Recent FAQS

FAQs

Beta-fresh answers, uploaded occasionally

Lets face it, our favorite comic strip is often obscure or inconsistent, and key characters are sometimes left stranded for years. Long-suffering readers are within their rights to demand some clarification. Use the "Ask GBT" form to email us your questions, and we will answer those we can on the Blowback page, and also archive the answers here.

Q: The current sex abuse scandal centering on Pope Benedict XVI brings to mind the vague memory that Rev. Sloan weighed in on the subject decisively back when U.S. churches were under fire. Can we please revisit that strip?
-- W. Watson, Turlock, CA | Characters | May 17, 2010
A:Ask and ye shall receive. Click here.
Q: It is clear from this week's series that GBT is a knee-jerk liberal gun-hater. Why?
-- R.S., Davenport, IA
Storyline | April 13, 2010
A:GBT does not hate guns. He grew up in a family of hunters and sport shooters -- his grandfather had over 20 shotguns and rifles -- and joined the NRA as a kid. He got a .22 when he was seven, a shotgun at 12, and his first deer rifle at 16. The NRA's main message at that time was gun safety, and he was completely on board. He got their magazine, and competed in NRA marksmanship events, winning several medals. When GBT moved to the city he took one of his guns with him, and within a few months it was stolen out of his house. He parted ways with the NRA when it ceased to be a sporting association and turned into an insane political lobby.
Q: I'm still waiting to find out whatever became of the adopted refugee baby whose first words were all ad slogans. Where is he now?
-- Alec MacLean, Cupertino, CA


I was just reading Recycled Doonesbury and came across a young Kim Rosenthal being recognized as a National Merit Finalist -- to the dismay of her Caucasian classmates and their families. Clear back then did GBT already intend that she would eventually become Mike's wife?
-- Jeff Jacobs, San Jose, CA

Characters | March 25, 2010
A:Thanks for synchronizing your questions. This loquacious and uninhibited young refugee, a she rather than a he, became this accomplished young scholar. Years later she met Mike Doonesbury when they were coworkers, and their romance ultimately led to matrimony, but GBT readily admits that back in 1975 he did not see it coming.
Q: Didn't Sherman, the studio guy Toggle is now working for used to work with Jimmy Thudpucker?
-- Robert Gibbs, Manchester, UK | Characters | February 09, 2010
A:Indeed. We first met Sherm in JT's studio back in July 1999, when Thudpucker was enjoying a run as the premier American song stylist in Vietnam, performing lite classics with his band Hearts & Minds. In these two sequences Phred Nguyen (former Viet Cong terrorist and friend-captor to B.D.) pays a visit to Jimmy to discuss the upcoming NetAid concert and Jimmy's anthem "Too Poor".
Q: OK, I know I'm missing something. What happened to Melissa that makes her comeback so important? (I can glean that it is.) Can you please post some meaningful strips from the past that will unravel the backstory for me? And why is Jeff such a git?
-- Kate Macdonald, BELGIUM | Characters | January 04, 2010
A:Melissa's story involves MST (Military Sexual Trauma), and we are happy to revisit it, beginning with an uncomfortable meeting with B.D. in the Vet Center waiting room. Regrettably, the git-ness of Jeff is beyond our ken.
Q: I know that you've done some spinoff books -- The Sandbox, The War in Quotes -- but it seems like we're overdue for a new collection of strips. Or did I miss something?
-- K.S., San Francisco, CA | Out There | November 30, 2009
A:Not at all, and thanks for the timely query. The latest collection, Tee Time in Berzerkistan (a hefty 240-pager), is just now hitting the bookstores, and that will bring you up to date -- unless you overlooked last year's Welcome To the Nerd Farm!
Q: I'm getting a little turned on by the series on bulb catalogs. And it's not the first time bulbs have been featured in the strip, right? What was the name of the famous flower you featured back in the day?
-- J. Lawson, San Bernardino, CA | Storyline | November 04, 2009
A:Ah, you are referring to none other than B.J. Eddy, who served as head tulip in the White House garden for eight years. Zonker Harris and Patty the potted palm heard him speak at a house plant convention in Hartford, Connecticut in 1975, a year before Eddy was given the axe by the Carter administration, as chronicled here.
Q: I have a daughter beginning to go through the college search process who needs to be able to laugh about it a bit. Can you please help?
-- Pat Schertz, Wauwatosa, WI | Characters | October 01, 2009
A:Perhaps revisiting the early stages of Alex's college quest will do the trick for your future undergrad. Although Gal Doonesbury ended up at MIT, the path that took her there was by no means direct, and initially involved a certain amount of family drama.
Q: Okay, I'm intrigued by Zonker's recent comment that Duke was once "brutalized and jailed" in Tehran. Could you please share the graphic, gory details?
-- J. Demarest, Sacramento, CA | Characters | August 22, 2009
A:In the summer of 1979, Duke parachuted into Iran on a secret mission for Andrews Petroleum. By January, 1981, he had been missing for a year and a half -- last seen facing a firing squad. As a new president took the oath of office in Washington the Reagan Era began, and a group of Americans who had long been held hostage in Tehran were released -- including one known as ?the bald spy.? The Lexington, Kentucky Herald heralded Ambassador Duke's sudden reappearance: "Welcome home, well done -- whatever it was you did over there." The account of Duke's captivity appears here.
Q: In today's strip Roland mentions that his headset once "burst into flames." Sounds exciting! When did it happen? May we see the event again?
-- Mike Irwin, Seattle, WA | Characters | July 13, 2009
A:The aforementioned flameout was a highlight of the 1988 Democratic Convention, which took place in Atlanta, Georgia and resulted in the nomination of Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen. You can relive the excitement here.