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: A sampling of the BLOWBACK response to the 7/3/05 Sunday strip:

Your "starving, unkempt blogger" represents actual bloggers about as much as Sambo represents black people.
-- Brian Boyko, Austin, TX

Considering who GBT works for, it is not surprising he believes (or has his cartoon characters believe) that all bloggers are crackpots who eat cat food. I guess all corporate cartoonists are sell-outs and shills, even the so-called "liberal" ones.

-- Kurt Nimmo, Las Cruces, NM

Your recent strip attacking bloggers has shown that you are really just another elitist corporate media lackey.
-- Lewis J. Scannon, Grand Rapids, MI

I and all other honest people are ashamed of you!
-- Derek Bickerton

I think that the cartoon about bloggers was absolutely disgusting∑. I will never read another Doonesbury cartoon again, I swear to God.
-- Lindsey Tackett, Atlanta, GA

Why does Trudeau hate bloggers?
-- Steve Brodie, Salem, NC

Storyline | September 10, 2005
A:Huh? Regular readers know that for several years GBT has repeatedly addressed blogging from a variety of angles, often sympathetically. In fact, no fewer than five Doonesbury characters are currently bloggers themselves, and some of them were online long before blogs became ubiquitous.

For example, this pre-blog-era series follows Mike's first on-line sojourn in 1993 (this and other links coming shortly!). His much more savvy daughter Alex followed with her own web site in 1996, later developed it into a profitable "video blog" web-cam site, and in 2003, turned to blogging for Dean.

Then there's Zipper, who from his dorm room at Walden College runs a modestly trafficked blog devoted to a niche audience. His inspiration? The legendarily uninhibited blogger Jenny McTaggart, Girl Pirate (nom d'offline: Elmont). Meanwhile, B.D.'s recovery after losing a leg in Iraq was aided and abetted by a CaringBridge blog, ably handled by Boopsie, who dispensed updates to loved ones and conveyed their good wishes to her husband. And more recently, Ray Hightower, B.D.'s comrade in arms, has been painstakingly blogging his detailed way through his tour of duty in Iraq.

It's a common error to assume that Doonesbury's characters each express the precise views of their creator, who would have to be highly schizophrenic to embrace them all. In this particular instance, it's worth noting that Mark Slackmeyer, who trash-talks blogging, is himself a political screedist who has spent the last 30 years passionately expounding his point of view to an almost nonexistent audience. There's a reason why he might feel threatened by a blogosphere that gets far more attention than he.

On the other hand, he does seem to have flushed out an awful lot of pretty defensive people. Cat food sales must be brisk.

Q: The therapists I work with, both OT and PT, have been enjoying the rehab-related strips about B.D.'s recovery, and they?re posted all over the department. We?d love to see a compilation of these strips in a book. You?re got the rehab thing down pat! I?m returning to active duty at Walter Reed to work as a PT with the troops going through amputation rehab, and hope to see more of B.D. as his rehab journey continues.
-- Marilyn Rodgers, Reseda, CA | Characters | July 29, 2005
A:We appreciate your timely query. As it happens, the Doonesbury book you request has recently been published by Andrews McMeel Universal. As their promotional materials explain: Thousands of U.S. soldiers have suffered grievous wounds in Iraq, and one of them happens to be a Doonesbury character. This special collection chronicles seven months of cutting-edge cartooning, during which B.D. and readers of the strip got an up-close schooling in a kind of personal transformation no one seeks. THE LONG ROAD HOME: One Step at a Time collects the first seven months of Doonesbury strips about B.D.'s journey. It follows him from Baghdad triage through hospital treatments, awkward visits from friends, agonizing exercise regimens and gatherings with his fellow amputees. It also depicts the anxiety of B.D.'s family members, who support him by staying at - Fisher House - an actual non-profit organization operated by Fisher House Foundation, which gives housing to families of soldiers receiving treatment at major military hospitals. Published at the request of Fisher House for patients and their caregivers, The Long Road Home is a tribute to soldiers. Here Trudeau sets aside politics and his opposition to the Iraq War to portray the immense impact combat has on an individual soldier's life. He researched the B.D. storyline at Walter Reed Army Medical Center where he visited wounded soldiers and amputees. As Trudeau notes, "Whether you think we belong in Iraq or not, we can't tune it out; we have to remain mindful of the terrible losses that individual soldiers are suffering in our name." The Long Road Home includes a foreword by U.S. Senator John McCain, who writes: "Trudeau tells the story of B.D. - and the Fisher house - and he does it very, very well. Biting but never cynical, and often wickedly funny, these comic strips will make you laugh, reflect and - in the end - understand. Like B.D., the thousands of soldiers who have left their health or their limbs on the battlefield have done so in the service of all of us. These brave men and women astonish us all with their spirit. In sacrificing themselves, they sacrifice for us." Trudeau is donating all royalties from The Long Road Home's sale to the Fisher House Foundation. For more information on Fisher House, visit www.fisherhouse.org , call (800) 294-8560, or send email to info@fisherhouse.org . To read the New York Times review, click here
Q: Zonker has always been my favorite, but why is he mooching off B.D. and his family? I remember about 20 years ago or so, he won the lottery by buying one single ticket. I slacked off on my reading for a while back then, so I must have missed something. What happened to Zonker's millions?
-- T. Fairchilds, Troy, Ohio | Characters | July 06, 2005
A:Ultimately the bulk of Z's windfall went to rescuing Duke. While serving as president of Club Pre-Med, an offshore medical college, the former ambassador had been drugged, zombified, and sold into slavery. Functioning, barely, under the moniker 'Legume', he was working for Haiti's Former-President-for-Life Duvalier when Zonker purchased him after intense negotiations. The balance of Zonker's much-diminished fortune proved adequate for purchasing a slightly used British title from Lords-R-Us -- hence his transformation into Lord Zonker, Viscount St. Austell-in-the-Moor Biggleswade-Brixham.
Q: What kind of meds is B.D. on, anyway? I think he's losing his mind. His daughter's name is Sam, but in the Monday 5-16-05 strip he called her "Alex". She had enough sensitivity not to call her dad on it, but frankly I'm worried. What's the problem?
-- J.L., Sacto, CA | June 14, 2005
A:The problem is that you have noticed one of those rare but intriguing instances where GBT has messed up. Okay, maybe not that rare -- periodic inconsistencies are the downside of having 30 main characters. At any rate, the early consensus among Doonesbury aficionados is that this latest anomaly, while striking, is not quite as impressive as the one which had J.J. and Honey meeting on Donald Trump's yacht and not remembering that they'd been college roommates.
Q: One of my favorite Doonesbury characters - and to my mind, one of the few to disappear entirely from the strip - was the Vietnamese orphan who repeated everything she heard on TV back in the early 70s. Whatever became of her?
-- Robert Hunt, St. Louis, MO | April 21, 2005
A:You will be pleasantly surprised to learn that the last orphan airlifted out of Vietnam was named a National Merit Scholar in 1988, and went on to a successful career as a brutally-cool bugchecker in the 90s. She currently resides in Seattle with her husband and stepdaughter. How do we know these things? Check out this page of highlights from the life of...Kim Rosenthal Doonesbury.
Q: Who is 'Andrews,' the toady who has popped up in the strip lately. The only Andrews I can find in the guv-mint is Bob Andrews, a Congressman from New Jersey. He's certainly on the toady-ish side, but doesn't seem to wield the power of the guy portrayed in the recent strips. Is this a composite character, or is he meant to be a particular toad?
-- Janet Hartwell | Characters | March 30, 2005
A:Actually the recently-appointed Secretary of Toady Affairs is a recurring character who has built up quite a dossier in the strip -- including his role as the Universal Petroleum exec who hired Duke to parachute into Iran in 1979. Both his likeness and his name (and the petroleum company's name) are tributes to GBT's first editor, the late Jim Andrews, who was co-founder, along with John McMeel, of Universal Press Syndicate. Doonesbury was their first syndicated feature.
Q: Is it true that Duke represents Hunter S. Thompson? How long has he been appearing in the strip?
-- K. T., Baltimore, MD

Wasn't the character Duke based on the writer Hunter S. Thompson? If so, does Thompson's death mean Duke will kill himself too?
-- Paul, NY, NY

Characters | March 14, 2005
A:The late Hunter S. Thompson was indeed the initial inspiration for Doonesbury's Uncle Duke, who FIRST APPEARED IN THE STRIP in this July 1974 series. Their paths diverged as Duke took on a life of his own, and over the decades his ever-evolving career has differed dramatically from that of HST.

These links from the early years sample high and lowpoints of his stints as GOVERNOR, AMBASSADOR , PUBLIC SPEAKER and LOBBYIST.

The Town Hall respectfully raises a hefty tumbler to Hunter S. Thompson, a powerfully innovative and influential journalist and writer whose voice will be missed. Here are links to Tom Wolfe's Wall Street Journal essay on Thompson, which likens him to Mark Twain, a San Francisco Chronicle article which highlights his political acumen, and a piece by Larry Kramer on editing his column.

Q: Although I'm a longtime fan of Doonesbury, I periodically lose track of it. I've been in the South Pacific for a while (don't ask) and now I'm trying to pick up the thread. What the heck happened to B.D.? And more to the point, when did it happen, and how can I read about it?
-- S. B., Walnut Creek, CA | Storyline | February 23, 2005
A:On April 19, 2004 B.D. was on patrol near Fallujah when his humvee was hit by an RPG. Since that day the strip has chronicled his treatment -- in Baghdad, then Landstuhl, Germany, then Walter Reed Medical Center -- and the ups and downs of his ongoing recovery. You can read the initial series here, and more of the storyline in the current Doonesbury collection, Talk to the Hand.

A special volume completely devoted to B.D.'s healing journey will be published at the request of WRAMC, the real-world facility where he has received much of his care and therapy. We'll be happy to announce it on the DTH home page when The Long Road Home: One Step at a Time is published this spring.

Q: I'm surprised the whole gay marriage debate hasn't inspired Mark and Chase to tie the knot. I figure Mark would be all for it, and Chase would hold back.
-- Thomas Moore, Long Beach, CA | Storyline | February 15, 2005
A:They're way ahead of you -- Mark and Chase celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary last summer. Their differences at the time were mostly about venue, as you'll see when you read THE WHOLE NUPTIAL SERIES.
Q: Some years there have been cool Christmas-themed Sunday strips. How about re-running one of those Christmas classics, like the strip where everybody is singing?
-- Charlene T., Carmichael, CA | Storyline | January 07, 2005
A:Here's a jolly old look back at some of the Yuletide strips of yore. Merry Christmas, Charlene! And Happy Holidays to all.