1998, first edition, from Andrews McMeel
G. B. Trudeau
The Bundled Doonesbury: A Pre-Millennial Anthology
Original price $22.95, purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
C+
As I noted in my review of Recycled Doonesbury (1990), the comic declined in quality-- writing, not art (which is arguably better than ever)-- some time after Trudeau's hiatus. This collection has a few nice moments, especially when B.D. and Boopsie buy the old commune, and Zonker comes along. (He's now live-in babysitter to their daughter Sam, rather than to Mike and J.J.'s equally androgynously named daughter Alex.) But I didn't like the further character-assassination of J.J., and the way that Mike's new girlfriend-turned-wife Kim is idealized at her expense. Also, Alex's nicknaming of her dad and Kim got annoying, as did Trudeau's inability to remember her age. (Although very bright, she's in third grade about a year after she's 10.) I sort of liked the opposites-attraction of Mark and his conservative boyfriend Chase.
And Clinton works as a waffle, in the sense that Quayle is plausibly represented as a feather. Amazingly, Duke (now with a son) didn't annoy me as much as usual, but I think it's because there were no longer far better characters he was pushing off the page. Doonesbury in 2013 is apparently on hiatus again, but I've long since stopped caring. As far as I'm concerned, the strip would've been best retired back in '83.
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