Customer Reviews

Doonesbury Chronicles

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This superb collection from the early-mid 1970's covers all the major events; Vietnam, Richard Nixon, George McGovern, Gerald Ford, Watergate, Mark Spitz, the Sexual Revolution, Feminism, Civil Rights, Crime, Racial Discord, Gas Shortages, etc. Author Gary Treadeau provides excellent political satire here, at times from the main characters (students Mike Doonesbury, Mark Slackemeyer, Zonker Harris, B.D.), and at times when we see words coming out of the White House. We also follow our young collegians as they navigate the joys and frustrations of early adulthood, including girls, studies, future plans, etc. This collection is best enjoyed by those that lived through the times, or at least read up on them. Treadeau made millions chuckle with his genuine political satire. But he was more than just another capable cartoonist. He was creator of an art form, one that not surprisingly has spawned a host of humorous imitators.

In 1975, for the first time in the history of journalism awards, the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning went to a comic strip: Garry Trudeau's nationally syndicated Doonesbury.

"It is not only the best comic strip, but the best satire that's come along in a long time." -- Art Buchwald

Carried today by over 350 North American newspapers, Doonesbury's unique blend of social-political satire, cartoon humor, and comic-strip continuity has won a following both improbably diverse and fanatically devoted. In Washington, where Doonesbury is required reading, requests for original strips have come from White House aides, senators, congressmen, and -- remarkably -- most of the major Watergate conspirators whose maladventures gave the strip grist for some of its most celebrated moments.

"There are only three major vehicles to keep us informed as to what is going on in Washington: the electronic media, the print media, and Doonesbury, not necessarily in that order." -- President Gerald Ford

So loyal has been this following that on occasions when Doonesbury was suddenly notable for its absence from a paper following a satirical thrust that had somehow offended editors' notions of comic strip propriety, readers have always managed to protest it back onto the page.

The Doonesbury Chronicles marks the first hardcover appearance of Michael J. Doonesbury and cohorts, and is their first collection to include Sunday color pages. In all, 572 strips are presented, as selected by Garry Trudeau and encompassing the full Doonesbury canon, from its cozy campus origins at the frazzled end of the sixties through the stumbling first half of the seventies. Conducting us along the way is a motley though always redeemable cast that includes a student radical turned disc jockey, an immaculately dense but nonetheless charismatic quarterback, a nature freak who has nightmares about Mark Spitz, and a runaway housewife who ends up as a Berkeley law student by way of the Walden Commune Day-Care Center. For those hooked on Trudeau, as well as those still somehow deprived, for giving or hoarding, The Doonesbury Chronicles is a rich and Recession-proof treasure of a book.

The early seventies was a time when the American involvement in the war in Southeast Asia was winding down and Watergate was spiraling, not winding upward. Recent events and attitudes in the United States have demonstrated that the collective American memory of that time has largely been lost. The administration of George W. Bush has run roughshod over many areas of civil liberties and the truth in a manner that Dick Nixon could only have dreamed of.
This collection of cartoons from the Doonesbury strip of the early seventies is a journey back to that era and presents the events in a way that only a quality cartoonist can. From these captions, you can see the rapid demise of the Nixon administration, the early days of the Ford presidency and the first stages of the feminist movement where women are applying for positions in graduate professional schools.
If you lack the basic knowledge of the events of that time, these cartoons will not make much sense to you. The humor is there, but without the historical context, it is almost impossible to grasp. I remember those times and I loved the look back through the Doonesbury lens.

I've been a big fan of Doonesbury for at least 35 years but re-reading the strips was somewhat of a disapointment. Kudos to Trudeau for showing that our Emperors have had no clothes but not very funny to read retrospectively.

I think that Doonesbury, along with Calvin & Hobbes, are probably the best comic strips published!