The 25-years-ago-today Flashback strip of Duke shooting at John Denver in the Soviet orbiter is one of my all-time favorites. I remember reading that as a kid and laughing until it hurt, and it's every bit as funny today. (I do a strip called With the Band.)

Readers of The Guardian throughout the world have been missing our daily Doonesbury fix for too long. Roll on, 18 November.

GBT can take as long as he likes to resume the strip. My god, he's been keeping us sane, single-handedly, for decades. If he's working on a new TV show, that should raise all boats on the Internet, too. Whatever he wants to do, including rest for about a year, is fine with me. I had missed Alex and Toggle's whole courtship, so I'm thrilled to see that Flashback series. That said, I am so excited new strips are coming. 

There's nothing more destructive of the morale necessary to maintain sobriety than a sense of purposelessness. B.D. will have felt this hiatus more than any of the other characters.

B.D. drinking again? I thought he was better than that now. The other characters can fall apart all they want, but to see B.D. relapse just as a stupid joke, without treating it with the dignity a serious and tragic development like this deserves? I'm disappointed.

I can't help but think that Zipper and Duke were discussing Breaking Bad...

I just read today's strip. Does this mean the hiatus is over??? Will there be a new strip tomorrow? Yippee!!!!

I'm getting old(er). It would help sooo much if everyone in the strip would wear name tags. Thank you for your attention. I think I'll remember this.

The current Mudline reminded me a something I heard recently from my son. He's long had a fascination with the group-names for various animals -- a herd of cows, a pod of whales, a flock of chickens. Well, the name for a group of baboons is a "congress." Explains a lot about our House of Representatives, doesn't it.

Yesterday and today's strips are one of the many reasons I have been a fan of Doonesbury for years. Leo and Alex's relationship is perfect for this generation's Warriors.

Seeing B.D. working hard to convince his newly minted Walden paid athletes that schoolwork is contrary to their established purpose really shows that no matter what the years have brought to his life, we are never that far from the author of "Our Friend, The Beaver". Thanks so much!

Alex's IQ may soar over that of her husband, but he is out ahead of her with regard to that other sort of smarts: EQ - emotional intelligence. If humanity can save itself from destruction, it will be owing to a significant rise in collective EQ.

If original weekday strips ever reappear, and if Mr. Trudeau keeps at his trade long enough, I strongly suspect that Drew is going to contract breast cancer. She's too perfect and GBT is too clever: a deadly combo. It will all be very sad....

B.D. is just being honest, as Walden is being honest. How many graduates of big college football programs are any thing other than participants in an unpaid NFL farm system? The NCAA rules make fraudsters of players, coaches, boosters, and everybody associated with college sports.

Had the Daily Briefing story "Some Iranians Want to Renew an Old Chant" run on a different date and/or media source, one might have been tempted to think it was a gag column. With Iran the truth can seem as absurd as the fictional.

This is B.D. in character for Halloween, right? I hope so.

I'm a bit disappointed in today's Doonesbury. Somehow I thought B.D. had evolved more generally, with a more sensitive side.

I'm glad we're revisiting good ol' poor ol' Ray this week. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed this particular exchange about neuroimaging: "What was I thinking?" "I don't know, but I want a picture of it."

At least it's Mike moving next door and not J.J. It would be easier for Alex to handle her loving father being around all the time, as opposed to her evil mom and her scheming douche of a boyfriend.

If the grandparents buy a condo next door, the key is: Can they be flexible to help when it's needed, and to back off when that's better? Don't discount the value of extended family. In Latin America, children living close to their parents in adulthood is quite common. If the generations can share assets for the common good, this is a good thing.