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: As I recall, B.D. was also wounded in the first Gulf War. Why is Trudeau putting him through so much hell? Is he some kind of sadist?
-- Bill E., Alameda, CA | Storyline | July 26, 2004
A:B.D. was wounded in Vietnam, where he was (erroneously) awarded a Purple Heart after cutting himself on a pop-top beer can. He did serve in GWI, but it was his comrade-in-arms Ray Hightower who suffered a leg injury when their Humvee was hit by an artillery shell. Ray didn't lose a limb, but the wound was serious enough that he was evacuated to a hospital ship and eventually sent home. The series covering his brush with amputation began on February 6, 1991.
Q: In regards to your present strip with BD recovering in hospital, what the heck is a physiatrist? I thought on the first day you had just misspelled something, but now fear there is a great joke going over my head.
-- Richard Williamson, London, UK | Storyline | July 08, 2004
A:No joke. GBT has been receiving enthusiastic e-mail from the physiatrist community, happy that B.D.'s relationship with Dr. Nitz has focused attention on their important, awkwardly-named and little-known profession.

We've borrowed the following explanation of the physiatrist's role from the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilition Web site, where you can go to get more information.

What is a Physiatrist?

A physiatrist (fizz ee at' trist) is a physician specializing in physical medicine and rehabilitation. Physiatrists treat a wide range of problems from sore shoulders to spinal cord injuries. They see patients in all age groups and treat problems that touch upon all the major systems in the body. These specialists focus on restoring function to people....

Physiatrists treat acute and chronic pain and musculoskeletal disorders. They may see a person who lifts a heavy object at work and experiences back pain, a basketball player who sprains an ankle and needs rehabilitation to play again, or a knitter who has carpal tunnel syndrome. Physiatrists' patients include people with arthritis, tendonitis, any kind of back pain, and work- or sports-related injuries.

Physiatrists also treat serious disorders of the musculoskeletal system that result in severe functional limitations. They would treat a baby with a birth defect, someone in a bad car accident, or an elderly person with a broken hip. Physiatrists coordinate the long-term rehabilitation process for patients with spinal cord injuries, cancer, stroke or other neurological disorders, brain injuries, amputations, and multiple sclerosis.

Physiatrists practice in rehabilitation centers, hospitals, and in private offices. They often have broad practices, but some concentrate on one area such as pediatrics, sports medicine, geriatric medicine, brain injury, or many other special interests.

Q: In the June 9 strip published on Slate.com, the last panel reads "Tenet can't take all the blame." But, when I picked up my June 9 L.A. Times later that same day, the final panel read "Someone's got to take the blame." What gives? Are there alternative versions of the strip for more or less conservative publications, or do the local publications have some liberty in changing your text? Inquiring minds want to know (or at least I do).
--Ken Luer, LA, CA

Are you aware that NY Newsday is censoring the strip? The name of Tenet was removed from the strips of 6-9-04 and 6-10-04.
-- Larry S., NY, NY

Creating the Strip | June 25, 2004
A:The recent week of strips on the CIA had already been shipped to clients when director George Tenet suddenly resigned. GBT quickly re-wrote dialogue in the Wednesday 6-9-04 and Thursday 6-10-04 strips to reflect this development, and sent the new versions out. Some clients received them in time, but others (especially those not yet receiving the feature electronically) didn?t -- or failed to notice that they had. Hence the disparity between published versions.
Q: I've noticed small drawing errors lately -- like the manila file folder should be blocking more of Mr. Azizah's shirt in panel 1 of 5-23-03. This kind of thing didn't happen before the move to Slate. So is it Microsoft's fault?
-- James I., Madison, WI | June 24, 2004
A:Your attention to detail is impressive, James, and ordinarily if you discovered some inconsistency in the art, we'd be the first to congratulate you. But in that particular panel, Duke is holding the right flap of the folder with his right hand, reading a page that is on the left side of the open folder. In subsequent panels the folder has been closed. As for Microsoft, you've incorrectly made a post hoc, ergo propter hoc inference. But thanks for your vigilance and concern
Q: In the June 9 strip published on Slate.com, the last panel reads "Tenet can't take all the blame." But, when I picked up my June 9 L.A. Times later that same day, the final panel read "Someone's got to take the blame." What gives? Are there alternative versions of the strip for more or less conservative publications, or do the local publications have some liberty in changing your text? Inquiring minds want to know (or at least I do).
--Ken Luer, LA, CA

Are you aware that NY Newsday is censoring the strip? The name of Tenet was removed from the strips of 6-9-04 and 6-10-04.
-- Larry S., NY, NY

June 23, 2004
A:The recent week of strips on the CIA had already been shipped to clients when director George Tenet suddenly resigned. GBT quickly re-wrote dialogue in the Wednesday 6-9-04 and Thursday 6-10-04 strips to reflect this development, and sent the new versions out. Some clients received them in time, but others (especially those not yet receiving the feature electronically) didn?t -- or failed to notice that they had. Hence the disparity between published versions.
Q: What did Ronald Reagan think of cartoonists?
-- P. Debray, Pittsburgh, PA | June 15, 2004
A:Reagan never took any press criticism personally, one of his greatest qualities. He claimed he read every one of the comics published in the Washington Post every day, and on one occasion invited editorial cartoonists to the White House. There he made a playful reference to Doonesbury's "Return to Reagan's Brain" series, saying "Cartoonists occupy a special place in my heart. I hope Garry Trudeau will remember that. It's heart. Not brain, heart." Nancy Reagan, however, was less forgiving. On reports that the president had stopped reading Doonesbury, she commented, "He hasn't stopped, but I have."
Q: What was the inspiration for last Sunday's honor roll strip?
-- Peter D., Baltimore, MD | June 08, 2004
A:The famous Life magazine issue published the week of June 27th, 1969. It was entitled "Faces of the Dead in Vietnam, One Week's Toll", and contained photos of the faces of all 241 servicemen who died in Vietnam during a single week. Recalls Trudeau, "I remember exactly where I was standing in our kitchen when I picked up that issue. It's hard to overstate the impact it had on the country. The numbers had become faces, and the faces were heartbreaking."
Q: How old is B.D. supposed to be? Chronologically, since he was in college in 1970, he should be in his mid-50's now. So how did he wind up "over there" in Iraq? I applaud what you're doing with his storyline wholeheartedly, but confusion reigns for me on this small point. By the way: What's his full name?
-- D.B. Selden, Sarasota, FL | June 03, 2004
A:B.D. (full name: B.D.) suffers from the same chronological incongruities as all inhabitants of the Doonesbury universe. The initial cast spent an inordinately long period of time in college (in Zonker's case, willfully), but in 1983 GBT's sabbatical allowed him to graduate them all into the wider world, a traumatic event depicted on Broadway in Doonesbury: A Musical Comedy. Ever since the return of the strip in 1984 and the post-Walden diaspora, the cast has lived within a chronology more in synch with the one readers experience. All of which is to say your sense of B.D.'s age is as good as anyone else's. If you put aside the dozen years he spent frozen in time at Walden and figure he graduated in 1983 at age 22 or so, he'd be in his mid-forties now. But even if he's in his mid-50's, he is realistically placed in Iraq alongside peers. The list of casualties confirms that Reservists of his age are indeed among the fallen.
Q: Isn't this week's Sunday section out of sequence -- not to mention inappropriate?
-- C. Pulver, Hartford, CT | Storyline | May 26, 2004
A:Yes. Due to boneheaded creator scheduling, this week's Sunday section appears before B.D.'s arrival at Walter Reed Hospital (the facility referred to in the strip), and while he's still at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

As to the unfortunate coincidence of the last panel's artwork (drawn in April) with the recent grisly tragedy in Iraq, Trudeau shares your chagrin: "Most Sunday sections are prepared five to six weeks in advance, and today's strip was unfortunately overtaken by events. To 'hand someone his head' is a common expression, not normally associated with actual violence. I regret the poor timing, and apologize to anyone who was offended by an image that is now clearly inappropriate."

Those newspapers around the country who print their Sunday sections late were offered a substitute strip.

Q: In a column called "Dissent Stinks if It Exploits the Pain of GI's", Bill O'Reilly criticized the current B.D. storyline, accusing Garry Trudeau of "using someone's personal tragedy to advance a political agenda". What's GBT's response to O'Reilly's assertion that he "crossed the line".
-- D.T., Hartford, CT | Storyline | May 10, 2004
A:While it's hardly a secret that Trudeau opposes the war in Iraq, he doesn't view it as a contradiction to value the warrior -- and the sacrifices he's making in our name. In a response to O'Reilly, Trudeau pointed out that he's been doing it for years. During the first Gulf War, Trudeau wrote over 200 consecutive strips about Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and at the request of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Gordon Sullivan, the Pentagon assembled a show of those strips to tour in theater. Shortly thereafter, Trudeau was invited to Kuwait by a commander who had first read Doonesbury in Stars & Stripes in Vietnam and thought the cartoonist should meet his men. Upon arrival, Trudeau received two medals of commendation from different units in Kuwait. Most of the soldiers who followed the strip seemed to appreciate the attention paid to the day-to-day conditions of their lives, whether absurd or inspirational or tragic.