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: This week's strips have been a minor revelation -- Mike Doonesbury has a mother? Who knew. Why haven't we heard about her before?
-- E.A., Portland, OR | Characters | August 16, 2006
A:Actually we have, though it's been a while since she made an appearance in the strip. In the interest of introducing relatively recent readers to a passel of Mike's Oklahoma kith and kin, here is a 1981-82 series in which he journeys home to The Sooner State, followed by a 1985 series in which The Widow Doonesbury testifies before Congress.
Q: I'm enjoying the current flag-burning series. How about revisiting some of the strips that addressed the same subject during previous attempts to pass the anti-flag-burning Amendment? I particularly remember one about the difficulty of legally disposing of a comic strip version of the Stars-n-Stripes. Thanks!
-- Phil G., Redding, CA | Storyline | August 03, 2006
A:We are happy to offer you this link to three all-American Doonesbury classic Sundays, including the "Marvelous Mark's Konundrum Korner" strip to which you refer. Enjoy!
Q: I'm a fairly new reader and would appreciate some background. What exactly does a kid like Jeff Redfern do for the CIA?
-- B.Y., Portland, OR | July 07, 2006
A:For the past several years Jeff has been training up with the Company as a student intern. It hasn't been pretty. Check out this graphic account of one of his misadventures serving with Kabul Station Chief Havoc.
Q: The banner line in the 6/4 Sunday strip reads, "In Memoriam since April 23, 2005." Supposedly a tribute to our fallen heroes. All fine and dandy until one reflects on Trudeau, his politics and his motivation. Certainly it isn't out of respect, because this way-left-of-center commentator has shown he is anti-military, anti-Republican and anti-President Bush...So, what's the point?
-- W.M. Benton, Fort Collins, CO | Out There | June 20, 2006
A:For many readers, Doonesbury has long been something of a Rorschach test -- they see in it what they are predisposed to see. Case in point, those who detect an antimilitary bias in the strip. It may interest -- if not confuse -- these critics to learn that if GBT has such a bias, the military itself has failed to notice. During the first Gulf War, the Pentagon organized a touring exhibition of the Doonesbury war strips, and during Trudeau's visit to Kuwait, where he met hundreds of soldiers, he was awarded certificates of achievement by the Ready First Brigade and the 4th Battalion 67th Armor, which made him an "honorary Bandit for life". More recently, the DOD, USO and VA have all worked closely with Trudeau on the strips depicting B.D.'s wounding in Iraq, and last December, Walter Reed Army Medical Center presented him with the Commander's Award for Public Service, the third-highest civilian award given by the Army. GBT's collection of B.D. strips, The Long Road Home, with a preface by Senator John McCain, benefits Fisher House, the on-campus facility for the families of wounded warriors. (A follow-up book, The War Within, is planned for this fall, also to benefit Fisher House.) And in July, Trudeau will be honored by the Vietnam Veterans of America with this year's President's Award.
Q: The Straw Poll about Alex's college future was supposed to end at midnight, Monday 5-21. So what happened? Where's she going to school?
-- G.J., Portland, OR | Characters | June 08, 2006
A:Interesting question. Pull up a chair.

The previous Straw Poll invited readers to choose among three academic futures for Alex Doonesbury: Should she go to Rensselaer, Cornell, or MIT? Voting was brisk. Wait, let us rephrase that: Voting was insane, rampant, ingenious, and impressively ruthless. An MIT student put up "Doonesbury Voting Hack", a web site (adorned with art borrowed from the Town Hall) which enabled would-be-ballot-stuffers to spew out over a million votes in a single night. "We're all running cgi hack scripts" lol'd one MIT blogger, "I've voted 3 or 4 thousand times!" Fortunately the prophylactic measures swiftly implemented by the DTH's crack tech crew kept most of the votes from making it into the poll.

The idea of outing the main culprit was briefly considered (a 5'8", 115-lb. freshman from New York -- it's amazing what you can find out about a person online), but as he left a clear trail and probably didn't expect the hack to be as successful as it was, it seemed enough to deny the MIT network access to our servers. Besides, we had to take his thoughtfulness into account: "Please," he cautioned on the updated version of his hack site, "only keep one instance of the program running at a time so we don't kill the server again."

Meanwhile Rensselaer had also stepped up to the plate -- or rather made their own attempt to move it. As campus blog entries indicate, token reservations were overcome ("It would be entirely unethical of me to stuff a ballot box, or suggest any others use the same, with command lines such as...") and a curl was disseminated, intended to accomplish pretty much what the MIT script had done using Flash. The Rensselaer effort was less successful -- still, several hundred thousand votes bounced off our servers. By the time a handful of indy hackers made their run at the Straw Poll, the ballot box was adequately unstuffable.

Cornell blogage shows that students there were watching the fray ("Me thinks the site is being bombarded by a script war between Troy and Cambridge..."), but a higher, or more urgent, course was taken. ("We're at a disadvantage, because we've got finals now and presumably no one has the free time to write a Cornell spamming script.") The Cornell alumni office had early-on taken an above-board interest, alerting alums to the situation and urging them to vote, but this effort did not bring Cornellians to the poll in numbers sufficient for Big Red to catch up. "We're obviously not trying hard enough to cheat," lamented a dismayed blogger. However, students and alums managed to post many passionate, articulate, humorous, and convincing posts on our Blowback page, all making the case that Alex should head to Ithaca. In acknowledgement of this impressive and moving effort, the Doonesbury Town Hall is pleased to award Cornell the Doonesbury Straw Poll Congeniality Award.

As for the question at hand -- Where will Alex go to school? -- the will, chutzpah, and bodacious craft of the voting public will be respected. A careful check of the applicable rulebook indicates that queering the results was not specifically prohibited. And by tradition, engineers, hackers and techfolk will assume that in a problem-solving situation of this nature, there is no box out of which they are not expected to climb. The Doonesbury Town Hall thanks all those who took the time and trouble to vote, even those who voted only once.

Ms. Doonesbury will be attending MIT.

Q: I read a post on your BLOWBACK page from a vet who says B.D.'s story has helped her decide to seek counseling. I'm at that same point myself, and would appreciate your advice on how to get the ball rolling. Who do I call?
-- M.B., Seattle, WA | Storyline | May 25, 2006
A:We checked with our VA sources, and they suggest that you begin by going to the Vet Center main page HERE for information regarding readjustment counseling for combat veterans and their families. This includes contact information for all 207 VET CENTERS, links for PTSD information at the NATIONAL CENTER FOR PTSD, and numerous other resources. Vet Center staff can be reached at 1-800-905-4675 (during normal business hours - Eastern). All of these services are part of the DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS. Welcome home.
Q: Those who have followed B.D.'s journey will be surprised to learn that the Washington Hilton has served eviction papers on Fran O'Brien's Steakhouse, the host of the Friday night dinners for amputees and seriously wounded (covered in Doonesbury during B.D.'s time at Walter Reed). Hilton "generously" provided two weeks notice on the eviction papers, which comes after months of requests by the owners of Fran O'Brien's for renewal of the lease. Shame on Hilton.

Fran O'Brien's is due to close at the end of the month. Until then, if you would like to meet two people that America's wounded see as their heroes, stop by and thank Hal Koster and Marty O'Brien for hosting their Friday Night Welcome Home dinners. And it might help to let the Hilton organization know how you feel.

---- Lawrence Kelly, Stony Brook, NY | Out There | April 28, 2006
A:Good idea! We are happy to provide contact info for two Hiltonians: Dan Boyle (212) 838-1558, daniel_a_boyle@hilton.com; and Brian Kellaher (202) 393-1000. Here's a Washington Post story about the closing, video of a local TV station report, and a letter/petition you can sign/send.
Q: Where can I buy Doonesbury action figures? I am particularly interested in a figure of Duke.
-- Ed Landale, Medford, OR | Out There | April 17, 2006
A:Actually, Duke is thus far the only Doonesbury character so rendered. In 1992, when Andrews McMeel published ACTION FIGURE: The Life and Times of Doonesbury's Uncle Duke, the book was packaged with a 3-D figure, artfully crafted by the wizards at Industrial Light and Design. Wearing a "Death Before Unconsciousness" t-shirt, Duke came fully equipped with removeable cigarette holder, weapons and martini glass. Regrettably, subsequent editions of the book (which is still in print) do not include the figure, re-production of which proved too costly. But the book-and-figure package pops up regularly on eBay, where one was recently snapped up for $23.96. Good luck!
Q: Okay, is there any truth to the assertion in a recent strip that close to 90% of the U.S. military in Iraq think Saddam Hussein had a role in 9/11? I'll admit to feeling a little ridiculous asking that question - it seems impossible. Then again, close to 50% of all Americans believed it as recently as the last presidential election, so it isn't completely out of the realm of possibility. If I'm betraying my own gullibility, you can thank me for the laugh.
-- Jon Olson, Washington, D.C. | Storyline | April 11, 2006
A:No joke. Not funny. Here's a Stars and Stripes story about the recent real-world poll the strip was referring to.
Q: The story of B.D.'s wounding and recovery has been fascinating to follow, and brings to mind, vaguely, the memory that his buddy Ray got blown up back in Gulf War I. Obviously Ray survived to serve in Iraq, but what exactly happened to him back then?
-- C. Douglas, Wellington, NZ | Characters | March 31, 2006
A:Almost twelve years before B.D. lost his leg in Iraq, he lost his first Humvee when the vehicle he and Ray Hightower were riding in was destroyed by an artillery shell. Ray's injury was serious enough to take him well out of the combat zone, but put him in psychological jeopardy by placing him under the jurisdiction of Navy morale officer Trip Tripler ? former college roommate of Sal Doonesbury. We are pleased to present Ray's not-so-excellent adventure for you here.