know about history since.

PS. Belvoir, I emailed a reply to your comment/note about our favorite local troll but it bounced back. I'll resend it if you want, just drop me an email with your current address.