As best my Flashback surfing can determine, June 11, 1971's slapstick abuse of his younger brother Benjy/Sal seems to mark Michael's last Feifferesque portrayal as a mouthless rube. Though still a rube, he thenceforth seems to possess a mouth where once there was a gap.

Just a nod (replete with extrapolated irony) to a 15-years-ago-today Flashback shoutout. Unable (it turns out) to "crisply" reply to each missive, Editor/Duty Officer David Stanford likely can't even leap tall buildings in a single bound; force Mexico to pay for a wall it doesn't want; buy Greenland; or balance the budget without taxing the rich. Shame!

"Everyone looks American, because Americans are from everywhere." As timely today as ever. 

Somehow I missed the blending of the Doonesbury nuclear family consisting of Mike, Kim, and Alex. Kim's knack for not condescending to a seven-year-old is surprising and sweet. Only in Doonesbury does a kid like Alex get the role-model parent-surrogate she truly deserves.

In The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump (2017) and elsewhere, mental health pros raise the specter of high-placed malignant narcissism. Now Mark chats with a pathological lie-writ-large (spreading, indeed, like cancer). In all, illness as metaphor speaks volumes; Trump's paths of glory lead but to the morgue. Physically and otherwise, our body politic has become one sick puppy. To deny that plain truth is to bode its demise. (Sad.)

Wait, the Kim in today's 1996 Classic strip is the same Kim as the little orphan girl from Vietnam? The little girl who was sitting in her high chair, looking suspiciously at her oatmeal until her mother explained those were raisins (and not shrapnel as she suspected)?

Lovely artwork in the strip today. Nice colours. Jeff is getting older.

Proof that the Red Rascal books are fantasies: The Rascal is shown reading a newspaper.

In today's 40-years-ago Flashbacks strip, it's so nice to see Dick and Lacey Davenport out birdwatching. Now they are in cartoon heaven. I miss them.

Credit where due: the 5/19/11 ten-years-ago-today Flashback strip connects global apocalypse with the then-Apprentice-president Donald J. Trump. If that's not prophetic, damned if I know what is.

If only Pfizer could brew a truth serum for the cult that channels The Undead Donald -- king of our homeland's "Pandemonia," you might say. 

Do you see it? Doonesbury is elitist! "See you in three weeks." The characters got the Pfizer vaccine! ... Just kidding. Get your shots!

In addition to meeting Mike in the current Classic series, is that Kim as a child in the 45-years-ago-today Flashbacks series?

Mark's "please pass the popcorn" expressions in Sunday's call-in strip are the embodiment of "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." 

Not to amp up Megaphone Mark, but let's recall how, in 1986, the "proven fighter" Trump not only was investigated for sales tax fraud (on jewelry); he confessed to it. Though he flipped on the jeweler and slithered away scot-free, he was palpably guilty. ("That's guilty! Guilty, guilty, guilty!!") Well might one yearn for the days of Watergate's less fraught national nightmare -- when just about all of us knew that crookedness at the top was not a good thing.

I missed the period when Mike met Kim, and seeing it now and knowing the future outcome is remarkably entertaining.

Twenty-five years of Mike and Kim! I think "Boot me up, you jerk!" are the sweetest words Mike never heard!

There was a long hiatus during which our local newspaper did not carry the strip -- "too political," I think. Anyway it's fun to find out how Mike and whatsername split, and how he met Kim. Thanks.

Like Mike, I voted for John Anderson in 1980. Repented that one at my leisure.

Re Today's 1996 Classic strip:

Kim: "What's the point of getting involved in a campaign...?"

Mike Doonesbury lied through his teeth ("To give something back.") and gave the best reason in a thought balloon ("To meet girls.").  Four years before this strip appeared, while still footloose, I considered "working for Ross Perot" for the very same reason. This was just before my future wife reeled me in from the single life -- pretty much like Mike with his own future wife.