Blowback

Blowback

A clean, well-lit place to vent

Please feel free to contribute to this frequently-updated forum, which posts selected commentary on our favorite comic strip. If you'd like your critique to be posted, please note that civility, if not approbation, counts. Click here to submit a comment.

  • JEFF, IN HIS RED RASCAL GARB

    Jen Hamilton | Philadelphia, PA | July 26, 2026

    Regarding the 15-years-ago-today Flashback from July 26 2011: I had to smile when Jeff, in his Red Rascal garb, spots two women scoping him out and decides to start his play by asking the bartender for three cups of tea. Back in high school I was at a group bowling night and someone asked if he could get me a cup of tea. Forty-five years later, we're still together.

  • AWARE OF THE CHANGING WORLD

    David | Dortmund, GERMANY | July 26, 2026

    Ah, the 90-year old conservatives aware of the changing world… I remember a friend with an arch-conservative patriarch father who was kept in the dark about the youngest sibling being gay. Then another brother threatened to out him if he did not stay away from family gatherings where he would constitute a bad influence on his kids. So my friend and his mother took it upon themselves to clue in the patriarch. Guess who was no longer welcome at family gatherings. Apparently gay is gay, but family is family. Go, Jan!

  • FROM THE ASHES

    Nikki Longacre | Binghamton, NY | July 16, 2026

    Re today's 2005 Flashback strip of Duke & Honey during a US "military operation": A decades-old re-run of our war mongering, even as it rises from the ashes of dead children in other lands yet again.

  • OVER THE TOP?

    John McQueen | Frederick, MD | July 12, 2026

    All too aptly, "over the top" recalls the worst of trench warfare. From a POTUS who's smeared WWI vets as suckers and losers, self-worship rings all the more hollow, un-American -- and, in the strip, hilarious.

  • SHOUT OUT

    Claudia Wheatley | Ithaca, NY | July 05, 2026

    Shout out to Nicole Hollander! I KNEW GBT had to be a fan!

  • CROSSOVER STRIP OF MY DREAMS

    Rob Cottingham | Vancouve, CANADA | July 05, 2026

    Thank you for that lovely nod in today's strip to Nicole Hollander, one of my longtime favourites. I've always felt Doonesbury and Sylvia shared plenty of artistic DNA: punchlines replying to punchlines; the self-awareness of the commentary; the playfulness of bringing in a Mr. Butts or a Goddess of Safe Flights; the affection for both dialogue and the characters delivering it. The crossover strip of my dreams may never happen now she's gone, but this is the next best thing.

  • NICOLE HOLLANDER, THE CARTOONIST

    Tom Greensfelder | Chicago, IL | July 05, 2026

    Thank you for the tribute to Nicole today! She often felt that it was just the two of you who were bringing contemporary culture and politics to the funny pages in our nation's newspapers. Seems like we need that humor more than ever these days.

  • JUXTAPOSITION

    Kathleen DeWitt | KURDISTAN | June 20, 2026

    Interesting juxtapostion. I love how today's SayWhat? ("This plane was transformed into a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody has ever seen before." -- Trump, inside the hanger where the plane gifted to him by Qatar is being prepared to serve as Air Force One) appeared the day after the Flashbacks page featured this strip from June 19, 2016 in the "10 Years Ago" slot. 

    I'm still hoping your president has actually negotiated a peace...

  • PRESIDENT KING'S BEST LESSONS

    Bernard Tate | Bristol, VA | June 07, 2026

    President King probably teaches his best lessons to each Walden graduating class on its last day, with his commencement speech. Today, as always, he was spot-on and hilarious...What a joy to see the Doonesbury characters back in the real world and away from the steam-heated hothouse of D.C.

  • HAVING THE VA AT MY BACK

    Bruce Beitweiser | Bloomington, IN | May 27, 2026

    In today's Classic Doonesbury strip, B.D. is cautious about entering the VA system -- understandable. Folks focus on the negative. But there is a lot more positive that goes unsaid. I hope he can find the VA there to help him. I can't imagine not having the VA at my back.

  • TIME PRESSURE

    Bernard Tate | Bristol, VA | May 24, 2026

    Another Sunday strip showing Doonesbury characters in their regular lives. Love it! I have a friend who is a "plein air" (outdoors) artist, and she describes similar time pressure.

  • ON THE NOSE

    Bob Berley | Seattle, WA | May 19, 2026

    Your 5/17 strip was on the nose, but left out one really significant item: Ask AI if there is ANY chance that global warming is a hoax .. and guess what!? Maybe you can use it in an updated version. l'chaim

  • GOOD WORK

    Linda Niles | Tenino, WA | May 18, 2026

    Love your comic strip!! Always have. Thank you for the rare pushback on all the untruths being spread by the current USA administration. Wish there were more like you! Keep up the good work!

  • SO THAT'S IT!

    Thomas Shoesmith | New York, NY | May 12, 2026

    So that's it! I thought that panel in yesterday's strip was "after the manner of Ralph Steadman": now I see why: RIP Hunter S. Thompson.

  • GOOD GRIEF!

    Niki | Montreal, CANADA | May 10, 2026

    Good grief, do not tell me the twins are already teenagers. I remember the day they were born, it seems like yesterday!

  • A SCENE I'VE SEEN

    Thomas Shoesmith | New York, NY | May 06, 2026

    Today's strip is a scene I've seen -- a whole family, looking like Russian nesting dolls, stufing themselves at an all-you-can-eat buffet. I hate to see what they're doing to themselves, and especially to the kids; of course speaking to them is out of the question, but not for everyone! Zonker is the next best thing to a holy fool.

  • PERFECT

    Bernard Tate | Manassas Park, VA | May 03, 2026

    Ian Fleming and his alter ego 007 are both laughing fit to bust! This war makes Vietnam look like brilliant planning. "There's a plot?" Perfect!

  • WONDERFUL

    Bernard Tate | Manassas Park, VA | April 19, 2026

    What a wonderful, human Sunday strip today! I love it! Why it wasn't published on Mother's Day I don't know, but it is very welcome! This and the pickleball strip* were the first non-Trump Sunday strips in a long time. Nice to see that Doonesbury can still get good wood on modern life and knock it out of the park.

    *Wait...Mike has hearing aids? When did that happen?

  • DESPICABALL

    Gavin Warner | Altamont, NY | April 12, 2026

    Loved the here comes pickleball, there goes the neighborhood strip. I call it "despicaball."

  • THE EASTER BUNNY AND THE EASTER ELEPHANT

    Kathleen | KURDISTAN | April 12, 2026

    I did not remember the strip in the 55-years-ago-today FLASHBACK slot yesterday, with Mike Doonesbury and B.D. on a drinking binge. I must admit it was great to read that strip at this time, when the world seems dark and so much on edge (although there is a bit of light and we are having a bit of a break at the moment -- we are enjoying the ceasefire here, no missile and drone strikes for a few days). Such fun to see the Easter Bunny and the Easter Elephant and the Easter Hen showing up!